Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The area of greatest potential benefit in the long term is if we move towards having more mutual recognition. Tariffs are in and around 3% of costs, give or take. Some non-trade barriers are in around 20% of costs. While one cannot put a percentage on regulatory and red tape costs, if one gets mutual recognition for the setting of standards, over time the costs will come down.

When jam used to come in 13 oz jars in one country and 12 oz jars in another country, to export jam to Europe one needed a different jar for each country, which killed trade opportunities. When everybody agrees it is safe to eat jam from a 12 oz jar, for example, one opens up trade. Many long-term benefits come from setting rules, and they exist in all areas, including customs, intellectual property protection, public procurement terms, environment, safety and sanitary issues. They are very much apparent in financial services, which is probably a sensitive area because it includes wider prudential issues. One does not seek to dilute any such safeguards of public policy objectives but to set them such that it is easy for people from other countries to comply and without red tape barriers that make it difficult. That is why people on both sides have spoken about this being a dynamic agreement. One does not just sign up and forget about it. Rather, over time the regulatory systems would tend to converge in a way that makes it easy rather than difficult to trade.