Tánaiste: I have to protect Ireland
Coveney says Good Friday Agreement commitments are a shared responsibility
TÁNAISTE Simon Coveney has accused the British government of ‘wiping the slate clean on the Irish issue’, as he said Ireland won’t ‘compromise on a peace process that is fragile right now’.
While Mr Coveney cautioned that he has always been ‘careful not to get involved in the parliamentary business of Westminster’, he went on to say a crash-out Brexit will be the choice of the UK government or parliament and ‘no amount of political grandstanding’ will change that.
His comments came as Junior Minister Michael D’Arcy, in a now deleted tweet, appeared to compare Boris Johnson to Oliver Cromwell, and as Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe said the latest developments in London will not prompt a shift on the backstop either here or in Brussels.
Mr Coveney was speaking at the MEDEF Summer School in Paris yesterday, where he reiterated that the British prime minister’s proposal to abolish the backstop ‘in the absence of agreed alternative arrangements that we can believe will work, is something we cannot and will not support’.
While the Tánaiste said no one has yet come up with plausible alternatives, he did add that Ireland is ‘committed to exploring alternative arrangements’ as ‘we want to find a solution here that can provide stability that everybody is looking for’.
‘A No Deal will not be our choice . . . it will be the choice of the UK government and the British parliament collectively if they choose to allow it or indeed to deliberately trigger it. No amount of political grandstanding, or attempts to shift the blame, can change this fact,’ he continued.
‘In a No-Deal scenario the truth is that there are no easy answers – everyone loses’
When asked about the fact that the prime minister has yet to meet the Taoiseach, and if this was a concern, the Tánaiste said they have spoken twice by phone and that a meeting will happen soon.
He said there is frequent contact between Dublin and London – including conversations with his counterpart Steve Barclay, who the Tánaiste met yesterday in Paris for 45 minutes.
However, Mr Coveney did pointedly say that despite spending ‘many months putting together a withdrawal agreement that was a compromise on both sides’, we now ‘have a British government who seems to be simply wiping the slate clean on the Irish issue, in terms of the commitments that they have made, and we can never sign an agreement with that approach’.
Mr Coveney said we will not ‘do away with something that we know works, for that to be replaced by something vague, that hasn’t been tested and doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, and that is the approach of the current prime minister’.
He also said Britain shares a responsibility with Ireland to protect the Good Friday Agreement, ‘to ensure that an all-island economy continues to function and, most importantly, that the commitments that took two years
‘In No-Deal Brexit, everybody loses’
to negotiate, to deal with the complexity of those issues on the island of Ireland, are actually followed through on’.
‘Unfortunately, what we are hearing again today from the British minister for Brexit is that Britain no longer seems to be committed to that approach, which we know solves the problem at hand,’ he added. ‘And instead wants everybody to move forward and agree on the basis of a promise that we will try to deal with the complexities of these issues at some point in the future. We can’t give up on something that we know works, on the back of a promise without any idea as to how it’s going to work.’
The deputy leader of Fine Gael said ‘it’s hard to tell’ if the latest developments in London would make a No Deal more likely as ‘it’s hard to tell how the British political system will respond to that’.
‘My focus is on protecting the country I come from and protecting the British and Irish relationship,’ he added.
Before speaking at the MEDEF event in Paris alongside Steve Barclay, the Tánaiste had met him in the Irish Embassy in Paris for 45 minutes earlier yesterday.
During this meeting the Tánaiste ‘reiterated that the withdrawal agreement was not up for renegotiation but already allowed for viable and sound alternatives to the backstop to be brought forward’, according to a spokesman.
And Mr Coveney also encouraged Mr Barclay and the UK government ‘to bring any viable alternatives they have, to the EU’.
Back in Dublin, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe, when asked if yesterday’s events in Westminster should prompt Ireland and the EU to move on a backstop, said ‘No’.
‘The reason for that is the backstop and all that has happened there offers the greatest insurance and protection for us here on this island regarding so many other really pressing dangers and risks we all want to avoid,’ he said on RTÉ radio.
‘While we are understandably and correctly interrogating the issue of today, the issue of tomorrow that we all want to avoid happening is instability on our island, is all of the work of the peace process in some way being damaged.’
Fianna Fáil’s Lisa Chambers yesterday said that as a No Deal
appears to be more likely ‘our own domestic preparations must be ramped up by Government’.
Ms Chambers, the party’s Brexit spokeswoman, said yesterday that she would like ‘to know the position of the European Commission in relation to the Government’s proposal to have customs checks away from the border and where it believes these checks should be placed’.
‘What we need from Government now is transparency,’ she added.
Meanwhile, Fine Gael Minister of State Michael D’Arcy appeared to compare Boris Johnson and his moves yesterday to Oliver Cromwell.
In a since deleted tweet, the Wexford TD wrote: ‘Today’s decision is perhaps the most anti-democratic decision since the Protectorate government, which Oliver Cromwell set up, was established.
‘This was a military dictatorship. Cromwell dismissed his Parliament when they disagreed with him.’