Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies. Deputy Carthy asked about the Brexit adjustment reserve. I am open to hearing any suggestions he has specifically on that issue. This is obviously a Europe-wide issue. I do not think the energy prices relate directly to Brexit because every country is experiencing increases. Indeed, fertiliser prices are a challenge across the world.

For the Brexit adjustment reserve in particular, we must be able to show specifically the correlation between Brexit and the thing we are intervening in to use the Brexit adjustment reserve for. I would welcome any ideas or suggestions the Deputy has around that. My team is looking at all options for how we can use the Brexit adjustment reserve and if the Deputy would like to feed into that with a specific idea on the issue, I would welcome it. I am keen to find any way we can use the Brexit adjustment reserve to support farmers. As the Deputy knows, given my form, all the schemes I have introduced and all the funding I am bringing to agriculture, that is my core and key objective.

I know Sinn Féin supports the carbon tax. It used not to support it but it does now. However, it does not support the marginal increase that has been proposed. Sinn Féin tries to put a message out there that it is against it-----

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