Senator Mulherin has a point about Airbnb and Booking.com. I know first hand from my own town of Boyle where we do not have a hotel that over the winter and the summer many people stay in farmhouses and houses throughout the country. With all of the new apps and modern technology such as Google Maps, they are finding their way to country lanes. This is actually helping the tourism industry and many of the restaurants in the region and areas that do not have huge tourism infrastructure. While Airbnb is causing some issues in Dublin, it has also helped the tourism industry in Dublin and especially throughout the country where we do not have that infrastructure. The amount of people coming to stay in these areas is absolutely magnificent.

Last night 370 Members of Parliament at Westminster voted to remove the backstop and replace it with we do not know what. It is extremely difficult and embarrassing and looks as though the United Kingdom is now negotiating with itself. This is all about uniting the Conservative Party. It is not about the United Kingdom, the EU and certainly not about the island of Ireland. The backstop in the withdrawal agreement was negotiated for two and half years and an invention of the United Kingdom negotiation team as part of the UK red lines. As David McWilliams quoted recently, it is less "Britannia rules the waves" and more like "Britannia waives the rules". In a rules-based democracy this is very dangerous. I am aware that in the House of Commons and the House of Lords the vast majority of MPs and Lords are decent, honourable people who understand what is happening. It is now time for politicians to stand up and be counted. We are moving into a very difficult and dangerous phase in the next few weeks.