Mr. Eddie Burke:

The quote Deputy Munster has from the briefing is to the effect that if the withdrawal agreement comes into force, many of our preparations and contingency measures will fall away. The vast majority of the work we have discussed here today will fall into that category and it will all be for nothing, and that will be good because there will be a withdrawal agreement. A withdrawal agreement will mean that we will buy time and a transition period to the end of 2020 and we will go immediately into negotiations with the UK, at EU level, about what the future relationship will look like. Nearly everything we have discussed here today will fall away if there is a withdrawal agreement. As the Minister said, much of this is a no-deal plan. These are all contingency measures for a no-deal scenario. Much of the work that has gone on, particularly over the past few months, has focused on the types of issues we have discussed today.

We have not released those types of documents because this is still an ongoing piece of work and part of the negotiations. That is even the case for freedom of information requests because they are the deliberations of a public body at the moment.