Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In the meeting of the Joint Committee on European Union Affairs earlier, we dealt with Mr. Liam Lacey of the Irish Maritime Development Office, IMDO. He seemed very relaxed in respect of Brexit. When asked a question regarding Calais and difficulties with IT systems, however, one thing he said was that there had been some element of communication between the IMDO and the port of Calais. Some of the difficulties indicated in the media in the past two weeks were not foreseen nor was how they will be sorted out. I would like confirmation on that matter, if the Minister of State has any information in that regard.

The other thing Mr. Lacey said was that market forces would sort everything out regarding Brexit preparations. That was in stark contrast to several speakers at the transport committee, especially Mr. Eugene Drennan, who represents the Irish Road Haulage Association, IRHA. He stated straight out that he believed there had been an insufficient number of meetings between the stakeholders. Perhaps there is a necessity at State level to make that happen and to ensure that the ferry companies are talking to the ports companies and hauliers, and that they are all talking to those business sectors which sometimes require just-in-time delivery and other alternatives.

Traffic has been highlighted as a major difficulty which will affect the ports, particularly three or four ferries arriving at the same time. They come in at the same time because businesses want their goods to land at particular times. It was accepted an adjustment was needed, but I am afraid of just leaving it to the market and a disaster occurring on 1 January. I state that in the context of accepting that we do not know what kind of Brexit there is going to be, other than that there is going to be major change. Is there anything we can do to mitigate that situation at this stage and could the State involve itself in doing any of that?

The question I have concerns the multi-annual financial framework, MFF. At one stage, there was talk about the connection with rule of law issues, particularly regarding Poland and Hungary, and I believe further issues should be involved in that regard. I think Angela Merkel said at a COSAC meeting that there was a difficulty in respect of European directives. Is that a matter at which we can look in the future? I ask that because obviously the European Union is like everything else, in that leverage is needed to deal with what is basically political wrongdoing on a major level in respect of something which is utterly unacceptable to the ethos of the European Union.

I welcome what the Minister of State said regarding fisheries. Mentioning France again, there was a fear in recent weeks that the French, and President Macron in particular, were talking about the need for the French to have a great deal of the Brexit adjustment fund. Has there been much discussion in that regard and do we have any clarity on that aspect? In that context, we have always said that no one is going to suffer, for want of a better term, more than us from a bad Brexit.

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