Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As we all know, the Ireland-Northern Ireland protocol is part of the withdrawal agreement. I know from my interactions with businesses in neighbouring counties north of the Border that they are anxious that the protocol works and that whatever difficulties and issues there are be resolved as soon as possible, without any threats of anybody triggering Article 16. They are anxious that the Government, along with the European Union, continues to work towards resolving whatever outstanding issues there are. Professors Katy Hayward and David Phinnemore of Queens University have done excellent work over the past number of years with regard to Brexit. They recently carried out some surveys on people's attitude to the protocol in Northern Ireland. Two of the major issues of concern were the availability of medicine and the need to reduce the customs paperwork for products travelling from Britain to Northern Ireland. The Taoiseach gave us an assurance some time ago with regard to medicines that those issues would be resolved. All of us want to see that happen. I ask the Taoiseach to give us a progress report on where we are at with the medicines issue, as well as the possibility of having the customs paperwork reduced. It is a particular difficulty for smaller businesses and we want to ensure they will not continue to be impacted adversely by Brexit.

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