Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate that all of those supports are in place, but what we and businesses need is certainty. No amount of support for LEOs or meetings in Monaghan will help a business which cannot provide certainty for its clients in the United Kingdom or beyond on supply chains. We need urgency to bring the talks to a conclusion and put a deal in place to provide that certainty. I again ask the Minister for his views on Ambassador O'Neill's remarks, in particular, that the British are backsliding on the Northern Ireland backstop and that their position is not consistent with what was agreed to. Is that a shared Government position? What is the Minister's instinct on the timeline? He was involved in the early stages of the Brexit talks and is still involved from a security point of view. We need to show Irish businesses that we understand the pressures they are under, that political drama might sell newspapers and provide breaking news but that certainty is needed for decisions that affect real lives, not in December, January or February but now.

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