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Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe during a press conference at the Department of Finance in Dublin where he made a statement on how the long-running affair into the tracker mortgage overcharging scandal will be handled in the coming months.
Irish Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe told CNBC Monday that the country’s mandate on the issue of the border with Northern Ireland has not changed, despite growing political uncertainty within the government following a no-confidence motion on Friday against Deputy Prime Minister Frances Fitzgerald.
His government’s position, which he says all Irish political parties agree on, is that no hard border should be established and that a customs union be maintained between the Republic of Ireland and the Northern Irish province, with whom it has crucial trade ties.
“We’re putting this position forward because we believe it is in the national interest of Ireland and it offers the best prospect for continued economic progress and stability on our island,” Donohoe said.
“The reason why we believe it is very very important that we have a customs policy moving forward, that is as close as possible to what we have at the moment, including maybe membership of the customs union or a customs policy equivalent to it, is that it offers the best possible prospects to the continued maintenance of trade on our island,” he continued.
The customs union, a cornerstone of the EU, exempts all EU member states and select outside territories from paying customs duties on all goods traveling within the union. This has saved huge costs for businesses over time and enabled quicker movement of goods.
Ireland now fears that the U.K.’s likely departure from the customs union will both damage the two countries’ 65 billion euro ($77.5 billion) annual trade market, but also reimpose a hard border between itself and the U.K. province of Northern Ireland after two decades of open borders and a delicate peace.
