Micheál Martin will address the Joint Business Council All-island Business Conference in Dundalk on Thursday.

Simon Coveney said employers will want to avoid large-scale redundancies because of the effects of the sweeping 20 per cent US tariffs.

Danny McCoy said US president Donald Trump has let ‘genie is out of the bottle’ by ‘starting something that he might not be able to control’.

"We wouldn't like to be in this situation, but it is a situation where we've got to choose a side.”