The Article 16 debacle wouldn’t have happened if Phil Hogan was still the EU Trade Commissioner.
That’s according to former Fine Gael Senator Pat O’Neill after the European Commissioner invoked the measure last Friday to try and stop EU vaccines being exported to the UK because of the row with AstraZeneca.
The Irish government quickly pointed out that this was a massive abuse of the Northern Ireland Protocol agreed in the Brexit deal and the decision was immediately reversed.
Kilkenny man Hogan was forced to step aside as Trade Commissioner over breaches of the Covid restrictions last year in the wake of the Golfgate fiasco.
But former party colleague and friend Pat has been telling our Sue Nunn that the whole affair would not have happened in the first place if Phil Hogan was still in Brussels.
Listen back to the full conversation from The Way It Is here: