“I think this is the first we have gathered in one room all of the sectoral interests,” Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed told the Irish Farmers Journal.

He said that the plan for the meeting in City North Hotel, Co Meath, is to tease out all the implications and draw up a plan to deal with them. This builds on the work of the stakeholders’ forum already in place in the Republic, with the north-south dimension being particularly important here.

“It builds on a lot of stuff that’s going on, we have north-south contacts at both a political and departmental level as well as with London, the European Union and other Member States. But this is a part of a very complex jigsaw but a very critical one, as it will feed back into the Brexit campaign which is being run out of Government buildings.”

Listen to an interview with Minister Creed in our podcast below:

Listen to “Minister Creed at all-Ireland Brexit forum” on Spreaker.

The dairy, red meat, pig and poultry sectors were all represented at the meeting.

“I think we’re going to have more of these, we’ll probably have them for the fisheries and horticultural industries too.”

“I think it will be a rolling ball, we’re going to have responses that are appropriate to the time and date,” Creed said, adding that there are issues to be addressed at a technical, veterinary and marketing level.