As the Minister knows, the Tory Government in London under Theresa May will trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty today, before we finish this session of the Dáil. The process of Britain leaving the European Union has begun; the clock is now ticking on Brexit. The intention of the British Government is also to drag the North of Ireland out of the European Union, in spite of the democratically expressed will of the people of that part of our island. This will have a profound effect on all sections of our people, the economy, and on agreements, particularly the Good Friday Agreement. As the Minister will also know, the people in the North rejected Brexit last June when they voted in the referendum to remain within the European Union. He may also know that they rejected the politics of English Toryism in the recent Assembly elections. The Conservative Party received just 2,399 votes. Although that was 2,399 votes more than Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil received, the English Tories have no mandate in Ireland.

Brexit is not just an issue for the North. It is a serious threat to the island as a whole, to the shopkeeper in Derry, the small farmer in Louth, the businessperson in Dublin, the fishing communities along our coast, the multinationals, and the college student down in Cork. It is clear, however, that the North of Ireland could and must be assigned special designated status within the European Union. It is a very thoughtful proposition and the only option that provides for the intricacies of the problem and will also ensure that the democratically-expressed wishes of the people are respected. It will allow communities to flourish, businesses to continue to trade freely, workers to cross the Border and, crucially, the rights of EU citizens in the North to be fully upheld.

There can be no hardening of the Border in any way - not physically, fiscally or psychologically. Up to 30,000 workers are cross-Border, while 7% of employees in the North are drawn from the European Economic Area. Our agrifood industry is almost completely integrated across the island. This special designated status is not just the position of Sinn Féin. The Dáil supports it. The majority of the parties returned to the Assembly in the North support it. Crucially, it would allow the whole of the island to remain in the EU together, which surely must be the aim of everyone in this Chamber. I put it to the Minister that the Taoiseach must enter any forthcoming negotiations to defend the democratic mandate of the people in the North to remain within the EU, and that he must act in Ireland's national interest. Will the Government commit to adopting this negotiating position of designated special status within the European Union?

I thank the Deputy. It is important to reflect on what a profoundly significant moment today is. In this Chamber in 1972, when the Dáil and the Government made the decision to hold a referendum to enter what was then the EEC, the then Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, said the following: "I am confident that the decision we take will reflect our people's faith in their capacity to help fashion for themselves and for future generations of Irish men and women a better Ireland in a better Europe." The then Leader of the Opposition, Liam Cosgrave, said that he believed Irish people "generally subscribe to the idea of European unity, to the aims and objectives of bringing the countries of Europe closer together and of trying to eliminate the dissensions and causes of conflict that have bedevilled and affected Europe". My contention is that if those views were relevant then, they are even more so now. The Irish Government's view on the decision of the British Government to leave the European Union is very clear. We believe it is a decision that is bad for the EU and the United Kingdom. However, the British people have made their mind up and this process is now under way.

Within all of that, we are absolutely clear on what is the Irish national interest. This has been enunciated by the Taoiseach on many occasions. At the core of it has been our recognition of the Good Friday Agreement, of no return to the hard Border of the past, and of the deep value of the freedom of movement of people between Ireland and the United Kingdom. It is precisely because of the work the Government has done that we are now seeing those values and aims being recognised, for example, in the recent statements of Prime Minister May on the matter. It is precisely because of this work that we are seeing Michel Barnier, who will be leading the separation negotiations on behalf of the European Union, give particular recognition to the role of the Border and Northern Ireland as an element that he wants to see resolved in the first cluster of negotiations to take place following the triggering of Article 50. The Government is absolutely clear on the need to recognise the unique circumstances of Northern Ireland and the need for the Good Friday Agreement to be structured into any future relationships, and it is acting accordingly.

For the record, when parties in the Dáil were speaking about joining Europe, the position of Sinn Féin at that point was "Ireland free, no EEC."

The Minister was not even born then.

It is welcome to hear Deputy Adams now talk positively about a construct and a political union which he has spent so long criticising.

I remember well the campaign in the 1970s for this State to go into the EEC. I campaigned against it. I think that was the right position. We have changed our position over the years to one of critical engagement. The Minister's Government has been compliant. It is a Government which pays private bankers' debt, created by the crowd now on the Opposition benches, of €65 billion to the EU, and which oversaw the destruction of our fishing industry and so on. We remain critically engaged with the European Union.

The Government's position is for a special designated status for the North, but it should be within the European Union. That is the rub. The Minister avoided my question. Why can we not have the position which is the only solution to this problem? It is meaningless to talk about friction-free borders and no return to the Border of the past. When the land frontier between the European state and the British State is on this island, it will be a hard economic border and that will be the Government's fault because it did not engage properly on the only solution applicable, which is special designated status for the North within the European Union.

It is precisely because of the engagement of the Taoiseach, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and other Cabinet Ministers, that the unique needs in respect of Northern Ireland and the Border are being recognised by the European Union. We have been at the fore of emphasising this point to leaders within the European Union and, obviously, to the British Government. That has been recognised in their communications to date and, as I said to the Deputy, he cannot have it both ways. He has been on his feet for decades criticising everything the European Union stands for and is only lately recognising its values. At the rate he is going, he will be campaigning in favour of water charges at some point. Given that his party already supports them in the North, perhaps that will not be as a big a journey as we think.

The greatest contribution Sinn Féin could make to all of this, which is lamentably absent in our current environment, is the speedy formation of an Executive in Northern Ireland, whereby we would have an Administration in which Sinn Féin could play a leading role in representing the interests of that community. That is why it is so important to see those institutions, in which Deputy Adams can play a unique role, speedily put in place.

May I ask for the Dáil record to be corrected? There are no domestic water charges in the North. They were stopped by Sinn Féin.