Ms Sinéad McPhillips:

I will try to work through the questions in order. Please come back to me if I miss any of the questions.

The Department recognises that Brexit is a significant threat to our beef sector and to exports. Much of that rests on the decision that the UK will take about the tariffs that are applied. If the UK makes a decision to apply the EU's tariff schedule for beef, the work that the Department has done has estimated that would incur a tariff cost of the order of 70% on our beef exports to the UK. That would be a cost of €780 million if it was a once-off payment and would seriously undermine the competitiveness of our beef in the UK market.

We hope that is not the decision the UK will take. It will take its decision over the next week or so, we understand, as to what specific tariff regime it will apply to exports from the EU. That is largely outside our control. The Minister has, since the referendum, travelled around Europe, sensitising our partners and the European Commission to the threat that Ireland faces from Brexit, particularly in the context of the beef sector. The Minister has had significant engagement with his counterparts in other member states about that threat. He recently met - one of a series of such meetings - Commissioner Hogan, explained the issues to him and sought whatever assistance is available from the EU if that no-deal, hard Brexit, hard-tariff scenario emerges. We very much hope it will not. There has been a detailed and good understanding from Commissioner Hogan and Commission officials from the DG Agriculture and Rural Development of the exposure of the beef sector to those impacts. We recently had a visit from a delegation from the DG Agriculture and Rural Development to discuss in more detail what avenues of EU support might be available in that event.