Mr. Peter Conway:

I will try and say it properly. My school Irish is a long way back.

The Deputy's observations about the regulations are of very serious concern to those of us who work in a trade which is cross Border. To use the example to which the Deputy alluded, in the context of the importation of grain - which is used for the agrifood sector, North and South, for feeding animals, such as cattle and pigs, in particular, and the poultry business, which is prominent in the Border area - if the two jurisdictions diverge in their regulations in the future because one will be external to the EU and one will be within it, does that mean that we will not be able to commingle the product? Does that mean we will have to hold different storage for that going south and going north? That starts to create more costs and expense and in the end, the consumer pays. Therein is a complete minefield. The Deputy is correct to raise the matter. It goes right through all sorts of other businesses and industry. It could even be in the medical line in regulations for manufactured goods. If these start to diverge, we could have a very serious situation. For example, if we are importing maize from Finland, Sweden, Germany or France - in fact, 70% of the grain trade goes south - does that mean, if there will be tariffs on it landing with us, that those tariffs have to be adjusted when it crosses the Border again. It would be a nightmare. Let us hope that does not happen.

The question about collaboration was also a good one. I can speak a little on behalf of the Confederation of British Industry, CBI, because we are members of that organisation. The CBI was very much in favour of remaining and would still hold that viewpoint. Indeed, the current chairman of the CBI, Mr. David Gavaghan, addressed the forum in Dublin. He came south for that, as did the chief executive of the Ulster Farmers' Union. It would be wrong to say that there are people there who do not want to engage. That is not true. This is a very serious issue and I am quite sure that we can embrace and take more and more people to be involved. With regard to CBI, Mr. Simon Hamilton, MLA, the Economy Minister at Stormont, addressed a recent session in Belfast I attended. He stated clearly that there may well be opinions put forward in the political arena but behind the scenes there is a serious concern about these sort of issues, and I think we just need to encourage people to engage. The CBI works closely with IBEC. That is a good forum and we should encourage it.

We have talked here about these concerns and about the issues that face us but we should not forget that perhaps there are solutions as well. I agree with Senator Craughwell and Deputy Brendan Smith that, unfortunately, this will happen.

Therefore, we very much need to consider how we might make it work for us and try to resolve these issues. Some examples have been used, such as the relationship between Norway and Sweden, which is a good example. Perhaps we should concentrate on trying to see how we might get something similar to work here so that there are not these delays on the Border and restrictions on cross-Border workers or movement of goods and people.