Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In respect of the 25 who are working in the international affairs unit, the Deputy should bear in mind that is 25 working in the Department of the Taoiseach. There are lots of other people -hundreds in fact - working on international affairs, on Brexit and on issues relating to Northern Ireland within the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Additional people in the various agencies - IDA Ireland, Enterprise Ireland, Bord Bia and so on - area also engaged in this work. We do not need to replicate the work they do in the Department of the Taoiseach but we do need to oversee and coordinate it. That is the role of the Department of the Taoiseach and 25 people is an adequate number to do that at this stage.

In respect of Deputy Micheál Martin's reference to the announcement of a breakthrough or breakdown, I do not recall anyone making an announcement of a breakthrough or breakdown in the talks. That is an interpretation or misunderstanding on the Deputy's part. The situation is very fluid and is changing all the time. For that reason, I will not give a running commentary on the negotiations and I will not provide an analysis in respect of them because things change a lot from day to day. I will be in Gothenburg on Friday to meet other Heads of State and Government. I will have an assessment after that which may be different from one I might give now. I do not want to cause confusion or distress for other leaders or Deputies by being obliged to provide different analyses on different days.

As Deputy Ó Caolain knows, the proposal for designated special status has been rejected by the United Kingdom. It has not been sought by Northern Ireland because there is no Executive or Assembly to seek it. If they existed they probably would not seek it. A very unhelpful motion tabled by Sinn Féin MEPs and calling for special status for Northern Ireland was rejected by the European Parliament because, of course, using a term such as "special status" sets off alarm bells for other countries. It speaks to separatism within their own countries and to a view within the European Union that the acquisshould apply and that there should not be exceptions created for other areas. This conversation about and demand for special status - and particularly the use of that term - is detrimental to our national interest. From time to time, we speak about unique or special arrangements. However, those are quite different.

On contingency planning, as I have said before, the kind of contingency planning we are doing is for different scenarios and there are many that could arise and that is the planning we are doing. It does not, however, extend to hiring border guards or training dogs or scoping out sites for border posts. Nor would it extend to designing information technology, IT, systems or customs forms or anything like that because trade is an exclusive competence of the European Union and anything done on that basis would have to be done on a European level not by a member state or domestic government.

On corporation tax, I do not know the details of any analyses carried out by the Department of Finance on these issues but I am sure it does carry them out from time to time. Our position on corporate tax is straightforward. We believe in tax sovereignty. Corporation and income taxes should be set by national parliaments and national taxes should fund national budgets. That could only ever be changed by unanimity in the European Union. There certainly is not unanimous support for any change to that. We do not need to do a lot of analysis in respect of it because our position on that is exactly as it is, namely, that there will be no change.

As for embracing new technologies, I can understand the fears Deputy Burton may have around future technologies, artificial intelligence, robotics and driverless vehicles, but history teaches us that there have always been people and political forces afraid of new technologies. Going back to the agricultural revolution-----

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