Diarmuid Wilson (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the main provisions contained in today's budget. I welcome the increase in funding for health, social welfare, education and child care. I look forward to the relevant Minister outlining in detail where increases will be made in funding for further education. I hope that funding is increased for the Youthreach sector as it provides badly needed educational training to vulnerable young people who have dropped out of school. Education is crucial to their lives and chance of progression in life.

Like my colleague, Senator Ó Donnghaile, I was on the Cavan-Fermanagh border at Aghalane last Saturday. I was joined by my colleague, Deputy Brendan Smith, and Cavan county councillors, John Paul Feeley, Sean Smith and Eugene Greenan, for a community protest to highlight the concerns of the communities on both sides of the Border as to what Brexit means in terms of both counties and to the general Border area. There were four other protests that were attended by political parties from north and south of the Border.

I am gravely concerned, and it is the one major concern that I have with today's budget, that only €1 million has been allocated to provide extra personnel to deal with the effects of Brexit. Will the Leader of the House engage with the Taoiseach and his Cabinet colleagues as a matter of urgency? The Government must allocate an extra €1 million to tackle this crisis head on. Nobody knows the extent of the crisis but Border communities have already suffered as a result of the depreciation of sterling. We lived with a border for long enough. At the time people had to travel, through necessity, across the Border to shop because goods were far cheaper in the North because of sterling. The one thing that the protest I attended on Saturday signalled was that the communities on both sides will not tolerate going back to the situation we had prior to the peace process.