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

The Acting Chair made the point that some people were not here. To be fair to them, this is officially the format and was always the format when we sat in Leinster House, but we have not really stuck to that since we came to the convention centre for various reasons. I find no fault in anyone who is not here to ask questions. It could well be a better system, allowing more people to ask questions, but that is up to the Dáil to decide. I am only here to do what I am told to do.

Deputy Richmond made a good point about the communication strategy. Officials are working very hard on planning that. I hope we will have a trade agreement and it may run to 1,000 pages, which will need to be translated into all our languages, including the Irish language. We do not yet have any of the text of that trade agreement, formally or informally. For negotiating purposes, it has not been published. We know the big issues and the ones that are most intractable - the level playing field, fishing and governance. However, there are many other items in that agreement, including security, police and judicial co-operation, which is not discussed but is probably critical to our friends in Britain; we will see. Considerable planning is required, including planning my schedule and that of the officials particularly in the Department of Foreign Affairs and other Departments to ensure that details are made available if an agreement is reached. It will, of course, be published and available, but clearly people will want briefing notes and summaries of its contents.

Most preparations that have been made for, and advice given about Brexit by the Irish Government, apply deal or no deal. I appeared on "The Week in Politics" on Sunday. Customs facilities have been built outside the port at Rosslare and in Dublin Port. They apply, whether a deal is reached or not. Companies will need to comply with extra bureaucratic hassle, deal or no deal. Issues such as chilled prepared meats coming in from Britain will be affected, deal or no deal. There will be many issues like that.

That is all available on the Government website now, and businesses which might be affected need to read that information, if they have not already done so, because a deal will not affect it in any material way. Those businesses also need to contact their British counterparts and ask them if they are also ready, in the context of Irish businesses wanting to continue trading with them. Hopefully, there will be no tariffs, but Irish businesses will need to ask if the paperwork and supply lines of their British counterparts are in order. Just yesterday, somewhat tragically, the makers of Hornby train sets, a well-known British company, whose train sets many of us might have had, stated that it will not be delivering orders outside of Britain before it sees how things are in the middle of January. That is really an indictment of the preparations at a national level in the UK. We must ensure that we are as best prepared as we can be, but all the information is available on the Government website.

Turning to ratification, there are many different views and much speculation regarding this issue. We should probably wait until the agreement is published and we see the proposals that come from the negotiators. Clearly, we are clearly running out of time. It was not envisaged, I think, that the agreement would go to national parliaments, although at some point, undoubtedly, I imagine the Government will seek a motion in the Dáil on any trade agreement, even if that is not required. The European Council will not have to meet physically. Agreeing to any proposals can simply be done by written procedure or videoconference. The European Parliament, however, will have to approve any deal. If an agreement is reached, however, we think it is in everybody's interest that we do whatever is practicably possible in the most flexible manner to ensure there are no gaps or lacunae, and that it is implemented immediately on 1 January.

See this speech in context