Mr. Cormac Cunningham:

There have been references to opening the floodgates, milk flooding in and so on. In actuality, the floodgates are open in both directions. For instance, some 10,000 pigs which come from the South are processed every week in the North. Any barrier to trade creates huge difficulties for everybody. I am primarily a dairy farmer but I also have bull calves which I sell. For the past three years a farmer in Donegal has come and bought every single bull calf born on my farm. It was a great relationship. I telephoned him in October when the cow started to calve to ask him how he was fixed. He told me he had a difficulty in that, because the calves from my farm were now classed as nomads, there would be a problem with getting them slaughtered. Farmers in the west of Ireland will be aware that the numbers of Northern buyers around the mart rings have gone way down because of this nomads issue.

Farmers in the Republic are worried about milk from the North flooding the market in the South. The reality, however, is that agricultural trade on this island does not pay any cognisance to the Border. I have two Dairymaster milking parlours which are manufactured in Kerry. I am on my fourth Keenan feeding wagon, also manufactured in the South. Keenan does not have a difficulty with its feeding wagons being sold to buyers in the North. So many products can potentially be impacted if we take a small, narrow-minded view on the way in which agricultural products are produced, processed and marketed on this island, to the detriment of everybody.