Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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184. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine his views on the report findings by the European Parliament’s AGRI committee (details supplied) that Ireland is the most negatively impacted member state in agrifood trade with the UK from Brexit, with Ireland’s GDP and exports significantly impacted; the position regarding the latest Brexit discussions regarding agrifood trade on the island of Ireland. [49644/17]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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The report referred to is a useful contribution to the research and analysis on the potential implications of Brexit for the agri-food and fisheries sectors. It confirms that Ireland will be the most severely affected of the EU27 Member States, and that the agri-food sector is the most exposed sector of the economy. This is because of its particular reliance on the UK market and the highly integrated nature of Ireland-UK agri-food trade. These findings are consistent with our own assessment.

Ireland's approach to the negotiations on the future relationship will be to ensure that the future EU-UK trading relationship will be as close to the current arrangements as possible, thereby minimising the potential impact on the Irish agri-food sector. The position of all of the parties to the negotiation is that there should be no hard border on the island of Ireland.

The phasing of the negotiation requires sufficient progress to be made on exit issues relating to the rights of citiizens, the UK's financial obligations and the island of Ireland before the discussion can move to the future relationship.

Progress is being made in some areas, but further clarity will be required, including on island of Ireland issues, before the European Council can determine that sufficient progress has been made to move to the next phase.