Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We are the fifth biggest export market for the UK, not per capitabut in real terms. The UK's trade with Ireland is worth more than its trade with China and Brazil combined, which demonstrates the scale of this. We are a very important trading partner for the UK, even though we are much smaller.

On the food side, we export about €5.5 billion worth of food and drink to the UK and we purchase about €4.5 billion worth from the UK. We need to be a little careful with this narrative of whether we could stop importing and produce more for ourselves. We export over 80% of everything we produce in Ireland, not just food but manufacturing generally. Our whole economy survives on being competitive but also being an exporter to Europe, the UK and other parts of the world. We try to do it at the lowest carbon intensity we can, and I think we have set standards in regard to food, and dairy in particular, in terms of how we do that. However, as to taking an approach that we should stop importing and do more at home, if other countries that import huge volumes of Irish product decided to do that, we would be in a difficult place fairly quickly. On the potato side-----