Aidan Davitt (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the stark message and warnings the delegates have provided. Some chilling words have been said. Some of our producers and exporters are not aware of the problems they will face down the line. As Mr. McKeever said, if products can be bought more cheaply in England, the guy down the road, the small business, will be really hurt. Many of these people do not see the problem staring them in the face.

We are trying to solve this problem and determine how we can cope with it. We are examining costs and talking about the co-location of businesses, action plans, training and other measures we have heard about today. However, the real elephant in the room is the currency. I am curious to learn from all those who operate at the coalface whether they or their organisations would contemplate staying in the European Union but reverting to a punt, with some possible link to sterling or the euro? I refer to some type of floating punt currency. We may be trying to solve everything else instead of tackling the real problem. This problem will not go away. If we stay within eurozone, which I presume we will be doing in the short term, and if we deal in euro, we will have to contend with the value of sterling going up and down. The UK is the market to which we export most. Perhaps we should go back to basics or to where we were before the euro. Perhaps we should consider a floating currency.