Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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646. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the meetings that she has held to date with her Cabinet colleagues, her Department, departmental agencies and external stakeholders to address the challenges facing businesses in the wake of the Brexit referendum and specifically in view of the decline in the value of sterling. [39670/16]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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Since the result of the UK Referendum in June, I have held an extensive series of meetings.

I am a member of the Cabinet Committee on Brexit, which has met on 4 occasions.

With regards to my own Department and its agencies, I have established a Co-ordination Group on Brexit, consisting of the CEOs of both IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland, and relevant enterprise, single market and trade officials from my Department. This group, which I chair, oversees the management of our response to the Referendum result and has met on 8 occasions.

I have met with a wide range of representative organisations and stakeholders, including Ibec, ICTU, ISME, the SFA, the Irish Exporters Association, American Chamber of Commerce Ireland, Dublin Chamber of Commerce and the Irish Farmers Association. I have also had discussions about the impacts of Brexit at the Retailers Forum which I chair and it is a regular item for discussion at the Regional Action Plan for Jobs implementation Committees.

Given the impact of currency fluctuations since the UK Referendum, the issue of business financing requirement has been a regular topic for discussion at internal meetings and meetings with external stakeholders.

In November I met with my UK Trade and Business ministerial counterparts to ensure that the importance of the unique circumstances for Ireland is fully understood at Cabinet level in the UK. In September I travelled to Brussels, where I had a series of meetings with the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, Elzbieta Bienkowska and the Commissioner for Trade, Cecelia Malmstrom and also Vicky Ford MEP, Chair of the Internal Market Committee of the European Parliament. Finally, I have asked my Department to organise a major stakeholder seminar, including Oireachtas members early in the new year.