Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Several immediate problems and challenges arise from the result of the referendum, particularly for exporters, those involved in the agribusiness, tourism and the retail sector and we need a detailed and an immediate response. It is also important not to overstate the panic or not to engage in a panic reaction. There is an opportunity for the Government to involve the Parliament in its reaction. There is a need for a Brexit committee in some shape or form to be established in order that there can be monitoring of, and engagement with, all the implications for Ireland. The local authorities should be involved because every county and local authority will feel some effect. Deputy Fergus O’Dowd spoke about some of the effects in Border counties. Given our close relationship with the United Kingdom and the way that will change, every county will be hit. Local enterprise offices should be tasked with coming up with some analysis of how each county will be hit in order that we can have a targeted response that will deal with the issues that matter.

The scariest part of the result is that those who advocated the United Kingdom should leave do not seem to know what to do. At the press conference last Friday morning the then friends, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Gove, who now seem to have fallen out were like people who did not know what they had just done. Subsequent events suggest they do not. We do not know when they will press the button to engage the process. There are different messages coming from the United Kingdom. It, too, will have to get its act together and lay out a timetable and a process, but we cannot wait for that to happen. Those who export to the United Kingdom and who deal with UK multiples cannot wait for it to happen. Our response needs to be focused and urgent but not panicked. I will advocate for the establishment of a cross-party committee. Every Department should assign responsibility for dealing with the Brexit consequences to someone at assistant secretary level in order that there will be some management and monitoring.

Amidst the panic and recriminations we have to look into our own hearts and ask if there was a referendum on our membership of the European Union in the morning, how it would go. We cannot give a guarantee as we used to. I am on record as saying I firmly believe the European institutions walked away from us in our time of need. The Commission, in its dealings with us and particularly in its dealings with Greece, in the way it rammed home an austerity programme which did not stand for anything in terms of cuts but re-engineered society, was wrong and removed from the principles of the European Union and its establishment, principles that hold today.

We mark today the centenary of the Battle of the Somme. That cannot happen because of the European Union and its achievements in bringing people around the table, but the European Union cannot be allowed to exempt itself from criticism. I was struck all week in watching the response of the Commission and the Parliament to see that they were blaming Britain, politicians and everybody else, but they need to look at themselves, too, particularly in their engagement with this process in the coming weeks and months. They need to reflect on how they have walked away and lost that sense of mission. We, too, blame the European Union for many of our ills. We tend to gold-plate regulations that come from Brussels and blame the Commission. The same happens in the United Kingdom. I was intrigued that the people of Hull which has one of the biggest ports in the United Kingdom, predominantly trading into and out of the European Union voted to leave. The abandonment people felt, about which I heard on radio, was all due to London and lack of investment from there, but they took it out on the European Union. Two national governments have to discover why politicians seem to have left communities behind and why these communities vent their frustration and anger in the manner they did last Thursday.

Let us not dismiss or ignore those who voted to leave. They did so for a reason and we need to understand that, as well as urgently addressing the consequences for this country. We need to involve as many people around the country, on an all-island basis, in our response.

See this speech in context