Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I was going to confine my remarks specifically to Brexit, which I will get to shortly, but I was very interested to hear the remarks of the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross. I would remind the Minister that the only party that has ever delivered infrastructure development and vision in this country has been Fianna Fáil. Our track record stands for itself. One need only look at the Port Tunnel, the national motorway network, Terminal 2, which the Minister railed against at the time, Luas, Lansdowne Road and Croke Park - I could go on. Having looked at yesterday's speech of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, I note all that was covered with regard to transport related to another review of metro north, another review of Dart extensions and another review of Dart underground, which the Government cancelled and then put back.

Deputy Ross, as Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, has the honour of presiding over an airport which is the fifth busiest in Europe but is the only major airport in Europe that does not have a rail link into the city and beyond. What he has done is decide he will try to set up the IAA as the competent body to decide on the future development of that airport. This is something with which I cannot agree. The Minister is going to allow the IAA to set aside An Bord Pleanála decisions which have been made by what is the independent planning body in this country. The Minister will effectively be telling the IAA, under the statutory instrument or primary legislation that he will bring forward, that he will let it set those decisions aside completely, against the wishes of many of the people who live adjacent to the airport, those same residents the Minister said he would not allow to be bullied by the DAA. He is doing that by his plans to make the IAA the competent authority to oversee this.

If there is one Minister who has done less in this budget than Deputy Ross, that would be the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Charles Flanagan. We were promised a Brexit-proofed budget to set forward the plan for how the Government was going to protect the national interest of the country. In the only statement issued by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade yesterday, there was not one mention of Brexit. The only statement referred to €10 million in additional funding for overseas development aid at a time when there is the migrant crisis which we see on the borders of Europe and the terrible atrocities that are ongoing day after day in the Middle East, specifically in Syria. Despite this, the Minister, Deputy Flanagan, issued a press statement that he is giving an extra €10 million in overseas development aid but he does not even mention Brexit. Given the Department is so intrinsically involved with Brexit, this is very worrying for us and it underscores the Government's abysmal approach so far to Brexit.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade did not seem to get any wins in budget 2017. The only tweet it issued on the budget was that it allows the passport service to maintain service levels during significant increases in demand. This is the very least I would have expected. The Minister has spoken in the past of ensuring that our embassies are fully equipped to deal with Brexit and that they would be resourced to be able to respond to the challenges that Brexit will pose and to spread the message across the world that Ireland is open for business and trade. If there is no additional funding in this area to resource our embassies, how in God's name is this Department or the Government going to deliver on that promise?

While I welcome the increase in funding for the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, and in particular the funding increases to the IDA and Enterprise Ireland and the retention of the 9% VAT rate for the hospitality sector, the budget is far from Brexit-proofed, as the Taoiseach promised. The Government's response to date has been tardy and lacklustre. The budget was an opportunity to show that we are finally dealing head-on with this issue and that we are comprehensively preparing for Brexit. However, all we got was a pitiful response to this event that is going to have profound implications for our country.

The Government is duty-bound to protect the national interest of this country and the hundreds of thousands of Irish citizens in the North of Ireland. I put it to the House that the Minister, Deputy Flanagan, has so far abysmally failed in that area. Furthermore, he is not even sharing any information across the House in this new political arrangement that the Minister, Deputy Ross, talked about. The Government needs to get its act together with regard to Brexit because we are sleepwalking ourselves further into a crisis.

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