Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

First, I wish to acknowledge the departure of An Taoiseach, Deputy Kenny, and should have done so earlier. I also wish to acknowledge his work over the years in very difficult times, and I wish him and his family the very best.

I wish to ask the Minister about the possibility of the introduction of a supplementary budget before budget 2018, specifically in the context of what we spoke about earlier, namely, funding for Brexit. In the last budget, the combined funding that went to the IDA, Enterprise Ireland, and Bord Bia was €4.6 million. The Minister and I may disagree on the level of activity but I would hope we would agree that with respect to the total budget for those excellent agencies of €4.6 million that they could do a great deal more good with a higher budget. To put that into context, the first supplementary budget for health last year came in at €500 million and the Dáil voted it through. There was a second supplementary budget for health which, I believe, was approximately €389 million. We can vote through amounts of money on the basis that Brexit is this enormous challenge. Can we expect to see a supplementary budget, specifically for the State agencies tasked with helping businesses and farmers in the country?

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