Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Fianna Fáil for giving us the opportunity to discuss Brexit and the negative impact it will have, especially on small businesses, farmers and fishermen. Small business people who have come through the recession are already very concerned with the reduction in the value of sterling. It means their income is short by 10% or 12% currently and they are worried that if this continues indefinitely, it will blow them out of existence for all time.

To that end, many of them are concerned by all the talk about Northern Ireland. While all of us, myself included, support a soft Border, they are very concerned that as this goes on, Northern Ireland will benefit as it will have lower costs and goods will be cheaper there, and the reduction in the value of sterling will create a mass exodus over the Border and deprive southern companies of the income they enjoyed heretofore. In that regard, they are asking whether we should be pushing this. While it is fine to support special exemptions for the North of Ireland, we need to look for certain things as well. They are asking is it possible that Northern Ireland should be asked to join the euro so we would have a level paying pitch. I suppose it makes a certain amount of sense. We need to explore that because if the value of sterling stays low for many years, it will ruin all of the southern Ireland and small business and farmers will suffer.

Fishermen are at a crossroads in Kerry and south-west Cork. Something must be done to address the anomalies of the quotas, particularly the mackerel quota. It is not fair how it is meted out, with one side of the country getting 87% of the quota and the rest of the country getting just 13%. That matter needs to be addressed.

We are at a crossroads. IBEC has told us that rural areas are going to suffer. If we can imagine rural areas are going to suffer more than they have already, it is going to be terrible. Many parts of rural Ireland have been decimated.

It is fine up here in Dublin and it is said that urban areas will prosper further. We need to do something to address the imbalance as we see it from our side of the world.

See this speech in context