Abolishing the century-old practice of changing the clocks twice a year in Ireland will come down to public reaction to the proposals and whether Britain will do the same, Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan has signalled.
Ahead of the the start of “summer time” at 1am on Sunday when clocks should be put forward one hour, Mr Flanagan said EU plans to do away with daylight savings time in the next two years could present problems if it resulted in a time difference on either side of the Border.
“It is important to acknowledge that if the UK were to adopt a different position, this would present particular challenges for the island of Ireland,” he said.
“Any position adopted by Ireland will be informed by this important consideration.”
Government officials are also sifting through more than 16,000 responses to a public survey on the future of the twice-yearly clock change, which was carried out last October and November.
In addition, pollsters were hired to interview a 1,000-strong sample of the population on the plans.
An EU-wide public consultation last year found 84 per cent of Europeans - including a majority of Irish respondents - were overwhelmingly in favour of ending the seasonal time shifts.
The European Parliament voted on Tuesday to scrap the practice from April 2021, two years later than initially proposed.
Ireland was one of several countries which asked for more time to consider the potential impact.
Too early
Speaking in Cork on Saturday the Tánaiste Simon Coveney said it was too early to say what decision would be made here.
“I think it’s too early (to say what will happen in that regard) - we haven’t had a serious discussion on that in Cabinet yet - we had a brief discussions - the one thing that we won’t allow is to have two different times on this island I can assure you of that,” he said.
“The idea that Northern Ireland is going to have a different time to the Republic is not going to happen but we have plenty of time to debate that issue - it’s not an immediate problem for us - the next ten days are going to be all about Brexit and we have to avoid a no deal by using any influence we have,” he added.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has previously told the Dáil that he would not "countenance" the North being in a different time zone to the rest of the island of Ireland.
But internal government emails from the North, released in December under freedom of information, suggest the UK would likely follow Brussels’s lead.
One senior department official in Belfast said his impression from a conference call with London's department of business, energy and industrial strategy "is that officials' advice is likely to be in favour of adopting British Summer Time all year."
But he added it could provoke political difficulties.
Business leaders Ibec are among those who are opposed to any changes to the status quo in Ireland, warning of “acute” disruption to flights and the movement of goods and people across the island of Ireland.
Proponents of abolishing the clock changes say it would have road safety, economic, tourism and health benefits.
Irish “summer time” ends this year on Sunday October 27th, when the clocks will go back an hour.
