Lisa Chambers (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

My point was that the Tánaiste told us last December that we had a backstop. He used strong language to tell us that it was in place. He says that language does not lie, but it can be disputed. That is the problem. The Tánaiste also stated that preparations were well advanced, but it was only last weekend that the Taoiseach admitted that the Government was scenario planning for a potential hard Brexit. That is not well advanced - the Government is actually 18 months late in starting those preparations.

It is two years since the UK decided to leave. Responses to a series of parliamentary questions have revealed that the level of uptake by Irish businesses of a range of supports designed to mitigate against Brexit are low. Despite there being in excess of 250,000 enterprises in this country, just over 2,300 have made use of Enterprise Ireland's Brexit SME score card. Of the some 3,000 SMEs that engage with InterTradeIreland, only 281 have applied for its Brexit readiness vouchers, with just 107 successful in their applications. Only 2%, or approximately 100 businesses, of Enterprise Ireland's 5,600 companies have availed of its Be Prepared grant. Our SME preparedness level is worryingly low.

Does the Tánaiste accept that, when he and the Taoiseach oversold the backstop last December and prioritised spinning short-term progress as a major political win, they did so only to serve their own Fine Gael PR agenda?

In doing so, they basically told our business community it did not need to prepare. What will the Tánaiste do to increase business preparedness in this country?

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