Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister said in his response that he has taken multiple actions but he did not outline any of them. He mentioned the all-Ireland civic dialogue which took place. I attended that myself. Organisations such as Enterprise Ireland, the IDA, InterTradeIreland, the Centre for Cross Border Studies, the Economic and Social Research Institute, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, IBEC, ISME and all the industry representatives point to serious job losses in the first half of next year. The Minister did not give us any concrete comfort here today or any detail of decisions the Government has taken to mitigate that.

Equally, if we look at, for example, the tourism industry how will the millions of people who visit this country from Europe be impacted in terms of border control? What will happen to people transiting from this jurisdiction to the North of Ireland? We hear a lot of rhetoric from the Minister. He said we will be Brexit-proofed and that we will be ready but he did not give any specific, concrete measures. Will the Government put money on the table in terms of enterprise stabilisation funds for industry? Will the Government properly resource the IDA and Enterprise Ireland? The Government has said extra headcount will be provided for those organisations but that has still not followed through. Will the Minister please outline some specifics on the issue?

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