Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That point was raised during the debate and I did not get to everything, so I am glad to have this opportunity. The Brexit adjustment reserve is part of the overall budgetary proposals for the next seven years and the recovery fund. Progress on it was to some extent held up because of the situation pertaining to Hungary and Poland which put a veto on an own-resources position until that was resolved last week. That issue was resolved, and the European budget process could then move forward, including the Brexit adjustment reserve. Progress was stalled on that, but it is now back in action.

I give full credit to the Taoiseach and his then Belgian counterpart, the former Prime Minister of Belgium, Sophie Wilmès. Interestingly she is only a couple of years older than I am and she was in intensive care for a couple of weeks with Covid-19, which is a salutary lesson as to how devastating that disease is. I am delighted to see her back in action; she is now deputy prime minister. She worked with the Taoiseach during the summer to ensure the Brexit adjustment was in the conclusions. Belgium and to a much greater extent Ireland are the two countries most affected by Brexit.

The Brexit adjustment reserve states that the €5 billion is to be shared out among the member states and sectors most adversely affected by Brexit. Despite the Hungarian and Polish veto situation, which is now over, our officials have been in contact with our counterparts and have discussed it. The Taoiseach and the Minister, Deputy Coveney, have been in touch with Commissioner Hahn, and the Taoiseach has been in touch with the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, expressing our concerns. We need the fund to be flexible and available quickly. We need to be able to react to help the sectors affected in the new year. Those are our concerns and our officials have been working very hard on this.

I had understood the Commission would publish a proposal within days, but that is not the official note I have so I will not state that definitively on the record. I certainly understood it was to happen very quickly once the budget was resolved last week. Much of the background work has been done and we will decide how that gets spent once the allocation key is announced. That is in addition to what the Government has allocated in the budget, which was based on a no-deal scenario and in addition to other funding coming from the European Union in the coming years. Clearly, we are hoping for a trade deal - we make no bones about that - to minimise the impact of Brexit.

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