Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Again, that is an important point. Every country is affected in different ways by the changes that have happened. However, there is a particular uniqueness to what it could mean due to the vital arrangements and agreements that are in place to recognise and protect the all-island economy in the context of dealing with Brexit. We understood this was a risk. It is one that has already been raised with the European Commission. It is an issue, of course, on which we will have to engage very closely with our colleagues in the Northern Ireland Executive.

At this point in time, given the announcements are only a few hours old, I am sure the Deputy will appreciate it is not possible for us to go into the detail quite yet of how we will deal with this, but it is an extremely important issue that is important to acknowledge here today. In terms of the response from the European Union to this, clearly, none of us wants to be in this position. There is a clear consensus from contributions so far regarding the need to negotiate and see whether we can get an agreement to lead us away from the precipice we are now on. It is not clear to me, however, that we will get to that point unless we indicate how the EU would be willing to respond from a trade point of view. However, the European Commission, correctly, is going to take time to engage with member states of the EU on this but stressing that negotiation is our preference.

See this speech in context