Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Even if only half that number of vacant houses is available, that is still 3,000 homeless children and 90,000 vacant houses, so it does not matter if the figure is 180,000 or 150,000 or 90,000. Surely to God in a modern Irish republic with the efforts of all Members we could match 3,000 homeless children to 180,000 or 100,000 vacant homes. Surely to God we are capable of doing that and that is what we should be doing. That is what is missing most in the budget.

As regards Brexit, I acknowledge genuine and useful measures such as the agrifood sector loan scheme, funding for our embassies to grow, funding to build digital infrastructure, which is very important, a €300 million SME loan scheme that is to be welcomed, and a modest amount of additional funding for State agencies, Enterprise Ireland and Bord Bia in particular. Although those measures are welcome, are they enough? Are they a commensurate response to what the previous Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny, described as the biggest economic threat to face the country since the foundation of the State? In that context, it is difficult to conclude that the budget is commensurate with the risk posed by Brexit.

The Revenue Commissioners report recently leaked to RTÉ provides a stark analysis of the scale of what Irish businesses will face should the UK follow through on its stated intention to leave both the customs union and the Single Market. The report states that 91,000 businesses in Ireland trade with the UK and will, therefore, be directly affected by Brexit, as will the farming community and the tourist industry. The report says that the cost to those businesses in terms of administration and financial burden due to Brexit cannot be underestimated. It predicts compliance volumes increasing by 800% and WTO tariffs kicking in if there is a disorderly Brexit. That would mean 50% tariffs on Irish beef, half of which is sold to the UK. That would be an existential crisis for our beef sector. The same applies to a greater or lesser degree in other sectors such as agrifood, textiles, electronic equipment and so on. We need to be aware that should the UK take back its territorial fishing waters, as a member of the British Government signalled to me it is considering, that would pose an existential threat to Ireland's fishing industry.

The threat posed by Brexit is such that we cannot just mitigate the risks. We need to work with those 91,000 companies to ensure they are doing everything they can to expand into new markets because that is how people have to start thinking. Does the budget respond sufficiently to the threats posed by Brexit and the opportunities it presents? Unfortunately, it did not, although some measures it provides for are welcome. Unfortunately, that fits with the Government response to date to Brexit. The Government, along with Irish officials and diplomats, deserves great credit for some of the diplomatic wins between Dublin and the European Union in Brussels. The common travel area has strong support, which may not have been the case were it not for the work of the Government.

The issues for Ireland and Northern Ireland are front and centre in the negotiations, and this may not have been the case and is to be recognised.

However, when it comes to the domestic response to Brexit, this Government has not done enough and continues not to do enough. The Government still says Brexit has not happened yet, but Irish businesses all over the country are struggling with weaker sterling and lower sales orders from the UK. The Government says detailed analysis on the impact of a hard Brexit is not available while suppressing that very analysis. It cites Enterprise Ireland's support for 600 companies as evidence that Brexit is being taken seriously, but 91,000 companies trade with the UK. What of the other 90,400? The Government still has not produced detailed sector-by-sector analyses, which has been promised again and again and, as we now know, it has instructed Revenue, customs and other parts of the Civil Service to stand down and stop preparing for Brexit. We must do everything in our power to avoid a hard Brexit, but the current political trajectory is that the UK will leave the customs union and the Single Market. It is reckless not to act on this and to have stood down the Civil Service. The €300 million fund is welcome but, again, in the scale of Brexit this would represent just €3,300 for each of those 91,000 companies. A sum of €300 million sounds like a lot; throw it against Brexit and it turns out it is not so much. We must be more ambitious. We need a national programme of support for these 91,000 companies. This means extensive training in areas such as currency hedging, pricing strategy, supply chain analysis, marketing and product development. It means adaptation funding for working capital and access to affordable loans and investment capital. It means support for market analysis and product development and, critically, it means an inter-agency approach to helping these companies access new markets. If we do this, it will go a long way towards mitigating the risks posed by Brexit and might just start to turn an enormous economic threat into a very significant opportunity.

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