Mr. Kevin Sherry:

I would add that companies' preparedness for Brexit is not uniform and companies are responding to the situation as it is evolving. In the area of agricultural machinery I mentioned, for example, the immediate response in the market for agricultural machinery was that farmers who would be buying agricultural machinery in Great Britain and Northern Ireland was to stop purchasing because they were wondering what would be the situation on the single farm payment and their spend. Rather than it being a currency or pricing issue, their response was to stop purchasing in the short term which created a greater shock than any exchange rate fluctuation. What has happened now is that many Irish companies that are also in competition with suppliers from outside of Ireland have sought price increases and have got them, and the market has started to move again. That situation could change. They are responding and evolving to the situation as it emerges.

Equally, in the case of customers in the UK market, for the majority of Irish companies supplying into that market it is business to business as opposed to business to consumer with the exception of the food sector. Companies in that area are tied in, by and large, to medium to long-term contracts. If one is supplying in to the aerospace sector, for example, there is all the approval process to be gone through and from the customer's point of view, switching suppliers is not necessarily easy. That would be a good example of North-South trade where some Irish companies would be supplying in to Bombardier, never mind in to Great Britain. Every sector is different and we are having to deal with them on a company-by-company and sector-by-sector basis.

As I mentioned earlier, and as referred to by my colleague in InterTradeIreland, in the case of the companies that are hedged, with few exceptions that hedging was in place until the end of the year. They are having to look at their pricing strategy for the next contracts coming up and hedging. It is something that we are staying on top of, and requires us to deal one on one with the companies. One thing we can say is we have a strong relationship with those companies and would be aware of what their positions are and understand where their exposures are. It is then based on responding to them one on one and having a plan in place with each of those companies.