Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The ESRI and the Department of Finance are compiling a report which is going to be issued later in the month of March. Today is 7 March. We are within three weeks of Brexit. It is two and a half years since the vote was taken in the UK on Brexit. We are to accept that the Department of Finance and the ESRI are going to issue a report in March 2019. That frightens us because we have known the implications and challenges of Brexit. The Minister is quite right in what she has said about the regions because there are major challenges, not just in the agrifood industry but in the many companies that export to the UK. The management of many of the companies whom I talk to daily would say that the Government, the ESRI and the Department of Finance do not seem to be up to speed with it or treating it with any urgency. I have to challenge the Minister. Does she accept that March 2019 is not the appropriate time for the ESRI and Department of Finance report to be coming out and that it should have been done months, if not a year, ago?

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