Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach will be aware that Ms Christine Lagarde again warned about the impact of Brexit on both Britain and the European Union as a whole. There have been substantial changes in various forecasts on the impact of various scenarios, ranging from a car crash next March to the now clearly dead option of EEA membership for the United Kingdom. When Copenhagen Economics studied the different scenarios, it estimated that national income would be hit by approximately 4.3% in both the customs union and free trade agreement scenarios. In both scenarios under discussion, therefore, Ireland will be hit worse than any other European Union member state. Will the Taoiseach confirm that this analysis continues to form the basis of and inform Government policy? The study also points to the impact of the costs that will ensue from the United Kingdom not being in the Single Market, irrespective of customs and trade policy. This is because compliance rules will place very significant and unavoidable burdens on many companies. Does the Taoiseach accept that this is another reason detaching Single Market access from the backstop is unacceptable?

On trade wars, has the Government written formally to President Trump or otherwise communicated its opposition to and alarm at the increasingly protectionist approach he is taking to trade and the degree to which his actions and policies could cause a very destabilising era of trade protectionism?

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