Lisa Chambers (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As all members who indicated have spoken, I will ask the witnesses some questions. Over the years, we have listened to various projections of the potential reduction in GDP, depending on the scenario we ended up with. In her opening statement, Dr. Lawless mentioned that even with the trade deal, we are still looking at a 2.6% reduction. Is that still the ESRI's assessment? I know these are early days. We are only seven weeks into the operation of this new trading environment, even though it feels like it has been a lot longer. Is there any positive outlook from that perspective?

How concerned are the witnesses about the Irish economy as it deals with both Brexit and Covid at the same time? Has the ESRI done any research in that area? Dr. Barrett touched upon the Northern Ireland protocol. I was going to ask a question about that. He spoke about the requirement for certainty if the protocol is to provide opportunities for Northern Ireland. He is absolutely right; no business is going to invest in the North on the basis of having access to both markets if the vote may potentially go the other way in four years' time. Do I take it that in order for there to be opportunities for Northern Ireland from having that unique access to both markets, there must be a degree of certainty that this environment will be maintained in the long term?

Many of the projections suggested that the SME sector and low-income households would be worst hit. Do I take it that this is still the case and that they are still suffering more than others? Has the ESRI done any research on consumer behaviour on foot of Brexit? In the run-up to Brexit, there was a lot of discussion about how people were not changing their behaviour too much because they were waiting to see what would happen. Now that it has happened, has there been a change in consumer behaviour? Dr. Lawless spoke about the worst-case scenario and planning on the basis that consumers would continue to purchase the same products. Have we seen the shift we expected? Are people noticing changes in product prices or products not being available? Are they shifting their behaviours?

Dr. Lawless also spoke about long-term impacts from Brexit. Will she elaborate a little on what she has identified? I appreciate the data are not there to assess these impacts properly but what are the long-term impacts on Ireland from Brexit at which she is looking?

I am checking my notes to see if I have covered all of my questions. I would welcome the witnesses' views on what type of a deal we actually got. Was it very hard, a little bit hard or medium-scale? Many different types of deal were discussed. Dr. Lawless put it aptly when she said the deal gave certainty as to tariffs but that was probably about it. How would the witnesses assess the type of deal we got?