Northern Ireland Protocol will not be scrapped, Government insists

A number of Irish MEPs have also signed a letter demanding answers from the EU Commission president about the brief triggering of Article 16 last week. 

Simon Coveney said the  protocol must function in a way that works for everyone. Picture: Daragh Mc Sweeney/Provision

The Government is holding firm that the Northern Ireland Protocol is not going to be scrapped, amid an ongoing row with unionists and the UK.

Despite Northern Ireland's first minister and leader of the DUP, Arlene Foster, saying the protocol "cannot work", and must be replaced, Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney said it was time "to be truthful with everybody — the protocol is not going to be scrapped.”

"There is not going to be very dramatic change," Mr Coveney told the BBC’s Radio Ulster.

“We want the protocol to function in a way that works for everyone, north and south, on the island of Ireland.”

Mr Coveney said the protocol was a result of Brexit and followed two years of negotiation, adding that options were “narrowed significantly” in mitigating the impact of Brexit on the island of Ireland.

"The EU wanted to share a single market and customs union and that was turned down.”

Irish and EU representatives have alluded that flexibilities were possible where trading issues have emerged in the north but Mr Coveney says the problems were a consequence of the UK’s Brexit negotiating stance.

It comes amid growing concern that measures in the withdrawal agreement intended to keep open the land border with the Republic are disrupting trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

A fraught situation was further exacerbated last week when the commission briefly used Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol to close the border to exports of the coronavirus vaccine from the Republic.

Mrs Foster said Mr Coveney "is completely tone deaf to the concerns of unionism".

She said the protocol is “fundamentally flawed” and that extending grace periods on trade represents sticking-plaster solutions.

Physical inspections on goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain, which are required under the protocol, have been suspended amid threats and intimidation of staff.

Police have insisted there is no evidence that loyalist paramilitaries are involved in the campaign, instead blaming disgruntled individuals and small groups.

European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic is due to travel to the UK for talks next week amid the deepening row which continues between London and Brussels.

Meanwhile, a number of Irish MEPs have called for the EU Commission president to answer questions in the European Parliament on the triggering of Article 16 and the vaccine strategy.

"On behalf of those we represent, we have therefore come together to collectively call for transparency and accountability," the letter states.

"Both are crucial, given the gravity of what has occurred to date. We need answers from Ursula von der Leyen. Having taken on a crucial public health role, the commission must make itself accountable, in the same way that national governments are accountable to national legislatures. We need much better communication from the commission, on progress in the vaccine programme and on the decisions the commission is making on behalf of the people of Europe."

The letter was signed by MEPs Clare Daly, Chris MacManus, Mick Wallace, Billy Kelleher, Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan, and Barry Andrews.