The Cabinet will receive today what is being termed a comprehensive overview on the country’s Brexit preparations, by the Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney.

The Cabinet will receive today what is being termed a comprehensive overview on the country’s Brexit preparations, by the Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney.
It is expected the analysis will cover contingency planning for both a trade agreement being reached between the EU and UK, as well as a no-deal scenario.
Mr Coveney said the stakes are really high and “what we are doing as a Government is making sure that we are fully prepared for all scenarios”.
Minister for Public Expenditure Michael McGrath said he is still hopeful a post-Brexit trade deal can be reached saying where “there’s a will there’s a way”.
Mr McGrath said he thinks that it is a positive that European Union President Ursula von der Leyen and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson are to meet later this week.
“We all know what the economic consequences are of no trade deal. For Ireland alone we are looking at potentially tariffs of up to €1.7 billion on our exports to the UK, with over 90% of that falling on the agri food sector. So the stakes are really high,” Mr McGrath said.
It is understood that among the measures Cabinet will hear today is a plan to ensure that Covid-19 vaccines come to Ireland directly via EU ports, rather than through the UK land-bridge, in order to guarantee delivery.
In the past month there has been a further increase in the number of Irish businesses signing-up for required certification to trade with the UK, post-Brexit.
The latest data suggested 97% of exporters and 94% of importers now have an Economic Operators Registration and Identification number.
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Meanwhile, a French MEP and member of President Macron’s La Republique En Marche party has said that “it is better to postpone the [Brexit] deal rather than have a bad deal”.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Sandro Gozi that while a deal is still possible it is “more and more difficult” as “the positions on both sides are pretty far apart” on the outstanding issues.
Mr Gozi said that fisheries is not only a French problem and “it is not something new” that not enough progress has been made on this issue.
Asked if France would veto a deal it did not like on fisheries, he said “let’s see if it is a good deal, we all want  a good deal [but] it must be improved on fisheries, but also on the single market”.
Speaking on the same programme, former British prime minister Theresa May’s former spokesperson says nerves will be tested to the utmost over the coming days as Brexit negotiations draw to a close.
Joey Jones said if Mr Johnson cannot bring himself to accept the trade-off between access to the single market and some level of control on standards, then a no deal is “staring us in the face”.
However, he added, the logic behind the imperative for a deal is so profound that there remains an assumption that they will “come back from the brink”.