Taoiseach admits Anglo-Irish relations strained after Brexit
Taoiseach Micheál Martin said Brexit fundamentally altered the EU-UK relationship. File picture
There are “troubling challenges” in the Anglo-Irish relationship following Brexit and the continued impasse over the Northern Ireland protocol, Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said.
Speaking at a British-Irish Association event in Oxford, Mr Martin also said there needed to be progress on the legacy issues of the Troubles, to allow the families of victims to achieve closure.
On Brexit, Mr Martin gave voice to how strained relations have become between Dublin and London.
“But we must acknowledge also that there are troubling challenges in that relationship, including dealing with the legacy of the past and implementation of the Northern Ireland Protocol. The prime minister and I have also spoken about these issues,” he said.
Mr Martin said Brexit fundamentally altered the EU-UK relationship. At Government level, the UK’s departure from the EU requires us to re-think our relationship and how best to develop and foster it in a post-Brexit context, he said.
Brexit – and the UK decision to leave the Single Market and Customs Union – was a unique and significant challenge for the island of Ireland, he said.
“The protocol, reached after long and painstaking negotiations, is a response to that challenge. It is an intrinsic part of an international agreement. My consistent position has been to get the protocol working as smoothly as possible for people and for business in Northern Ireland. We have been engaging closely with stakeholders in Northern Ireland, and are listening carefully to concerns,” Mr Martin said.
There is a need to proceed on an agreed basis to deal with the painful legacy of the past for victims, families and survivors, he added.
“I believe we can find our way through these issues but solutions must be grounded in partnership – between the two governments, with the Northern Ireland Executive and, in the case of the NI protocol, between the EU and the UK,” the Taoiseach said.
There has never been a sufficiently sustained, stable period for the power-sharing institutions in Belfast, despite the Good Friday Agreement, Mr Martin also said.
He said the North-South Ministerial Council and the East/West institutions of the agreement have failed to work to their full potential.
Addressing delegates, Mr Martin said that as a result, 23 years on, there is a need to be honest and say division and mistrust between communities endures; politics in Northern Ireland remains structured by separate identity more than common interests; and there is much we have to do consolidate the space for tolerance and reconciliation.
That is why his Government has advanced its Shared Island initiative, he said.
He said that as a pivotal part of the agreement, the people definitively resolved how we decide on the constitutional future for the island of Ireland, founded on the principle of consent.
Mr Martin said everyone on the island had the right to make the case for the constitutional future they wish to see for Northern Ireland – whether they are nationalist, unionist, or do not identify with either tradition.
“The great innovation of the Good Friday Agreement is that these provisions and rights on constitutional issues do not stand alone. These are not just warm words, but a real-world recognition of how politics, and people, work,” he said.
