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

As I have already outlined to the House, our overriding priority currently is to work towards the finalisation of the draft withdrawal agreement and the political declaration on the EU-UK future relationship. However, any Brexit scenario will mean considerable change and impact for Ireland. We are taking forward extensive and detailed Brexit preparations and contingency work across all Government Departments and agencies. As part of prudent preparation for Brexit, steps need to be taken at national level, at EU level and at the level of businesses and citizens. The underlying strength and resilience of our economy is critical in ensuring that Ireland is in the best possible position to respond to the challenges of Brexit. This has been a key factor in developing successive budgets, including the last one.

The Government has already taken a number of key decisions on measures to be put in place for the necessary checks and controls for trade on an east-west basis between Britain and Ireland. The recruitment of an additional 1,077 staff for customs and sanitary and phytosanitary, SPS, controls, in addition to ICT and infrastructure measures at our ports and airports, has been sanctioned and implementation is already under way. Various contingency measures such as the rapid redeployment of customs staff are also under active consideration in the context of a disorderly Brexit scenario.

Businesses and other affected sectors need to respond and prepare themselves and the Government is providing an array of support and information measures to assist them. Specific support measures and schemes are now in place for businesses and across the agrifood sector. To inform our businesses and citizens better, the Getting Ireland Brexit Ready public information campaign was launched in September. Very successful outreach events were held in October and more will follow this month. We are in Limerick on Friday and Letterkenny next Friday.

Of particular relevance to citizens is the work on the Common Travel Area to ensure that the arrangements by which Irish and British citizens can live, work and access public services in each other’s countries will continue into the future regardless of what Brexit scenario unfolds.

In a number of key areas the appropriate response and mitigation will be at an EU level and we are continuing to engage actively with the Commission on areas of priority for Ireland. The Commission has flagged the particular impact of Brexit on Ireland and Irish business in its contingency planning communication last week. Ireland is also working closely with fellow member states to discuss areas of key concern, particularly the issue of facilitating the use of the UK as a landbridge post Brexit.

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