There is little positivity among business leaders in Ireland regarding the impact of Brexit on the Irish economy, with 91% believing it will be negative in the short-term and 59% believing it will be negative in the long-term.
Furthermore, as the EU-UK negotiations intensify, 64% of business leaders don’t think an EU-UK trade deal will be reached before the end of the transition period in December of this year.
These are the key Brexit-related findings from the latest Director Sentiment Monitor, for Q2 2020, conducted by the Institute of Directors (IoD) in Ireland and published today (30th July). The research was conducted between Wednesday, 1st July, and Tuesday, 7th July 2020, amongst its 3,000 members, comprising CEOs and company directors. The Director Sentiment Monitor tracks business sentiment on a quarterly basis.
Maura Quinn, Chief Executive of the Institute of Directors in Ireland, commented:
“There is little positivity among business leaders regarding the short- and long-term impacts of Brexit on the Irish economy. In fact, year-on-year, the findings are remarkably similar, indicating little change in Brexit sentiment since the same quarter in 2019. This is further highlighted by the fact that the majority of business leaders in Ireland (64%) believes an agreement between the EU and UK will not be feasible before the end of the transition period in December."
The key findings on Brexit in the IoD’s Director Sentiment Monitor for Q2 2020 are:
- Brexit’s impact on the economy in the short term: 91% of business leaders believe that Brexit’s impact on the Irish economy will be negative in the short-term (which compares with 92% in the same quarter in 2019). Just 3% think Brexit’s impact on the Irish economy will be positive in the short-term (which was also 3% in Q2 2019), while 5% said they ‘Don’t know’ what its short-term impact will be (which was also 5% in Q2 2019).
- Brexit’s impact on the economy in the long term: 59% of business leaders believe that Brexit’s impact on the Irish economy will be negative in the long-term (which compares with 58% in the same quarter in 2019). 24% think Brexit’s impact on the Irish economy will be positive in the long-term (which was 19% in Q2 2019), while 17% said they ‘Don’t know’ what its long-term impact will be (which was 22% in Q2 2019).
- EU-UK trade deal: 64% of business leaders believe that an EU-UK trade deal will not be reached by the end of 2020, while 21% think there will be and 15% say they ‘Don’t know’.
Please note: The findings in this survey have been rounded up or down to the nearest decimal point. For all of the above findings, respondents were given the option to choose one answer only. They could not choose multiple answers.