James Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I echo Senator Richmond's comments and remind the House of the Minister of State's speech last night, in which she pointed out that €900 million has been made available across various sections to help deal with Brexit and its fallout. There have been numerous meetings and supports put in place for business, as Senator Richmond has said, through the local enterprise offices, LEOs, Enterprise Ireland, the IDA and so on. Our committee had a lot of input from small and medium enterprises, the Small Firms Association, ISME and many others, as well as people from the other side, namely, the employee side and the unions. A lot of work has been done but clearly there always will be more to be done, particularly if we have the misfortune of Britain crashing out, which nobody wants to see. We hope common sense will prevail but we have to be prepared. I believe this Bill is preparing us but nobody is pretending things cannot be looked at subsequently if, for example, there is an issue about low uptake or people's ability to access what is available for them.