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

I have explained many times that some information is available to the Government during a negotiating process that one does not put into the public domain. We make no apologies for this as our job is to get a deal and we got one last week. We did it by trying to negotiate with Michel Barnier and his team, working with the United Kingdom to explore solutions, to find a fair way forward for everybody. In public communications we focused on achieving an outcome, as opposed to contingencies, but that does not mean that we have not been making contingency plans, about which I have talked to the Deputy, as I have to many others. We signed off on an extra 1,077 customs officials and sanitary and phytosanitary, SPS, inspectors at the Departments of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and Health. Dublin Port is preparing and investing in contingency plans linked with Brexit. We have said the primary focus will be on east-west inspection infrastructure at Rosslare Europort, Dublin Port and Dublin Airport. There is a raft of supports and advice available for companies. Some are relatively new and have only been in place for the last couple of months and the uptake is building all the time. The Deputy is right to ask whether we are putting contingency plans in place or thinking about how we would react if Westminster was to vote against a deal. Of course, we are thinking about it. My judgment is that our primary focus should be on trying to talk about the deal that was done last week, which is still live, because we want it to be supported, rather than moving on and focusing on failure.

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