Dr. Alan Barrett:

I will add to some of Dr. Lawless's points first. Senator Byrne asked about what supports for exporters should be put in place. It brought to mind how, at one of the civic dialogues on Brexit some years ago, I was casually making the point about exporters moving from the UK to continental Europe. Julie Sinnamon of Enterprise Ireland picked me up on it with a very simple, fair point that it is very easy to talk about exporters diverting to other markets instead of going to the UK, but the reality of doing that is much more difficult. One of the early themes that came out of the ESRI research was that it was less about what would happen with Brexit during the transition or in the early days, but about the longer term issues. Dr. Lawless made the point about the extent to which many successful firms' entry routes into exporting was the UK before they went on to further markets. It is a really important point to re-emphasise that that approach to export and export growth is absolutely critical. There is a real concern about dynamics over time and what might be lost. Significant supports are needed but it is not easy.

I do not claim to be an expert on data protection, but a theme that Dr. Lawless raised in her opening remarks is worth restating. Whatever happens and whatever agreements are reached in the next six to nine months, the real challenge will be in the next three to five years. Data protection is one of the areas that evolves all the time. One can imagine that it will be one of the areas where, even if there is agreement initially, there will be pressures continuously around how practice in the area evolves, as case law and so on evolve. We all understand this in Ireland that this is an area we are all trying to get on top of.

On the specific political economy of how we manage our relationships within the EU, I had a conversation with the former Minister, Michael Noonan, some years ago when Brexit was coming along. He made the point that Brexit was not just about Britain leaving but about the impact it would have on the dynamics of the EU after that. We all understood for a long time that when it came to areas such as tax harmonisation and trade liberalisation, two things which are core planks of Irish economic policy and on which, in many ways, the entire edifice is built, if there was a movement away from these within the EU, Ireland could find itself in a difficult position. Again, I would not be an expert on dynamics within the EU but there have been moves to form stronger relationships with some countries, the Hanseatic League is the umbrella name for a grouping that includes Sweden and the Netherlands. There is no doubt that there is a challenge for Irish officials and politicians to ensure they are connecting with like-minded people. However, it is another one of those issues where, with the best will in the world, it will be very challenging. Obviously, apart from Germany and France, Britain was such a big, powerful and significant member of the EU. Having one's interests allied with those of such a significant player was different from having them allied with a more disparate group because it would take more work to get coherent support for a range of the sort of things that are of more interest.

It is an extremely difficult one and on this theme of seeing how things evolve, we will have to monitor that over time.