Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Like my party colleague, Deputy O'Brien, I welcome the fact that the Minister will be in Derry before the end of the week to engage with civic society in regard to Brexit. I was in Enniskillen last Monday evening to meet people from Fermanagh and Tyrone who are involved in business and politics. There is a genuine concern in those communities about the urgent need to ensure their interests are advocated very strongly by the Irish Government. Unfortunately, the two parties in the Northern Ireland Executive took opposing views in the referendum. The fact that it took the Prime Minister, Mrs. May, ten weeks to respond to a letter from the First Minister and deputy First Minister regarding concerns they outlined about Brexit would not fill one with confidence about the interest there will be in Northern Ireland when Britain is negotiating. There is a huge onus on the Government and, indeed, on all of us in public life in this country to ensure that the interests of all of the island are strongly advocated in the future talks. I hope the Minister will have a good engagement with civic society. The people are anxious to have that communication and engagement with the Government and with the Oireachtas.

We will adjourn until Thursday, 3 November 2016, when we will hear a presentation from the National Union of Journalists in regard to media freedom and particularly concerns about Turkey.