Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy is absolutely right. Nobody knows better than he and I do the links between businesses north and south of the Border. That is the reason I allocated additional funding in budget 2019 to InterTradeIreland, which has planning vouchers worth up to €2,250 of which companies can avail easily to help them to employ somebody to identify and mitigate the risks presented by Brexit. As part of the €110 million Brexit package announcement yesterday, a further €2 million will be allocated to InterTradeIreland because the Deputy and I both know that people losing their jobs north of the Border can mean people losing theirs south of the Border and vice versa. That is the reason we need joined-up thinking and InterTradeIreland has been doing great work. Even though there is no Executive in Northern Ireland - matching funding is normally provided - once again we stepped up to the mark and are providing InterTradeIreland with the additional funding it will need to ensure all support possible will be given to businesses in the Border region because I know that we are very exposed owing to our geographical location close to the Border with Northern Ireland.

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