Ms Patricia King:

I agree with the Deputy that it is extraordinarily difficult to make any prediction in the absence of knowing whether there will be a thin, bare bones agreement. That will be instructive in terms of how all these matters are dealt with. I do not disagree with the projection made by Mr. O'Brien in terms of how catastrophic this could be for certain industries, areas and regions. For instance, 83% of those who work in the food processing and manufacturing sector work outside city centres. There are significant challenges in getting to a place whereby those jobs can quickly or easily be replaced in their current locations such that workers are re-employed. In the event of a no-deal Brexit, the risk is heightened in terms of tariffs, costs outlay and all of that. It would lessen the chances of those companies remaining viable and the workers continuing to be employed. All of those benchmarks become very problematic in the case of a no-deal Brexit yet, three and a half weeks away from the date of Brexit, we do not know whether we will have some sort of an agreement. That really emphasises the difficulty in this area. I think the Deputy is right to say that the significant uncertainty around this issue is one of the key problems we have.