Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We have taken a number of initiatives, one of which was to establish a stakeholders forum. Farming organisations, those involved in the processing sector and the fisheries community are all inside the tent informing our deliberations on this matter. This is an unprecedented challenge. We are not all knowing and that is why we need to engage in the consultation process to give every one of those legitimate stakeholders a voice in order that we are better informed to feed from the forum into the dedicated Brexit unit in the Department, which is scoping out all the scenarios that might emerge, ranging from the worst-case, hard Brexit scenario to what we would prefer, which is as close to the status quo as possible. There are conflicting voices off stage. Some are arguing for a hard Brexit "to teach them a lesson", while others want us to end up as close to thestatus quoas possible. We do not know and, as the Deputy said, I am not a soothsayer in terms of envisaging where this will end up. There will be many more twists and turns and who knows whether they will be in the House of Commons, the British Supreme Court or anywhere else. We are adamant that we will listen to the voice of the industry and be informed regarding what we should do in that context.

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