Professor Philip Lane:

That is crystal clear. As the Deputy is aware, we have a large multinational sector, which, essentially, has access to a global market. As a result, the firms involved in that sector will not be particularly exposed to the risks of Brexit.

As the Deputy indicated, for so many small firms their only export market is the UK, and within certain segments of agrifood, the dominant export market is the UK. There is no doubt that these risks are quite concentrated, and given, in turn, that those industries are also regionally concentrated, there will be different effects across the country.

The results the ESRI and the Department of Finance delivered are in the ballpark that we also see. There is a fairly strong consensus among the economics profession on what might prevail.

We must also be alert to how this unfolds. One can imagine, if there is no deal, that in the initial days and weeks there will be much disruption and the question is how quickly some of that disruption will be managed through adaptation. There will be a big market response because everyone who looks at the market sees that it is expecting a deal to pass or it is optimistic about what no deal would mean. We would have to be very alert to those short-term effects while recognising that Brexit is essentially a permanent disruption in terms of the challenges facing industries, individual firms and regions. In other words, the Government will have to think about all those factors, including how these regions will adapt to this situation.

We are all waiting to see what happens in Westminster, but it is important at this point to make some points. One is about those economic consequences being severe. However, I would say that because this is something for which we in the financial system have had to make preparations for all eventualities, it is not the case that the financial system will add to those troubles. The financial system will face challenges but because of the legislation that has been put in place, because we have insisted that firms are ready for a no-deal Brexit and because of the comparatively strong balance sheets of firms, it is not the case that one would have the add-on effect of the bad economic news being augmented by risks of instability.