Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I will deal with each of the Deputy's points. I agree with her opening sentiment that the result last night in the House of Commons is exceptionally disappointing and concerning. As the Deputy stated, the responsibility sits with the British Government in terms of how it will move the issue forward and deal with the issues that developed in the debate. In so doing, the Taoiseach outlined today during Leaders' Questions the needs of the Irish Government and the European Union in terms of how the issue moves forward.

It is correct to say, as I did in my budget day speech, that the central scenario for my economic forecasting was based on there being a deal because when I put together my budgetary arithmetic on the overall model, that looked like the most likely scenario. As I said a moment ago to the Deputy's colleague, Deputy Michael McGrath, I am now conducting a further assessment, particularly in light of the scale of the defeat last night, of any impact that could develop in 2019 in terms of the scale of that impact on our economic forecasts for this year.

On the Deputy's next question on whether I believe it will have an impact on our expenditure plans for this year and any decisions in that area, the answer is "No." Our expenditure plans are laid out and I will provide a further assessment of the spending plans and our economic outlook through the stability programme update. At this point in time, I am clear they will stand and believe it will be the case for 2019. I will affirm that in my stability programme update.

In terms of the sensitivity analysis the PBO referred to, it underpins the figures published in chapter 6 of our report. Perhaps if I am in a position to give any further solid assessment of the impact of a no-deal Brexit in 2019, we can look at how it can be fleshed out further. With regard to how we prepared for different Brexit scenarios, there are many different elements I would refer to. The key one is we are increasing capital investment in the economy by 24%. Normally when a Government tries to make decisions about major increases in capital expenditure, the increases kick in when the point of uncertainty has passed in the economy. I timed the phasing of our capital expenditure to coincide with where we are with Brexit. Also, in budget 2019 there was an allocation of €115 million for different measures across different Departments to build on the investment we had in budget 2018.