merrion street

Speaking from New York, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade reacted today to the speech made by UK Prime Minister Theresa May in Florence.
“I welcome the additional clarity provided by Theresa May in her speech in Florence this afternoon. The speech is a positive contribution towards making progress on phase one issues – citizens’ rights, the financial settlement and Irish issues. This is needed to enable the UK and the EU to move forward to the important next phase, but it is clear that there are still many outstanding issues and a lot of work is still required before European leaders can make a decision that parallel discussions on the EU’s future relationship with the UK can begin. The key thing now is that today’s comments by Prime Minister May are translated into deliverables across the negotiating table in Brussels.”

Minister Coveney continued:

“Ireland is fully behind the EU’s Chief Negotiator Michel Barnier and the common mandate that he has from the 27 EU Member States. Together with our EU 27 partners and the Commission Task Force, we will now assess the detail provided in the Prime Minister’s speech.

Ultimately Ireland wants: the gains of the peace process protected, including avoiding a hard border; an orderly UK withdrawal; a sufficiently long and non-disruptive transition arrangement; and the closest possible EU-UK future relationship, including in trade, which minimises to the greatest extent possible the impact on the Irish economy.”

Note for Editors
UK Prime Minister Theresa May delivered a speech on Brexit in the Santa Maria Novella church in Florence, Italy on the afternoon of 22 September 2017.