Dara Murphy (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As the Deputy knows, a delegation from the committee of which he is a member will accompany me to Brussels the week after next to meet many of the key decision makers on Brexit. I absolutely assure the Deputy that we are completely aware of the importance of Brussels in these discussions. We are in daily contact with our permanent representative to the EU, Mr. Declan Kelleher, who requested and was given additional resources to ensure Ireland's key strategic interests with regard to Brexit are addressed. No country in the Union has given the level of attention to the issues pertaining to and arising out of Brexit that Ireland has given. That includes the United Kingdom. Our engagement on the matter commenced in advance of the referendum when a strategic unit was put in place in the Department of the Taoiseach to monitor the campaign and see how we could engage in a limited way, as a separate sovereign nation, and make known the potential implications for our country of the departure of the UK from the Union. We are not happy with the result of the referendum but we respect the decision of the people of the UK. Our engagement has very much been ramped up in many different formats, especially through our permanent representative in Brussels but also here in Dublin.

The issue of Brexit is not on the agenda of Departments; it is at the top of the agenda of most of them. In the case of the critically important Departments, such as the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the most senior personnel are engaged on issues relating to Brexit. The same is the case in the Departments of Finance, Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and Agriculture, Food and the Marine. That work is co-ordinated by the Department of the Taoiseach to ensure a whole-of-government approach. We all in this House have a role to play through our different groupings within the European Parliament to ensure a co-ordinated view of the issues that are important to our country is heeded in a European context. There are two separate challenges facing us in this regard. We have been very successful in addressing the first challenge, which is the need to identify the peace process and the common travel area as unique elements of the Brexit process that pertain only to the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. In that context, we welcomed the commitment given by the British Prime Minister, Mrs. Theresa May, in her statement last week. We have succeeded in making the point that those two issues relate only to our islands and are working to come up with a separate and unique solution to both of them.

The second challenge we are facing relates to trade, which is something that affects all 27 of the member states remaining in the Union. We will, of course, be more affected by Brexit than many other member states, but we are not uniquely affected. That is why we must, on the one hand, build strong alliances with countries broadly in the north west of Europe, albeit on the other side of Britain, while remaining aware that when it comes to trade, other countries are competing with us for trade into the UK market.

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