Neale Richmond (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Today the Taoiseach met Mr. Emmanuel Macron, the French President, for the first time in an official bilateral meeting. It was a wonderful opportunity to establish a very strong Franco-Irish alliance in the post-Brexit era. A number of key issues were discussed. There are a great number of areas where Ireland and France continue to work strongly together, both internationally and also within the European Union, such as reform of the Common Agricultural Policy and trade.

One area that is crucially important to this country is energy security, and I am asking the Leader to bring this up with the Minister for Housing, Community and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy. There is a requirement for a foreshore licence for the Celtic interconnector coming from France to Ireland, which would give us a level of energy security post-Brexit. Once the UK leaves the EU we will have no direct source of energy coming into the country apart from through the UK. Our best opportunity to resolve that will come from our next nearest EU neighbour, which will be France, so I am therefore asking the Leader to take this issue up with the Minister to ensure that this process is expedited and resolved as soon as possible.