Gerald Nash (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to know that the Chairman spent some of his hard-earned cash in the locality in recent times. I am sure he got a great welcome and had an enjoyable weekend in north Louth.

Mr. Gaynor is very welcome to this important meeting. Nowhere is the impact of Brexit more pronounced than in our own county of Louth and across the Border counties. We remember very acutely and only too well the days of a hard Border, the security forces lining the Border, the customs service scrutinising cross-Border movements, the difficulties that families, businesses and workers had and we do not want to return to those days. We can now cross the Border with great ease and that is how it should continue to be.

I am pleased that there is formal recognition across the European Union of the importance of ensuring that a hard Border does not become a reality. That is not to say that there is not a lot of work to do to make sure that does not become the case. Dundalk businesses and business people in Dundalk always factored in the currency fluctuations, and had to absorb and be prepared for them on a multi-annual basis, as Mr. Gaynor will confirm. Mr. Gaynor, his colleague Paddy Malone and others have spoken publicly about the fact that one year they are up, the next year they are down because of the currency uncertainties. That is not something that they can ever control or manage. Now, even before the formal examination of this issue at EU level, it is likely that the devaluation of sterling is semi-permanent and possibly permanent. The Department of Finance would suggest that we have probably already lost approximately 0.5% of our gross domestic product, GDP, in the Brexit climate.

How are the members of the Dundalk Chamber of Commerce trying to insulate themselves, businesses and jobs in Dundalk and in north County Louth against that? Many of the areas that were slower to recover from the recession were where enterprises and certain sectors were most exposed. There is a focus in our area on the agribusiness, agrifood and tourism sectors. Great strides have been made recently. I congratulate Mr. Gaynor on the tourism conference yesterday. Many of those areas have been utterly exposed and have been slower to recover because of the isolated location of many Border counties, not necessarily Louth. How does the business community feel the local enterprise office, LEO, network, Enterprise Ireland and InterTradeIreland can help businesses insulate themselves against the problems we know are there in respect of Brexit?

There are things we can control now. We spend a lot of time talking about likely scenarios over the next year, two years or beyond in respect of trade agreements, the Border, the customs union and so on, which will be the subject of negotiations. There are things we can do now to help insulate business. I am exploring the idea of an adjustment fund for businesses that are exposed, an early warning system to be developed with Enterprise Ireland, business and employer organisations and indeed trade unions, to identify not just the sectors at risk but also the employment and enterprises that would be at risk. That may involve Ireland making a very strong case to the European Union for a period to temporarily suspend state aid rules because of the severity of the situation we face. It is much more prudent to protect a job than to create a new one. I am interested in Mr. Gaynor's views on establishing an adjustment fund and whether we should reorganise the rules of the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund, EGF, which would try to Brexit-proof jobs and skills insofar as one ever can. The EGF can be applied to businesses in difficulty, which may be losing a high percentage of their workforce because of trading and related difficulties.

That fund at the moment cannot be applied on a regional basis, to the best of my knowledge, but we never anticipated something like Brexit would happen. The Commission and the Union, in general, need to provide as much support and that may involve the suspension for a period of state aid rules to allow businesses to be independently assessed in terms of the viability and receive State funds to assist them through this difficult process. Does Mr. Gaynor favour it? Would he favour the establishment of an early warning system involving Enterprise Ireland, LEOs, Chambers Ireland, trades unions and other stakeholders to identify the businesses and jobs at risk? How could businesses in the Border counties, and Louth, in particular, be protected in this uncertain time?