Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

She keeps quoting a business survey conducted last November, but it is very clear from a much more recent survey conducted by IBEC that there has been a dramatic increase in the level of preparedness across businesses in Ireland. It is not where it needs to be yet and we are going to help businesses to get there. Very few people in Ireland are putting their heads in the sand on Brexit. People are asking questions. They want help and advice.

5 o’clock

They want to know what the various possible outcomes are. My job is to help people to prepare for the worst and, more importantly, negotiate for the best possible outcome which I still think is achievable. The Deputy is asking me for answers that are not yet available in the context of what the final outcome will look like. We are reliant on negotiating with a partner - the United Kingdom - that does not yet have a settled approach. It has a settled commitment to an outcome on the Border, the common travel area, in protecting the Good Friday Agreement, citizens' rights and so on, but we do not yet have a legally operable text to deliver it. We have texts in some areas where we have made a great deal of progress. They are now coloured green, but there is still a lot of work to be done on the key issue of the Border. That is why I have spent a lot of time in London recently and Michel Barnier and I and many others are continuing to ask the British Government to provide some new thinking in the context of the negotiations.

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