ALL Dublin departments preparing for a hard Brexit, says Coveney
EVERY Government department is studying the potential implications of a hard Brexit, Simon Coveney has said.
However, the Foreign Affairs Minister emphasised that he does not believe such ‘madness’ will come about.
His comments are the first indication that the authorities are now actively planning for a worst-case scenario.
And in a stark reminder of just how devastating a breakdown in the talks between Britain and the EU would be, Mr Coveney pointed out that there were ‘37,000 firms trading with Britain every day of the week, and they need clarity’.
He added: ‘We need to hold firm here, trust in the negotiators, and ensure that we uphold the Irish interest through December.’
His comments came after the Irish Daily Mail highlighted how tens of thousands of jobs were at risk across a range of sectors in the Republic.
The minister said he personally thought it was ‘unlikely’ Britain would end its membership in March 2019 without a deal. He said: ‘I believe it would be very, very bad for Britain, but also very, very bad for Ireland.’ He also said: ‘I believe the EU taskforce will negotiate in a way that is consistent and fair, and I believe it will show some understanding of the British difficulty on a range of issues. I don’t believe the negotiating teams will allow a situation to arise where there is no deal and Britain crashes out of the European Union with no contingency planning in place. I think that would be madness.’
Mr Coveney told the Dáil that his department has special responsibility for Brexit and there is cross-departmental research, analysis and input, including from the State agencies.
Mr Coveney emphasised: ‘An important focus of planning and preparation is deepening the Government’s analysis and understanding of the exact consequences of a range of different possible scenarios – including one in which no withdrawal agreement is concluded. This represents an intensification of the Government’s previous contingency planning. All departments are assessing, in a very concrete way, the immediate legal or practical consequences of a no-deal Brexit in their areas, and what mitigation measures might be possible.
‘This will be necessary for the Government to consider the situation in the round and to discuss whether specific actions are required at that stage.’
The eventual outcome of negotiations would be decisive in determining the shape and effects of Brexit, he said, and Ireland’s permanent representative in Brussels and embassies in all member states were sending in ‘a constant stream of reports describing and analysing concerns’, he said.
Social Democrat Róisín Shortall said the European Commission had called on the UK to ensure no customs differences on the island of Ireland, but UK Brexit Secretary David Davis had taken ‘a very different position’.
She said: ‘We all heard his assertion that Northern Ireland cannot remain in the customs union. These are two absolutely divergent positions. How can they be reconciled? Nobody can see how it can be done.’
Meanwhile, Brexit has already cost ‘several thousand jobs’ in the State, the Dáil heard. Fianna Fáil raised the issue and said Taoiseach Leo Varadkar now appeared to back a British progression to second-stage talks – despite a lack of clarity on border issues after the UK withdrawal.
The party’s Brexit spokesman, Stephen Donnelly, said a tourism company in his native Wicklow had cut its UK visitor forecasts in half for next year ‘and believes that Brexit has already cost several thousand jobs in the industry’.
Mr Donnelly said there had been little progress on the question of the border. ‘It has been agreed by all of us, the Taoiseach, prime minister May and Michel Barnier [the EU negotiator] that there cannot, under any circumstances, be a return to the border of the past, yet the UK government insists that Northern Ireland will leave the single market and the customs union, will not have a unique or special status and will not have equivalence of regulations for all products.’
‘It already cost us thousands of jobs’