Ms Nicola Byrne:

We were asked what we thought would be the outcome. Believe it or not, the one thing Ireland has not planned for is success. We are brilliantly positioned. Our politicians are fragmented within the Dáil but yet are united and all the parties understand that success is trade. Someone said to me last week in London that every 1% of the jobs from businesses in the City would create 6,000 jobs. We only need to get 0.2% to provide 1,000 high-end jobs here and that would change the dynamic for SMEs from the bottom up and trade would flourish.

The biggest mistake we are making is that we have not planned for success. We have planned to deal with the internal politics but we did not plan for the European politics. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade should focus on making this a rip-roaring success by having good relationships. Europe does not understand enough where our pain points are and we have an awful lot to lose, but at the end of this we could come out a rip-roaring success if we get the relationships and trade agreements back in place.