John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

How is the Department preparing for Brexit under its various programmes? How is the Minister dealing with the issue and what future planning is taking place?

It has taken up a considerable amount of time and there are three areas in which it is impacting directly on my Department. The first is the mid-term consequences for economic growth in the State and effect this could have on the resources available to me. The Department of Finance has changed its growth forecast for next year by half of one point, but owing to the way the fiscal space is calculated, that will not have an immediate effect next year. We are working with our colleagues in the Department of Finance to see what effect it could have in the coming years in terms of our ability to pay for public services and capital investment.

The second area is the budget in looking at different choices we need to make because of the consequences of Brexit. It is a live topic, particularly for my colleagues in the Departments of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

The third area is our engagement with our colleagues in the Northern Ireland Executive on EU funding programmes. This is very much a live matter, on which the Minister for Finance in Northern Ireland, Máirtín Ó Muilleoir, MP, and I are engaging.

A theme to which we will come back next year, not to mention in the rest of this year, is the short-term consequences for Ireland which will very much depend on the exit arrangements the United Kingdom will look to negotiate. It needs to decide first. We will be in a much better position to answer the committee's questions on the exact consequences for Ireland when we have that information and know what relationship it is anticipating with the single market, the customs union and all such matters. It is only when we are clear on that information that we will be able to give more detailed answers on the effects for Ireland in the long run.