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

In some ways it is stating the obvious, but it needs to be said and factored into the way in which we approach our EU membership in the future, that the EU without the United Kingdom will be a very different EU for Ireland. We are losing a strong partner that has advocated on most briefs for the same things that we have been advocating for. We are losing a powerful partner in many of those arguments. Therefore, Ireland has been embarking for quite some time, because of Brexit, on building new alliances, turning friendships into political partnerships on important briefs in terms of the kind of approach we want to the Single Market, globalisation, climate change, the rule of law, etc. The loss of the UK will not simply be a financial or security one for the European Union. It is something much more fundamental than that, particularly from an Irish perspective, and we need to act to build alliances that can help to compensate for that. That has taken up a big part of my time over the past two years.

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