Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

That is the same thing. I cannot imagine any sovereign government accepting liability without quantification. Having been the man responsible for the money for five years, I could not see myself going into any negotiation and saying that the UK will accept the liability, although we will not tell it how much it is until the end of the process. It would be interesting to hear the Minister's thoughts on that.

I wish to refer specifically to points by which we can prepare ourselves for what might come down the track. Has the issue of state aid rules been addressed? Is there a demand or requirement on the table that we can for a period of two years exempt Brexit-proof investment from State aid rules in order to ensure that communities, regions and industries that are impacted can be protected for a finite period? Would the Minister look at the early warning system that I set out? It involves re-fashioning the globalisation fund to upskill workers that are going to be impacted. As I said, the mid-term review of the European globalisation fund is ongoing at the moment and it is therefore opportune to do so now.

I will make my final point as I am very conscious of the restricted time. We seem to be taking a very negative approach of mitigating and stopping the worst impacts of Brexit. Are we putting forward Ireland's positive vision of a social Europe, a Europe of the people, that our own people can look at positively? We must put forward our vision of a European 27 that emerges from this debacle and at least reconnects with people who are disconnected from the European project that has been so important for our continent over the last number of decades.

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