Terry Leyden (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Last weekend, I led a delegation of the Joint Committee on European Union Affairs with Senator Gerard Craughwell, our clerk and adviser to the committee to the COSAC, Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs, meeting in Bratislava, Slovakia. The great concern at this meeting was Brexit and the lack of any knowledge of what is proposed by the UK Government when it triggers Article 50 next year. All the implications of Brexit for all European Union member states are immense. However, one realises that for Ireland, this is very serious with a 499 km border with the United Kingdom - not of our making, but of theirs - and trade of €1.2 billion per week. The Slovakian Prime Minister made the point that 70,000 of his people live and work in the United Kingdom.

I regard the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Charles Flanagan, as the lead Minister as far as Brexit is concerned, as the Government has decided not to appoint a separate Minister to deal with it. Will the Leader ask him to come to the House to discuss this issue? We must examine what we can do in the meantime. We must plan and prepare. One area is in passports. There has been a massive increase in Irish passport applications from Northern Ireland, and rightly so. People in the United Kingdom who had Irish parents or grandparents are also applying for Irish passports. I welcome as many as is possible applying.

There is another side to the story, however. I am not advocating anyone to apply for a British passport. However, if one or one's parents were born prior to 1948, when Ireland was not a declared Republic, then one has certain rights.Irish people working in England are worried about their status after Brexit.