Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy is correct. I am from the north-east region and I know there will be a greater impact in the Border region. We recognise that, which is why we have the Northern Ireland protocol and the specific committee to oversee the implementation of the agreement in the years ahead. We are very strong in support of that and of working with our colleagues across Europe and in the UK to implement those protocols and arrangements.

Naturally, as a Department supporting jobs, we are very much focused on trying to distribute the jobs to the regions, which includes the Border region. That is why, when we analyse any of the drawdown of the supports, we can see there is a significant drawdown of supports from the regions. The Deputy mentioned there are over 87,000 companies in the region. In the last couple of weeks, the Tánaiste has written to all of those companies that we can account for in order to ask them to engage with our Department and its agencies, whether that is the local employment offices, Enterprise Ireland or the other agencies that are mentioned, including InterTradeIreland.

We want to help these businesses to survive and thrive, not just through Covid but also as we deal with Brexit and the fallout from that. We have acknowledged from the start that trading will be more difficult because of Brexit and that is why we want to support those companies but we ask them to engage with us. We can see, as the Deputy knows, that a number of companies have yet to engage.

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