Ms Patricia King:

No. The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine answered and said that he thought that it was correct to ask if there was a plan but that he preferred to do the consultation before making the plan. I am a bit worried about that because I believe that the negotiations are going to start fairly quickly. I have spent most of my life negotiating and I know that one usually has to get oneself ready fairly quickly for going into negotiations of that size.

Another thing that concerns me is that we set out our view at the session about jobs and enterprise in Carrick-on-Shannon, County Leitrim. I attended the second panel and contributed on it. The policy position outlined by the Government representatives was that there are rules in Europe, particularly state aid rules, which would not allow any subventions or otherwise if the effect of Brexit is that people lose their jobs. I said that there surely must be some level of subvention to help companies to transition and to be given a period of time to find diversified markets. The answer was that Europe is based on these rules and that therefore there cannot be anti-competitive subvention. My point on that is that we are in a unique scenario here. We cannot stand by and have thousands of workers and their families lose their livelihoods, and we cannot allow ourselves to be hoisted on the petard of EU rules. We should be clever and come up with something which preserves those rules and allows us to do something else.

I got not sense that people who are going to be in these negotiating rooms would look for this, which worries me. I am sharing here what I have already shared publicly. I try and see these things in simple terms, because there is huge potential to get involved in very long-winded discussions relating to Brexit. The executive of congress made a decision that we become very focussed on what it is we want to protect. We agree with the common travel area and the protection of the Good Friday Agreement. We agree that the Northern Ireland scenario is unique and that there should be no hard Border. We are very clear on that, but we are focussing, in our discussions with anybody who will listen, on the protection of the jobs of our members North and South of the Border.

Deputy Calleary also asked about employment rights, and I will briefly refer to it. There is a strong possibility that when we get into the dogfight regarding trading with our nearest neighbour there will be companies who will try hard to maintain their trade. That is understandable. They want to preserve their business. As time moves on the UK intends to leave the European Convention on Human Rights and has introduced its Great Repeal Bill. It will pick and choose the legislation it maintains in terms of workers' rights and social rights.

If Ireland, and particular companies, are to maintain a trading relationship between the two countries we may have to match what is happening in the UK. If that does not match the terms and conditions we have here then companies will start to push under the heading of competitiveness, which is a word that dogs me every day because it is a code for a lot things, including diminishing terms and conditions of workers. The view then will be that particular companies will only be able to continue in operation if the terms and conditions here match the trading circumstances in the UK. That is what I call the race to the bottom element of employment rights. I have raised this issue in several arenas, including an august select body of the House of Lords, which took place in Buswells Hotel. The employers bodies, of which there are a number, are not opposing what we are saying but they are not saying that it will not happen. Over the last nine months since the Brexit announcement was made, I have heard particular companies in this country say that we will have to match what is happening in the UK. That is scary for workers.