Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Last week, the Taoiseach was very confident in his statement that sufficient progress had possibly already been made or could be made by the end of December that would allow us, in the appropriate circumstances, move forward to the next round. I am not saying he made a definitive statement. He indicated a degree of positivity or optimism about the possibility. I am concerned because we are up against an almost dysfunctional British Government that is conducting negotiations while there is an internal war over Brexit among the principle negotiators, the Tories. Have strategic risk assessments been carried out in the Departments of the Taoiseach, Foreign Affairs and Trade or Finance on the implications for the development of Irish tax policy, particularly corporation tax, post-Brexit?

Understandably, the Taoiseach also indicated last week, during his visit to the United States, that he is very excited at the developments in robotics and so on and that we should be at the cutting edge when it comes to the development of driverless vehicles. I believe he was referring to lorries in that regard. The tax and jobs implications of that, coming together with Brexit, are enormous. When Britain has left the EU, we will face a much more concentrated requirement from countries such as France to become much greater collaborators in the context of EU tax processes.

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