Mr. John Comer:

It is a welcome pleasure to have the opportunity to address the joint committee and highlight and emphasise the potential outcomes of the Brexit vote and how we might mitigate against them as best we can and try to work together.

I will not bore everybody by repeating the statistics in the presentations by Mr. Jim Power and Mr. Joe Healy. At this juncture, everybody is familiar with them, they have them on the tip of their tongue. It is good to have the opportunity to put emphasis on where we see the problems and potential solutions. There is an onus on the committee and all our elected representatives to work very hard to position Ireland as best we can to mitigate against the downside of Brexit. I have not heard anybody outside of the city of Dublin suggesting there is an upside. I would have liked a chance, and will have one in future, to cross-examine Mr. Jim Power on the displacement in the context of the imports coming into Ireland. I do not see too many positives in that respect. With the United Kingdom being the fifth largest economy in the world and the second largest economy in the European Union, any change will be significant.

Currently, the most immediate issue is the currency volatility and the vacuum that has been referred to already and the capacity of business people to try to make decisions. There are all sorts of scenarios out there and any one of them could be right. One of the likely ones is that this process will drag on for a number of years. There is a school of thought that in five years’ time we might still not have a clear line of sight as to the final deal so it is not utopia. A bad deal might be bad but a deal that clearly outlines the terms and conditions and the path forward means we can at least deal with it as a country. We can deal with it as a rural economy and we can deal with it as individual business people that have to try to make decisions on a daily basis. The maintenance of the single market, common agricultural policy funding, input costs, costs competitiveness, trade deals, consumer confidence, on-farm challenges in the Border areas, all-Ireland health status and transit across the United Kingdom have all been touched on.

Deputy Martin Kenny mentioned specifically the race to the bottom in terms of the price of food and food quality. The committee and the Government and all the agencies of the State could offset much of that by trying to change mindsets one step at a time, influenced and backed up by the support of the European Parliament and the Commission. That is what is happening. Bord Bia has been referenced and Bord Bia’s budget is as it is but it is our policy that it should be increased in order to dilute the dependency on the UK economy in terms of our exports going there. More than 14%, or €1.1 billion, of our agricultural exports are going through Tesco. We are not only extremely heavily dependent on the UK market but on a specific multinational player in that market. We need to examine that. It is a very valuable market and it is a very valuable retailer in that regard. Tesco announced in the course of the last 24 hours that it will not be beaten on price and will not be beaten on price against the discounters. That is a significant shift in policy from a multinational that puts us in an even more precarious situation. We need to understand that and have contingency plans for it.

There will be a potential deficit in the common agricultural policy. The United Kingdom is a net contributor of £10 billion and about €1.3 billion of that is going to the CAP budget in the European Union. That equates to our basic payments. What we need to do and what we can do in this committee and in Government is to not just look for more money but to justify it and explain to consumers why it is logical. We should not dress it up because it is taxpayers’ money. Why should we put taxpayers’ money into a common agricultural policy? There is an onus on every elected representative and everybody who speaks on behalf of the agriculture sector to stand up straight and explain the reason why because it is justified. It is just as relevant today as it was when it was initiated. It is for the greater good of society to have a safe and secure supply of affordable food for the citizens of our continent. We need to reiterate that at every opportunity. Farmers should be proud of the single farm payment and that they are returning it to the taxpayer in spades. They should not shrink away from it. That is something this committee can do.

The all-Ireland health status is a tricky one. We are very vulnerable. We have achieved an awful lot as an island in terms of brucellosis and other areas of disease control. We must not underestimate the difficulties there could potentially be with transit across the United Kingdom. The on-farm challenges are nearly self-explanatory and there is a role in terms of negotiating deals.

It also needs to be highlighted that as a result of the subtraction of 64 million consumers, every trade deal needs to be re-examined, especially the issue of lamb coming in from New Zealand and so on. We could talk about that for a while. Cost competitiveness is about net margin and sustainability at farm level. As a country, we have legal costs, which, if we benchmark against our European counterparts, are very high. If we benchmark insurance against our competitors, it is very high. The costs of credit and energy in this country are extremely high. It is very difficult for a small member state on the periphery of Europe to sustain economic vibrancy at farm level if their costs are out of kilter with their competitors. We need to examine that issue.

Almost every aspect of this has been covered. The question is how we position ourselves in the context of a negotiating position when we are a small member state that is most exposed to the risk as a result of our exposure in the United Kingdom. Mr. Jim Power touched on all the aspects from the different sectors within each member state and the politics within each member state. We have to get out there and demonstrate that a fair deal that minimises the impact on trade between the United Kingdom and the European Union is good for all member states not just Ireland. That is an important point from my perspective. A deal that is good for the United Kingdom is also good for the European Union. We need to say that over and over again. The localised politics in states such as Germany and France should not override common sense. We could fall into that trap. We need to be to the forefront as a nation in emphasising that a deal is good between the European Union and the United Kingdom not just for Ireland’s sake but also for the European Union’s sake.

I will leave it at that and will be delighted to take questions.