Greg Daly
Brexit must not affect freedom of movement on the island of Ireland, Archbishop Eamon Martin has said.
The Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All-Ireland expressed concerns about the threat Britain’s vote to leave the European Union would pose to cross-border movement in Ireland, and said the country’s bishops want guarantees that Brexit will not further divide the island.
“As one Church, we want to have assurances that the possibility to move between the North and the Republic will remain the same as today,” he told the Italian newspaper La Stampa.
Appeal
The archbishop was interviewed against the backdrop of the Northern bishops’ February 22 pre-election appeal to voters in which they called upon politicians to resist temptations to retreat into partisanship as political divisions are deepening and Northern Ireland’s status in the EU is under negotiation.
Expressing concerns that voters might be discouraged from voting because of current political tensions, the bishops had sought to remind the politicians of their duty to work for the common good in a responsible way, Dr Martin said, and had wanted “to warn politicians to be careful not to sacrifice the progress we have made over the past 20 years after the Good Friday Agreement”.
Because the EU’s “principles of peace, reconciliation and harmony have shaped Ireland’s peace process”, Dr Martin said “we are a bit nervous about the impact that the reconstruction of a border wall could have in a peace process that is not over yet”.
Frictionless
Although British Prime Minister Theresa May has said that a post-Brexit border would be “frictionless” and “seamless”, critics have said this would be incompatible with her government’s wish to limit freedom of movement between the UK and EU.
Reiterating how a hard border would divide dioceses such as his own, 40% of which lies in the Republic, Dr Martin said the bishops are particularly troubled by how Brexit would be likely to affect communities in the border counties.
“We are genuinely concerned because we do not want what is known as a hard border; an actual border that would heavily impact border communities,” he said.
