Ireland losing out in Brexit talks, says Martin

IRELAND is being pushed further back in the Brexit negotiations and may lose out so the financial deal with the UK will not be lost, Micheál Martin has warned.

The Fianna Fáil leader also said the political vacuum in Stormont is ‘grave and causing real damage’.

He told his party’s 1916 commemoration, in Arbour Hill, Dublin, that there ‘is no place for Northern Ireland at the table when its future is being decided in Brexit negotiations’.

Instead of being dealt with as a separate and priority strand, Ireland was attached to negotiations on the overall EU/UK relationship, he said.

‘Reports show a complete lack of progress and a rising belief that there is no breakthrough likely in the coming months. In fact, the situation today is that, less than a year before the UK leaves the European Union, there is no proposal on the table from anyone which can deliver both Brexit and a soft border in Ireland,’ he said.

A rising concern was that Ireland is being pushed later and later in negotiations, leaving a risk that we will face enormous pressure to accept whatever is proposed so the financial settlement with the UK will not be lost.

And he said the only way to address the disruption to North-South relations post-Brexit is for the North to be a special economic zone, which would not affect its constitutional settlement, but would provide a means of addressing the country’s underdevelopment.

He described the political stalemate in the North as ‘a very real threat to the first agreed settlement in the history of this island’. Sinn Féin and the DUP, ‘may talk to each other a lot, but they seem unwilling to show urgency or serious leadership,’ he said.

‘A vacuum has been created which is grave and is causing real damage.’

And he accused the Government of being ‘obsessed with spin over substance’.

However, last night a spokesman for the Tánaiste, Simon Coveney, said: ‘The Government’s position on Brexit has been clear and consistent ever since the UK voted to leave the EU.

‘Negotiations are sensitive and ongoing so it is curious, to say the least, that, at a time when European backing of Ireland from Donald Tusk, Michel Barnier and governments across the EU has been rock solid, Fianna Fáil is trying to create division and fear on Brexit at home for party political gain and a few headlines.’