Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 27 March 2019

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Estimates for Public Services 2019
Vote 32 - Business, Enterprise and Innovation (Revised)

Photo of Heather HumphreysHeather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Companies that find themselves in this situation should get in touch with Enterprise Ireland, which has a lot of contact with companies exporting to Britain. The Department's focus is on supporting companies through the Brexit process. A lot of work is going into giving them the supports they need. I engage a lot with businesses through IBEC and the retail consultation forum. I meet them and hear what they have to say. If there are any issues I encourage them to come forward and we will deal with them.

The Copenhagen economic study sets out the economic impacts of Brexit on Ireland. This points to lower levels of employment growth and GDP growth but not to job losses. It speaks about depressed growth. It will not be as good as we thought it would be but there will certainly be growth in the economy. I know there are challenges for businesses, which is why we have this wide range of supports to help them. For those companies that have not engaged I encourage them to do so. Generally, the first port of call is the local enterprise office, LEO, which will give good advice. If the LEOs cannot help they will point companies to the right place to go to get the supports they need. Other studies that inform us have been carried out. An ESRI study commissioned by the Department was published last week. The findings of all of these studies are generally the same. They point to us having increased growth but it will be dampened and not as good as if there were no Brexit.

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