Mr. Graham Doyle:

I know the Chairman has just cautioned us in respect of Brexit overall and some elements thereof. I will try to answer Senator Mark Daly's questions at a general level. Brexit has been identified as our number one risk. It has been dealt with across the Department which, again, has that very broad remit to which I referred. As part of our restructuring we took a unit that dealt with a very broad range of European affairs and issues generally and refocused it under a very experienced principal officer who reports to Ms Stapleton. We use that unit to try to manage the risks around Brexit. The early stages of this approach actually go back before the Vote. We use and resource that unit to co-ordinate the Department's work because there are very few aspects of the Department that are not touched upon by Brexit in some shape or form.

There are various structures. I feed into some structures at Secretary General level and Ms Stapleton also feeds into various structures. We have six assistant secretaries on our management board. They head up particular sectoral areas and have very broad remits. There are structures into which they feed. The heads of division also feed into a variety of structures. Within the Department we have overall Brexit co-ordination. As I said, whether one goes up or down the structures, one will see that there is a huge amount of work involved in Brexit. I often say - I said it to the Chairman as we were chatting briefly outside - that, as everyone is aware, there is a huge amount of work going on across Government Departments here, in the UK and in Europe generally. Whenever we get to end of all this, the time that has been spent on this and the focus put on it will, without doubt, have had an opportunity cost but we are trying to avoid the key risks.

The most significant issues the Department has had are on the flying rights of aircraft, the rights of Irish hauliers to access the UK itself and the EU by transiting the UK and the impacts on the Irish tourism industry of negative factors in the UK, which is one of our key markets, particularly given the weakness of sterling. We have also tried to contribute strongly to whole-of-government matters, in particular the requirements of the Departments of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and Health and the Revenue Commissioners to carry out the checks they may need to do at ports and airports once the UK becomes a third country. We are also working with colleagues in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to try to influence positively the application of checks at UK and mainland European ports, particularly French ports, through which Irish hauliers transit, as well as considering alternatives in terms of the routes to European markets.

There is a range of other issues the Department has been addressing and many of them are of some importance. What I have outlined are the most challenging we have dealt with. We have had very substantial progress on aviation issues, including in a potential no-deal scenario, to ensure that connectivity for airlines only controlled in the EU continues. The Commission, with influence from Ireland and other interested member states, has a contingency in place that will ensure aircraft fly. It will be a temporary arrangement, if reciprocated by the UK, but for something that could have been a massive negative, to say the very least, there has been substantial progress on it.

There has also been substantial progress on the issue of licensing matters and the right of hauliers to enter and leave the country under arrangements that, if reciprocated by the UK, will allow vehicles the required market access for the immediate period following a potential no deal. While it will be a temporary nine month arrangement with the European Commission, up to a week before Christmas the scenario was a fallback position on European Conference of Ministers of Transport, ECMT, licensing. I will not bore the committee with the details but it would have meant that 7% of trucks needing to access the UK or go through the UK could be licensed. It is a tremendously difficult issue to deal with and to try to plan for.

These are some of our main issues. I do not want to make my answer too long by going into others. These are probably the top two issues. Brexit overall was identified as the number one risk by the Department and we have applied a huge amount of focus on it.

With regard to border issues, many people in the media are commenting in various ways on borders but they are not issues for the Department and it would be damaging for me or my colleagues to comment on them. I do not want to do that.