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

It is certainly one of the sources. It is a fair point.

On the Deputy's question about social welfare changes, I represent a constituency which is beside hers. I have many constituents for whom social welfare payments make a gigantic difference. They are not in work and the payments make a very big difference to their standard of living. Many of them do not have the opportunity to benefit from the changing and improving incomes we have seen in the past two years. I am, therefore, well aware of the importance of social welfare policy to such persons. There will be a social welfare package included in budget 2020, but its scale and composition will be different from that in previous years. I will be working with the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Deputy Regina Doherty, and Fianna Fáil on it. Guiding it will be an appreciation that social welfare payments and parts of the social welfare code make a very big difference to some citizens.

On the issue of skills shortages, I had a meeting with the Construction Industry Federation, CIF, a number of weeks ago and this was the key item we addressed. We discussed apprenticeships and how - even now there are 100,000 fewer people working in the construction sector than a decade ago - we needed more people working in it. We need more people who are living in Ireland to work in the sector. We have a construction sector working group, on which the CIF and other bodies are represented. We are looking at a few ideas to see if we can increase the awareness of apprenticeships and do more to encourage more men and women to take them up.

I turn to the Deputy's question about smuggling.

I am well aware of the level of risk we could face from smuggling and other illegal activity in a no-deal setting.