Last December when the joint report of the EU and British Government negotiators was published, the Taoiseach hailed it as a panacea for all of Brexit's ills. He said at the time that it "achieved what we sought to achieve" in avoiding a hard border. He also said it was not only rock solid but "cast iron." He claimed that it was politically bulletproof. His language was such that very many people took him at his word, but we, in Sinn Féin, urged caution at the time. We urged the Taoiseach not to oversell the achievement. Our caution was well placed because shortly after the December announcement the British Government rowed back and it has been rowing back on its commitments ever since. The bottom line and the need to mitigate the effects of Brexit are well known: no hardening of the Border on the island, no undermining of the Good Friday Agreement and no loss of citizens' rights.

The so-called backstop arrangement is supposed to be our guarantee and insurance policy that there will be no hard border on the island and the interests of our citizens will be protected. I am sure the Taoiseach agrees that those protections remain vital. The consequences of Brexit are real. They are a threat to our social and political fabric and economy, North and South. They are real, lasting and enduring threats. Brexit is for keeps.

To combat those real and enduring consequences, we need a solution to match, one that is not time bound or temporary, not couched in ifs, buts or conditions, but is an absolute and permanent guarantee. I thought that was clearly understood by all of us in this House. I thought that was the Taoiseach's position. There cannot be any fudging on that. A temporary or transitory backstop is not a backstop at all. Temporary protections mean no protection. Answers for our country need to be real. Enduring Brexit is not compatible with the Good Friday Agreement and we need a unique, bespoke solution for our island.

Yesterday when the Taoiseach said he was willing to consider proposals for a review clause for the backstop, he shifted position. It is not a matter of nuance, but a substantial and reckless change in position by the Government at this most sensitive time in the negotiation. The Taoiseach's announcement yesterday was a cock-up, plain and simple, and I ask him to clarify the position of his Government and invite him to set aside any notion or proposal of a review clause in what is to be our insurance policy in the face of Brexit.

When it comes to Brexit, we should always remember what we are trying to achieve. First, we are trying to achieve a withdrawal agreement so that there is an orderly departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union. We want there to be a transition period so that businesses and individuals have two years or more to prepare for any permanent changes that might take place. That is very important for our economy and jobs. We want to protect the common travel area, and people know why that is. We want to protect funding such as PEACE and INTERREG, particularly for Northern Ireland and the Border counties. We want to guarantee the rights and freedoms of European citizens living in Northern Ireland after Brexit. When it comes to the backstop, we need one as part of the withdrawal agreement to guarantee that there will never be a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. It may never need to be used, and if it does need to be used, it may well be temporary, but we do need it, and it must apply unless and until a new agreement is in place to supersede it. Therefore, there can be no expiry date and no unilateral exit clause. Were there to be either of those things, the backstop would not be worth the paper it is written on. That is the position of the Government. That has not changed.

A review clause would have to be negotiated. We have yet to see proposals from the UK as to what it would look like, but if we do have a backstop, if it is used, if it does apply, and if it potentially lasts into perpetuity, it may be to our advantage or necessary at various times to have a review. A review is different from an exit clause and we cannot accept an exit clause that would allow the UK to resile unilaterally from the backstop, nor could we accept an expiry date. That has always been the position of the Irish Government.

We want there to be an agreement. Sometimes, to come to an agreement, especially as the point is reached where an agreement might be possible, one needs to be creative, and that means being creative around solutions and language. There would have been no Good Friday Agreement if John Hume, Seamus Mallon, David Trimble and even Gerry Adams did not understand that. There would have been no European treaties if people who negotiated them did not understand that. I know Deputy McDonald was against all of those European treaties before she became in favour of them. Yes, I am open to creative solutions and, yes, I am open to creative language, but I will not resile from the fundamental position that there must be a backstop as part of the withdrawal agreement and that backstop cannot have an expiry date or unilateral exit clause.

The Taoiseach's difficulty is that he has, in fact, resiled from his stated negotiating position.

He has done it at a time that arguably could not be worse. We are at crunch time and truth time. We urged the Taoiseach and the Barnier negotiating team not to blink in their dealings with the Tories in London and to stay the course with the very reasonable bottom line protections that Ireland requires. The Taoiseach says we need an arrangement with no expiry date or unilateral exit clause, yet he countenances a review mechanism. All that serves to do is muddy the waters. I do not know if the Taoiseach has lost his nerve. I hope, for the sake of this country, that he has not. We do not need a review clause. We need a clear enunciation of the protections in legally operable text. That is what we have all agreed on and that is the job of work but yesterday, the Taoiseach potentially torpedoed all of that.

I thank the Deputy.

I urge him, as Head of Government, not to lose his nerve or blink at this stage. How on earth, at such a sensitive time in a negotiation, can the Taoiseach commit himself to a review clause? Reviews, by definition-----

The Deputy's time is up.

-----imply things that are time-bound and transitory. How has the Taoiseach committed himself to that when he now says on the floor of the Dáil that he has seen no wording and does not in fact know what it would amount to?

Quite clearly, I have committed to nothing. I said we are open to considering a review clause but I have set out clearly what that review clause could not contain. It could not contain an expiry date or the unilateral ability of the UK to resile from its commitments with regard to there being no hard border between Northern Ireland and the rest of Ireland. As I said before, to come to an agreement, one sometimes needs to be creative and one has to be open to creative solutions and creative language to get to an agreement. Those people who negotiated the Good Friday Agreement and all the European treaties understand that.

That is not creative; it is dangerous.

One can still achieve all one's objectives in doing so. It is a very good thing that Deputy McDonald is not leading these negotiations. She holds the world record for failing to negotiate a coalition agreement in Northern Ireland, which now stands at more than two years. We can see from her performance here today that she is too extreme, uncompromising and bullying.

Is looking for basic rights extreme?

Deputy McDonald would turn our friends into enemies within months. It is a very good thing that she is not handling these negotiations.