Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Both of us understand that. We have indicated that across the early years of a disorderly Brexit, if such a Brexit happens, it is possible that the level of unemployment in our economy will increase by two points. We have also said that in such an eventuality, the number of people working in our economy will not change across that period - it will remain at a high level of between 2.1 million and 2.2 million people.

We have population growth within the economy and we have more people coming into the labour market and because of that we can have an unchanged number of people at work in Ireland but also see the unemployment rate go up. That is what we have acknowledged in the summer economic statement. Were that to happen, we would want to ensure then that we have the resources in place to fund our commitments to those citizens. The other thing that will happen in that scenario is because of the effect of a disorderly Brexit taking place, we could expect to see a change in our tax revenues as, for example, consumption and investment change as a result of Brexit happening. We could see two things: we could see our expenditure going up at a time in which our tax revenue begins to change. It is a case of putting all the information in context. Much of the debate has, understandably, been to focus on the deficit in cash terms, were that to happen, because it would be a big figure in cash terms, but that would have to be seen in the context that a deficit of 1.5% of our national income is significantly below the deficits that we dealt with in the very recent past. The figure of 1.5% can be compared to 10.5% or 11% a number of years ago. I believe that we will have the ability to correct that quickly in the post-Brexit period.