Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 16 May 2017

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach

Brexit - Recent Developments and Future Negotiations: Discussion

4:00 pm

Photo of Pearse DohertyPearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It would be remiss of me not to wish the officials from Departments well. I mean that because we need a positive outcome in the negotiations. The points we are putting forward will be published in a further document on Brexit dealing with some of the issues that I am raising. We will send it to the officials.

We wish the officials well, but no matter how good the outcome of the Brexit negotiations, I do not believe that there is not going to be a negative impact on this State. We are all familiar with the impact in terms of World Trade Organization tariffs. We are talking about unemployment levels going up 2%, €20 billion onto the national debt and GDP reduction of between 3% and 4%, depending on whether we take the figures of the Department of Finance, the ESRI or the Central Bank. Even if we do not get the type of hard exit or WTO tariffs, we are also looking at significant impacts in the country, and I do not believe any positive outcomes would offset those. Is the question of exceptional circumstances laid down within the fiscal rules something the officials are willing to look at?

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