Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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99. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if his departmental officials are working on suggestions on the way to prevent a physical border on the island of Ireland. [43831/17]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Government’s priority of protecting the Good Friday Agreement in all its parts and the gains of the peace process, including avoiding a hard border on this Island, is clear. This priority is fully reflected in the European Commission Task Force’s Guiding Principles paper on Ireland/Northern Ireland of 7 September. It makes clear that it is the UK’s responsibility to propose workable solutions and take the policy decisions required to deliver on the shared objective of avoiding the border. The Government fully supports this paper.

I welcome the UK’s commitment to protecting the Good Friday Agreement, maintaining the Common Travel area and avoiding “any physical infrastructure at the border”. While I acknowledge the sincerity of this commitment, the EU has made it clear that it needs to be backed up with workable solutions that consider fully the complexities presented by the UK’s decision to leave the European Union.

In committing to concrete plans to avoid a hard border, the UK must also take account of and comprehensively address the risks presented by any regulatory divergence from the rules of the EU Internal Market and Customs Union.

The Government remains of the view that any solution to the border issue will, first and foremost, need to be political. Flexible and imaginative solutions will be required to avoid a hard border which not only address the economic challenges but also take account of the societal challenges and how important the current invisible border is for sustaining the peace process and the Good Friday Agreement. This is about ensuring that people’s lives and livelihoods are protected and that communities and businesses in the border region are given every opportunity to develop and prosper.

Planning is ongoing across Government to prepare for all possible scenarios, including in the event of no deal being reached, but we are not at the cliff edge yet. The focus remains on working with our EU partners and the UK in seeking an orderly withdrawal, that protects the peace process, avoids a hard border, maintains the Common Travel Area and secures a transitional arrangement that leads to the closest possible relationship between the EU and the UK. This will be a long and complex process and an outcome is far from determined. The Government remains hopeful that the sufficient progress required can be made in the coming weeks before the next meeting of the European Council on 14-15 December that could enable it to decide to move onto phase 2 and the parallel discussions on a framework for the EU’s future relationship with the UK and on transitional arrangements. This will require hard work, and political will.