Cross-Border Co-operation
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-29
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Simon Harris (FG), Wicklow

I agree with that fully. While we are here talking, quite rightly, about an all-island economy and the better shared future we want to build, I am conscious of the very tense situation in the North tonight. With the Taoiseach, I engaged on that today with the Deputy's party leader and with Michelle O'Neill. We are all thinking tonight of a community in which people are feeling a sense of trauma and retraumatisation. Nobody ever wants to see us brought back to the previous time. It would be odd to have the conversation arising out of these questions without acknowledging that context and backdrop.
The Deputy is right that there is too much conversation in the media of what is nearly a gotcha question as to how much a unified island would cost. There would also be huge benefits from an all-island economy. I welcome her constructive engagement on the discussion we had in this House on the dynamic effects. There would be some upfront costs, of course, but there also would be huge benefits. The idea of having to give one figure for the cost is not helpful. I try to put useful data on the record of the House.
In the here and now, as we prepare to build our shared future and, I hope, a unified island into the future, there are practical issues arising for cross-Border workers. There are people who live on one side of the Border and work on the other. There are people working some days on one side of the Border and some days on the other. We need to fix this issue and get it right. It is a personal priority for me and for my Department, and also for Revenue from a practical point of view. In fairness, I think it is also a priority for the UK Treasury. It is an outcome of the UK-Ireland summit in Cork last year. I am committed to getting it done and we want it done as quickly as possible. The fact that we are also doing some broader work is not to delay that. The double taxation agreement review is also a good thing in terms of east-west processes. I will let the Deputy know as soon as we have progress on that. Both the Chancellor of the Exchequer and I have noted the good progress that is being made.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-29/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-10-05T01:00:59+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-29