Irish Border: Customs Arrangements

I thank the Minister for acknowledging that the Belfast agreement is not a one-dimensional document—that it is concerned not solely with north-south relations, but with east-west relations as well. Given the noises that we have heard from Dublin last night and this morning, will he reflect on the comments made by Shane Ross, the Irish Transport Minister, in the summer, who talked of border checks and customs checks in the Irish Republic until he was told that it was politically inconvenient to talk about that, or even those made by the European Commission, which at the start of September recognised, and spelt out very clearly, that it would require customs checks on the Irish side?