Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome that engagement. It is very important because so many of our companies have sister companies north of the Border. Thankfully, since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, there has been a huge development of business on an all-Ireland basis. We want that to continue.

Have the Department or the relevant agencies carried out studies on the impact of Brexit on a geographical area? I know that one of the universities will be publishing material in August which shows the very adverse impact that Brexit will have on the Cavan-Monaghan area, as opposed to the east coast of this country. If the Department or the agencies have not done such studies, I think it is very important to do so. It would show that we need even more supports in our specific geographic area than those which have been put in place to date because of our dependence on the Northern Ireland economy and the British market. As we all know, many of the international corporations that we are so proud of today started off as one-person operations. The first export market they had from Cavan or Monaghan was to our neighbours north of the Border and then to Britain. It is very important that this market is protected as much as possible. We know of the difficulties with currency fluctuations as well.

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