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

Fiscal alignment between Northern Ireland and Ireland has not yet featured in my engagement with the new Chancellor of the Exchequer. I am well aware of the sensitivity of any decision that I make on carbon tax to petrol stations and local trade in Border counties. It is not that long ago that cross-Border shopping and trade flows were significant issues to our economy and had many impacts, including on tax receipts.

The Deputy's second point related to duty free. When I introduced the Brexit omnibus Bill earlier in the year, I made clear that I would only introduce duty free on a reciprocal basis. If the United Kingdom made a decision to introduce it - it has now indicated that in a no-deal situation it would introduce it - we would then give an indication that we would do the same. One of the reasons for doing that is to ensure that we are treating all third country passengers the same in respect of the shopping facilities available to them.

On the engagement we have had with European Commission about dealing with a no-deal Brexit, the EU has referred to the fund that was made available to deal with the consequences of the change in pricing for farmers in the beef sector and the major difficulties they are facing. I understand the most recent figures indicate an uptick in the drawdown of that fund. I expect that to continue as the level of challenge the Deputy mentioned grows.

On the work the Parliamentary Budget Office has done, the Deputy touched on many vulnerabilities. During the global economic crisis from 2008 up to quite recently, we increased our share of foreign direct investment into the country. While he is correct to say there is always the possibility of a company leaving, which would have serious consequences for employment and tax take, there are two ways of responding. The first is by running budgetary surpluses. We began the slow process of putting in place a budgetary surplus for this year. I hope to grow it next year, assuming we work our way through Brexit. Separately, through projects like the future jobs programme, we will put in place the kinds of programmes we need to create new forms of work that are either higher value within the international sector or are located outside the multinational sector.