Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As the Deputy is aware, Brexit is not a passing storm; it is a permanent change in our relationship with the United Kingdom with which the Government, business and citizens will have to deal for some time. On a positive note, it was confirmed earlier this week that Ireland's allocation under the Brexit adjustment reserve is €1.165 billion at current prices. This represents just over 20% of the total reserve, or the largest allocation for any member state.

This week, I spoke at the launch of two ESRI reports on cross-Border trade and services and enhancing the attractiveness of the island of Ireland to high-value foreign direct investment, FDI. These are the first publications from the ESRI joint research programme with the shared island unit of the Department of the Taoiseach. This research provides empirical evidence on the competitive advantage that the protocol provides for Northern Ireland. EU market potential is a driver of location choice for high-value FDI, including manufacturing, which is a sectoral strength for Northern Ireland, having access both to the UK internal market and the EU Single Market. Importantly, the ESRI work estimates the benefits of what we could do in a co-ordinated way on the island to enhance the overall prospects for attracting high-value FDI and the skilled jobs that go with it.

Budget 2021 allocated unprecedented resources to confronting the twin challenges of Covid-19 and Brexit, with €340 million to be spent on Brexit-related measures. Following on from the previous Brexit loan scheme, in October we launched the Brexit impact loan scheme which will make up to €330 million in low-cost lending available to eligible businesses. It is a competitive loan scheme, providing loan terms of up to six years, with loans ranging from €25,000 to €1.5 million and up to €500,000 available unsecured. Since the launch of the scheme, 77 loans have been sanctioned, to the value of €7.6 million. Enterprise Ireland's evolve strategic planning grant offers up to €5,000 to assist exporting companies, while its market discovery fund helps companies to research viable and sustainable new market entry strategies. Enterprise Ireland, EI, is providing post-Brexit advisory support on sourcing, customs and logistics and can also provide strategic consultancy grants and the agile and operational excellence grants to boost innovation and increase competitiveness.

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