Richmond invites UK Brexit politicians to Irish border

At an engagement between the Seanad Brexit Committee and the UK Department for Exiting the European Union, Fine Gael Senator, Neale Richmond, invited UK Brexit politicians to the Irish border to discuss the potential impacts of Brexit. 

Senator Richmond today (Tuesday) met with Suella Fernandez MP, Minister at Department for Exiting the European Union and invited the Minister and her colleague the British Brexit Secretary, David Davis, to visit the Irish border as the Brexit negotiations continue.

“We are all aware that the future of the border is a key element of phase one of the Brexit negotiations and the avoidance of a hard border post Brexit is a shared aim of the British and European negotiation teams.

“It is the clear aim and preference of the European side that a very close trade and customs partnership is the best way to ensuring that there is no return to a hard border, although some in the UK still maintain there are technical solutions to this.

“Given that Minister Fernandez has yet to visit the Irish border and Secretary Davis has not visited the border since 2016, I used our meeting to invite them to visit the border region and see first-hand the difficulties that lie in either imposing technical solutions or returning to a hard border.

“The economic impacts of a hard border on the region would be highly damaging, while the return of border infrastructure poses genuine physical and emotional threats to the Good Friday Agreement.

“In recent months Michel Barnier has visited the region twice as have Manfred Weber, Guy Verhofsdat, the French European Minister and many other European political delegations. 

“It would therefore be opportune for the chief British Brexit negotiator and his colleagues to take some time to visit the region if at least to reassure those living close by that he understands their concerns beyond the pages of various reports.

“Regardless of the final outcome, Brexit will be a bad thing. We are now in the process of damage limitation. This can and must be achieved through a deep future partnership between the EU and the UK as a whole.”

ENDS