We have moved from the speculation phase into the planning and preparation phase for a hard Brexit. The Taoiseach told the Irish Farmers' Association, IFA, last night that the State had already informed the European Commission that an application for emergency European funding for aid will be made in the event of a no-deal hard Brexit. Back in 2016, one of the clear proposals made by both my party and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions was to seek changes in the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund to make sure that it was Brexit ready. Little has happened since then according to my information. At that time, we also proposed a two year suspension of state aid rules in the event of a hard Brexit. As the Taoiseach acknowledged yesterday, there are thousands of manufacturing jobs and other jobs at risk, particularly where there are integrated supply chains across these islands. What specific supports for small businesses and small and medium enterprises, SMEs, particularly in the Border area, has the Government put in place so that we can explain to them now what will happen because they are extraordinarily anxious about there being fewer than 60 days to 29 March?

There are a number of different instruments that we can use should we have to and should we end up in a no-deal hard Brexit scenario. For example, for farmers in the agrifood sector, the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, already provides the common organisation of the markets, CMO, regulation, which allows for emergency aid for farmers if their markets are cut off. For example, when the Baltic states were cut off from the Russian market, the CMO regulation was used to provide emergency aid so we do not need a change to the globalisation fund. For small businesses, we already have approval for the rescue and restructure intervention and that allows us to rescue a company and restructure it should it find its market lost as a consequence of Brexit. However, I do not want to create the impression in any way that because we have these instruments on standby that everything will be fine, it will not. There is no good Brexit. It will be harmful for our economy but we will be able to mitigate it by using some of the instruments that are available.