Mr. John Paul Feeley:

Brexit obviously is of particular concern to Blacklion, where I live, as well as to the entire Cavan-Belturbet municipal district. In recent years, thankfully, the effect of the Border had declined to a greater extent with regard to people moving across it with ease or doing business across it with relative ease. Admittedly, there were issues regarding the taxation of workers living on one side of the Border versus the other. As a result of the proposed Brexit, a halt has been put to many funding streams to which we as a local authority had been looking from peace and reconciliation funding and all of that.

As for people and their day-to-day lives in these communities, agriculture already has been affected. Many businesses which had plans for development have frozen those plans because they do not know whether their catchment area will be able to access them in a post-Brexit scenario or what will be the implications of the Border for the movement of people, goods and services. Situations have already arisen concerning people who had been planning to buy property on one side of the Border. For instance, my home village of Blacklion is a naturally convenient place for someone who wishes to commute to Enniskillen to work as it is only 20 minutes' away. I already am aware of people who had been thinking of buying property there to live in that village but who have now decided against it because they are concerned there may be issues with them working in Enniskillen in a couple of years' time, depending on what Brexit is doing. As a council, we have had a special meeting to discuss it but the reality is we are discussing an issue about which we are hugely concerned but about which we really have no answers.

All we can do is express our concerns. This issue must be determined at a level far beyond our council and I am uncertain that the implications for communities such as my own and others right along the Border are high on the priority list of the Government in London. It was never a great priority for it previously and certainly will not be a priority for governments across Europe when they deal with the British Government in the coming months and years.