Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We have 100 people in the permanent representation in Brussels. Their single focus now is Brexit and they are meeting officials every day about elements of this. The sections in every Department dealing with Brexit, be they small or large, are focusing on the issue that is really of importance to us.

The Deputy made the point in a different way that the fact there is no Executive in Northern Ireland means its voice is not out there in the way we would like, as has been referred to by the British Prime Minister. We refer to it in the sense of protection and co-guarantorship of the Good Friday Agreement and of no return to a hard border, and we make the case about the intertwining of economies on a daily basis. Some 600 million litres of milk are produced in Northern Ireland and brought down and processed by Aurivo and others, and some of it goes back across the Border again in semi-processed form. There are 30,000 to 40,000 people who cross the Border every day and hundreds of thousands of truck movements every year. These are issues of real concern to us.

That is why I am glad, for starters, that these issues are part of the written priorities from a European point of view. Michel Barnier had a meeting with the Irish Farmers Association yesterday in Brussels to deal with elements of this cross-Border activity and cross-Border trade.

Deputy Micheál Martin, Deputy Mary Lou McDonald and the other leaders of the groups should note we are not hiding anything here. We issue the full up-to-date Brexit report on an as-needs-be basis. The Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Charles Flanagan, the Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Dara Murphy, and every other Minister meet their counterparts. They have done so and will continue to do so. There is a very big agenda here.

Of all the countries, Ireland is the best prepared. Every other country in Europe knows just how assiduously we have prepared for this. The first outcome is our references of our priorities in the draft negotiating document, which I hope will be signed off on 29 April.

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