Paul Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I also welcome the Minister of State and congratulate her on her appointment. I also join in congratulating and complimenting the special committee Chairman, Senator Neale Richmond, and all of the committee members. As the Chairman mentioned at the outset, we sat through more than 50 hours of meetings. More than 99% of the dialogue was of a pessimistic and negative nature, which may have affected all of us. Very few positives were predicted by our witnesses, if any. That is very daunting and frightening. As has been mentioned here today, we inherited Brexit. It was neither our decision nor of our making, but we are the nation that stands to lose the most and is most affected by the United Kingdom's decision to leave the European Union. That applies to every single sector of society and community across the board. While there is the possibility of international banking companies coming to Ireland, as highlighted by my colleague, Senator Mark Daly, we do not seem to be acting very positively to enhance this opportunity or encourage them to come here.

Like Senator O'Reilly and others, I am most interested in the agrisector. There is no need to rehash old figures, but we export 37% of all our agrifood to the United Kingdom. That figure includes 50% of our beef, 26% of our dairy, 90% of our mushrooms and 80% of our cheddar cheese. Our report is now complete and the talking is over. Our potential and proposed solutions have been flagged in this report. The time for talk is over and it is now time for action. I hope that the action we take will be more pro-active and effective than has happened in the past. Other than the United Kingdom itself, we were the first nation to be affected by the vote of 23 June last year. As I have already stated, we export 90% of our mushrooms to the United Kingdom. In the months immediately after Brexit, we lost €7 million and 130 jobs in the export sector. No action was taken on this whatsoever. If our record to date is anything to go by then, I am not overly optimistic over how we are likely to handle Brexit when it kicks in properly.

Bord Bia has stated that the agricultural sector lost €570 million in 2017. If sterling were to hit 90 pence, and as of last night it stood at approximately 89 pence, we stand to lose €700 million a year as well as a possible 7,500 jobs. This is happening today, in the here and now, and to be quite honest I do not see any action. Bord Bia has been allocated four additional staff and the Department of agriculture has been allocated three. These are within existing resources. Given the figures I have mentioned, this matter is not something that will kick off if and when the divorce proceedings are over. It is already happening. The agriculture sector was already in crisis before the Brexit vote in the UK.The actions that the Minister mentioned were taken in last year's budget and are proposed in the context of this year's budget in regard to the agriculture sector in particular were badly needed irrespective of Brexit. We need to take more serious action into the future. The Minister mentioned that in terms of Brexit Ireland has had more dialogue and done more than any other country, and rightly so in the sense that Ireland is the most exposed to Brexit. We have had kind words, recognition and sympathetic remarks from all contributors on the Brexit scenario but of what good will these remarks be to the people who are suffering. At the first meeting of consequence on Brexit, Spain got a veto on Gibraltar. All we got was kind words, sympathy and recognition of our uniqueness in terms of Brexit.