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IRELAND’S EU COMMISSIONER has said that she has put mechanisms in place to ensure that the European Commission’s triggering of Article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol in a row over vaccines won’t happen again.
Mairead McGuinness, who’s the EU Commissioner for financial services and financial stability, told Philip Boucher-Hayes on RTÉ’s Today with Claire Byrne that if she had been consulted prior to the signal to trigger Article 16, then “it wouldn’t have happened”.
Late last month, the European Commission decided to invoke Article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol – agreed as part of the Brexit deal with the UK – in a row over the supply of vaccines to Europe.
The move blindsided governments in Dublin and London, which could have meant checks between the six and 26 counties. EU officials quickly rescinded the plan the same evening and acknowledged it as a mistake.
It has provoked fury, particularly from unionists in the North who now want the protocol scrapped. Under the protocol, Northern Ireland continues to follow many EU rules regarding trade while still remaining part of the United Kingdom. It means that there are some checks now put in place on goods travelling between the North and Britain.
It is argued that it has effectively created a border between the Northern Ireland and the rest of Britain.
Speaking this morning, McGuinness said that while the concerns of unionists shouldn’t be dismissed, the current regime arose from the British decision to leave the EU.
“Some of the issues that people find difficult to understand, like buying daffodil bulbs from GB and you can’t import them into Northern Ireland,” she said. “I mean if you’re gardener you just want to do your garden. The UK chose a particular form of Brexit [...] so therefore there are rules that now apply. ”
She said that some supermarkets were very well prepared for the change brought by the new system and that the EU is very open to listening to the concerns of businesses.
“Northern Ireland is in a very unique situation,” McGuinness said. “The protocol was put in place to try and solve a difficult problem.”
Turning to the decision to trigger Article 16 from the EU in the context of a row over vaccine supply, the EU commissioner called it a “dreadful mistake”.
She said: “If I had been consulted on this, it wouldn’t have happened. I think what is really important that we acknowledge as a commission the hurt and upset it has caused.
It happened because there was a rush to try to resolve a conflict with AstraZeneca [...] and the normal process was overlooked. I can give you a guarantee it won’t happen again.
We should not dismiss what happened, we should own up. On my watch, if this happens again it would be a horrendous happening.
She added that she had put mechanisms in place to ensure this wouldn’t happen again, including regular discussions with European Commission vice president Maroš Šefčovič.
Šefčovič received a grilling earlier this week from Oireachtas members over the scandal, and reiterated that mistakes were made.
The senior figure overseeing Europe’s implementation of post-Brexit Northern Ireland trade arrangements is also due to meet Belfast business leaders later today.
Šefčovič has expressed willingness to show flexibility but maintained the agreement with London to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland would not be scrapped.
With reporting from the Press Association
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Chemical castration and then a tattoo across their foreheads.
Let them wake up in fear every day for the rest of their pathetic lives. Maybe then they will understand what they are doing to these children who will be unable to trust anyone for the rest of their lives.
Why chemical actual with axe would be better.
This is kind of shite I was referring to
Absolute Sc*m
Chop off their penises.
And ram it up their jacks..
What is it with commentators on this site? You’re all obsessed with cutting off/mutilating male genatalia. Go back to the dark ages
So sorry to bring this up but the current plural of penis is penii. I know we use the other one but penii is a la mode at the mo. So sorry to have raised that, i’ll be headin back to the pole now. Santa
I don’t know who is worse, the pedophiles or the parents pimping out their children. And I don’t give a damn about how poor they are, there is no excuse in the world that could possibly justify that. Pimp themselves out if that’s the case…
Dont mean to defend but playing devils advocate here. Must be really difficult to see your kids starve too. In parts of this world people have to make very tough choices to survive daily. Its the, relativly, rich western paedos that are to blame. No market no internet abuse.
I’d prostitute myself before I’d prostitute my kids. Or indeed, any kids
You would have to be concerned about the red thumbs down people here???
I feel physically sickened by this article.
Vile people.
Great Job Cops
These people should be jailed for 20+ years and only let out after getting a tattoo on their forehead. They have forfitted their right to a normal existance.
public hanging, bury them, dig them up and hang them again
Ah, slight flaw in your plan there. Won’t the neck have decomposed underground to a point where the head is likely to come off on the second suspension?
Puts against wall and riddles with bullets… lowest sc*m of all
I am free to execute ALL paedophiles for free.
The paedo’s are bad enough but to say parents are pimping out their own kids! What kinda sick fu#ks are they? Parents should be jailed for life with it made well known in the prision what their in for as for the paedo’s chop off their hands, castrate them, tattoo it on their foreheads and backs what they are and tag them til the day they die
I fail to understand why chemical castration should’nt be applied as a means of control for people who obvously are mentally unstable and dangerous, or are the human rights brigade not interested in
Chem/cas will not stop abuse….withdrawing their oxygen supply will.
Because if they can’t use their penii they will use any foreign object at hand. Child sexual abuse is more about the power and the infliction of pain than sexual pleasure for the perpetrator. Lock them up and make them live in conditions where they wish for death the remaining days of their lives. Death is too much a reward for them.
Read this folks. Directly from Australian outback
Truly chilling stuff
http://www.reddit.com/r/LetsNotMeet/comments/1t2uwq/the_office_in_the_middle_of_nowhere/
Reads like poorly written fiction.
Live video stream of them being castrated.
Where are the nsa and government.
They have all the information and surely have the ability to shut these down.
Why the will isn’t there is questionable. Spend the extra resources required
Animals that do these things should face the death penalty,there’s no other sentence that could possibly fit this crime!
What’s the point in putting animals to death? What have they done?
Save the foxes first
Child sexual exploitation and trafficking is a very common practice all across the Far East and completely acceptable by the locals and the West can do jack to stop it.
Child sexual exploitation is common in many of the poorer eastern countries, but to say that it’s completely acceptable by the locals is not true, the majority of people in these countries detest pedophilia and they see what’s going on as a total abuse of their poverty. Also, to say that the rest of the world can do jack to stop it is bullshit and the above story proves that, if we had our priorities right we could make a real difference.
Bring back hanging……
Cut off their eyelids and sprinkle salt on their eyeballs; then have a cat lick the salt off……a cat that has rabies. Then squirt lighter fluid on their knackers and set up a mini-barbeque over it where strips of their flesh are cooked and their family members are forced to eat while they watch. Oh, and give them a chinese burn while all this is happening.
Death penalty wouldnt solve anything. America has proven that. Very easy to go for knee jerk reaction. I would be all for really long jail terms plus tatooing. Death penalty just doesnt work as deterrant
Well it will deter the same person from doing it again. As for others, of course not but the DP is about revenge as are most of the posts above.
@Stephen: Show me one executed person that has reoffended…
Tie them to posts pour petrol around there feet and we can all through matches at them.Putting these disgusting evil people in prison for a couple of years with a slap on the hand doesn’t reform them it just makes them more careful not to be caught next time.Its time to dispose of all these pedophiles .
have your say