Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Diversifying our economy in order that over time, it becomes less and less dependent on trade with Britain is an enormous part of our work, not just in the Department and the Government as a whole but also for the trade section of my Department, Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland. If one looks back far enough, Britain was once our only significant trading partner and it now makes up about 17% or 18% of our trade, though that is a misleading figure because it is so important for certain sectors such as the food and drink sector, small manufacturers and many SMEs. While our food sector still exports about 40% of everything we produce to Britain, there was a time when that was 70% or 80%. Much progress has been made in that regard but we need to build on it. As we are part of the eurozone, we need to develop trading links with more eurozone countries. There are huge opportunities in our trade agreement with Canada and more opportunities in America, China and Asia as well. The difficulty is that much of that work has been disrupted in the past few months because of Covid, as IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland offices in Asia were closed and no site visits were happening. Much of that work is now being done online but it is not the same and that has been quite disruptive. The good news is that some of the offices in Asia are reopening this week.

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