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SOPHY RIDGE: Welcome back. Now it seems I’ve read this introduction a few times before but Theresa May is back in Brussels this week as she tries to find a solution to the issue of the Irish backstop. Downing Street had hoped to put a new deal to Parliament this week but now this is looking increasingly unlikely so is there a way through? Joining us now from Cork is Ireland’s Deputy Prime Minister, Simon Coveney. Thank you very much for being with us on the show this morning.

SIMON COVENEY: Thank you, Sophy.

SR: Now this weekend three members of the Cabinet signalled that they would prefer to vote for a delayed Article 50, an extension to Article 50 and a delay to Brexit, if there’s no agreement that is reached. Now of course we know how much a no-deal could impact Ireland so is this news that you welcome?

SIMON COVENEY: Well I think I need to be careful not to get into the politics of Westminster but we do know that the Parliament has already voted against a no-deal in principle at least and so we’ll have to wait and see what happens on Wednesday, whether there is a new amendment that comes forward to try to take no-deal off the table but look, I said this week very strongly that everybody loses in a no-deal situation – Britain loses, Ireland loses, the EU loses. I don't think anybody can make the case sensibly for an unmanaged no-deal Brexit in terms of the impact that that will have on all of our countries. But look, where we want to be in the next few weeks is with a deal, a managed, controlled exit from the European Union for the UK, moving into a transition period which gives everybody the time and space to adjust to the new realities, to put in place what we hope will be the closest possible future relationship between Britain and the EU and of course Britain and Ireland and we’ve been working towards that for three years now. That is why we supported the Withdrawal Agreement at the end of last year and that’s why we supported the Prime Minister in terms of the compromises that the EU had to make and that the UK had to make to get that Withdrawal Agreement agreed between the governments. Of course we are now at a process of ratification both in the European Union and the British Parliament that is proving very difficult for the Prime Minister and she continues those efforts again this week but from an Irish perspective our position is clear. We want a future relationship that is controlled and managed, we want the closest possible relationship with Britain that Britain is willing to negotiate but there are some issues and some flexibilities that Ireland can’t show, particularly after a deal has been done on the Withdrawal Agreement and that is that we can’t undermine the peace process on the island of Ireland, north and south, and we have to ensure that the commitments that have been given by the British government and the Prime Minister to provide guarantees around an absence of physical border infrastructure between the two jurisdictions on the island of Ireland, that those commitments are followed through on so that we don’t see border infrastructure having a kind of corrosive impact on the relationships on the island of Ireland that takes us backwards rather than forwards. I think that has been a very consistent message coming from Ireland over the last three years and indeed very much backed up by the EU and also supported by the British Prime Minister so we have to find a way now of getting that done. The EU has been very clear that we can’t reopen the Withdrawal Agreement for that to be renegotiated or changed and so we are in the space of trying to provide reassurance and clarification for the British Parliament to allow them to ratify this deal and to reassure them that actually this so-called backstop which has had so much debate both in Ireland and Britain and across the EU, doesn’t represent a threat to anybody. In fact it is quite the opposite, it is providing a fall back insurance mechanism in case the negotiations don’t result in a resolution of this border issue. This is a temporary insurance mechanism that can take effect while we put in place a more permanent solution between the UK and British negotiators, sorry between the EU and the British government.

SR: Let’s talk about the backstop shall we because it does seem as if Theresa May has put all her eggs in one basket which is to try and get some kind of movement on the backstop to try to make sure that enough Conservative MPs vote for the deal. I just heard you say there that there is no reopening of the Withdrawal Agreement so what exactly is on the table because clearly if you say that you don’t want a no-deal there is going to have to be some kind of movement on the backstop if Theresa May is going to get this deal passed by her own backbenchers. What’s up for grabs?

SIMON COVENEY: But I think it’s important to understand and for British viewers to understand that this isn’t just about Westminster, this is a deal that has to get through a European parliament as well and …

SR: But it has to get through the Westminster Parliament.

SIMON COVENEY: Yes, yes it does, if Britain wants to get a deal and avoid a no-deal and that’s why we want it to get through Westminster but you can’t ask Ireland to compromise on something as fundamental as a peace process and relationships linked to the Good Friday Agreement in order to get a deal through which is about placating a group within the Conservative party who are insisting on moving the Prime Minister away from her own position. Don’t forget that the backstop is … Just to be clear Sophy, because I think it’s important that people understand this, the backstop was a British government’s construct as it was an EU or an Irish government construct. This is about a shared responsibility for Britain and Ireland as co-guarantors of a peace agreement in Northern Ireland to ensure that we don’t go backwards, that we don’t as an unintended consequence of Brexit, see the re-emergence of physical border infrastructure between two jurisdictions, a border infrastructure that in the past has had awful memories and so we have said for two years now, Ireland has said look, we need to provide a guarantee here to people living in border counties, north and south, on the island of Ireland, that whatever happens in Brexit they are not going to face physical border infrastructure again and the secure infrastructure that would be needed to facilitate that. That surely is not an unreasonable request and so because then of British red lines around leaving the customs union, leaving the single market as well as leaving the European Union, we have to design a way of providing those guarantees and reassurance that is legally sound and the idea now that you would put a time limit on a backstop, in other words if we can’t negotiate a solution on the border to the future relationship and the backstop kicks in on a temporary basis, that we would put a time limit to that backstop but not be able to answer the question what happens after that time limit runs out and what replaces the backstop, then it wouldn’t be a backstop at all. So what we are saying is …

SR: So you are clear then, no time limit on the backstop … how about a new exit mechanism?

SIMON COVENEY: You are doing the job now for lobbyists in the UK, with respect …

SR: I’m just trying to find out where the red lines are.

SIMON COVENEY: So it’s been very clear, the red lines from an EU perspective are very clear – the Withdrawal Agreement is not up for renegotiation, the Withdrawal Agreement wording is not going to change and so the space that we are in here is to try to provide reassurance to a majority of people hopefully in Westminster that the backstop is temporary, that we are going to try to avoid using the backstop at all because it is only an insurance mechanism. Nobody wants to use it – not in Dublin, not in London, not in Brussels – but if it is used because we don’t have other alternative arrangements that can do the job of the backstop then it will be in place for a temporary period of time unless or until we can replace it with alternative arrangements that can do that job and we are open to that. The problem is that we haven’t found any other alternative arrangements. It took two years to agree on – and the British government helped to design this – to agree on the backstop model and so when people talk about alternative arrangements that can work, most of all those solutions have already been tested and they haven’t stood up to scrutiny so what we’re saying is if there are alternative arrangements that work and do the same job, in other words providing guarantees that no physical border infrastructure will be needed between the two jurisdictions, well then they can replace the backstop in time and that is catered for in the Withdrawal Agreement text already where alternative arrangements are referred to. It is catered for in the Future Relationship text already so what we’re saying is that the Withdrawal Agreement legal text is finely balanced, it’s a series of compromises from the EU as well as the UK and if you start opening that now, other EU countries will start to look for changes in wording to suit them as well and so the way to do this is to change the wording of the Future Relationship declaration that will help to provide more clarity and reassurance to Westminster and, if necessary, to build on the clarification and reassurance that people like President Tusk and President Juncker and Michel Barnier have already offered, that accepts that we need to try to do more. So we want to try to help the Prime Minister and indeed the British Parliament to find a majority to vote for and ratify the Withdrawal Agreement.

SR: Okay …

SIMON COVENEY: But please don’t ask Ireland to undermine something so fundamental as a peace process that we should all be protecting.

SR: Okay, Simon Coveney, thank you very much for your thoughts this morning.

SIMON COVENEY: Thank you, Sophy.