Tom Neville (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On the previous occasion, I was speaking about Asia and concentrating on the Asian market in light of the fact that there are 4.5 billion people living there. Sixty percent of the world's population live in the region. There is a rising middle class with rising incomes and, therefore, a rising market. We must bear in mind that the United Kingdom is targeting Asia also, using a Singaporean model. I have seen this from some of the presentations. We could piggyback on this and work in conjunction with the United Kingdom with complementary industries going into Asia. We could use the UK network and its friends in Asia, such as Singapore, and obviously Oceania.

We want to maintain the Single Market, free trade and the common travel area. The Dublin-London route is the busiest international route in Europe. We need to maintain that. We have 23,000 to 30,000 cross-Border workers. That has a huge impact on Northern Ireland. According to estimates, there are 40,000 legal Acts and 15,000 court verdicts in the EU that are binding on EU citizens that must be dealt with in the context of Brexit. Therefore, it is going to be a long process. We need to attract the businesses that will pull out of the United Kingdom to Ireland, not only to Dublin but also to towns and cities - including mine, Limerick - throughout the regions. It is in the regions that we need to start working a lot more on our infrastructure. A Cork-Limerick motorway is required to generate 300,000 jobs in the area as a counterbalance.

I welcome the Government's movement on housing - the €5.5 billion over the next four years - and also the new movement on broadband, which involves getting the 300,000 houses connected as soon as possible. The workforce is needed, including in rural areas, because the latter will have the most impact in regard to Brexit given the food exports.

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