Kieran O'Donnell (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This is the first opportunity for the Minister of State, Deputy McEntee, to come before the Seanad. I congratulate her on her post.

I commend Senator Richmond and all his colleagues on a comprehensive report. It is wide-ranging and cross-party and it is the way a report should be. The implications for Brexit are significant. We have the unusual situation at the moment whereby if a vote took place in the UK, then, more than likely, Brexit would be turned down. We have a situation whereby people are not fully aware of the consequences. It is a little like an old mainframe computer with 1,000 wires coming out of it. No one actually knows what is going to happen. We have to prepare for all eventualities. I hope that reason will prevail in the UK and that the people in the UK would be allowed to express another view on Brexit. Brexit was turned down for a variety of reasons. People in the UK did it for their own reasons. However, I believe that on balance there is a belief that the majority in the UK now believe Brexit will not be in their interests.

There is a danger that we are looking to reinvent the wheel and that several years from now we suddenly find that the wheel will be a different brand but still the same wheel. We have an unusual situation in the UK politically at the moment. Let us work through all the areas, including trade, the common travel area, health education and energy. The implications are astounding.The EU is negotiating on our behalf with the UK and there is a long lead-in period in terms of getting to a point of formal negotiations. What I would like to see is that there might be some level of responsibility among the political classes within the UK to allow the people, if they wished to have another say on the matter, to be granted that.