Mr. John Sheridan:

I reiterate what Mr. Fearon said here. It would be more to highlight the futility of trying to have a hard border and advocating to those who say that one can have a border, that it can work electronically and that there are other border crossings through eastern Europe and its neighbours that work, that they do not and that it is not working, and that is more of a geographical split between two countries. The Border in Ireland, as Mr. Bernard Boyle stated, is an invisible split in virtually every case. We would be on the other end of it highlighting how ridiculous a hard border would be. However, we are not unaware of the realities. We ourselves feel that a hard border is coming and coming fast.

We were asked about agriculture. It was remiss of me when I was speaking to the committee not to say that in agriculture, we would get 3% through the Barnett formula. Over and above the Barnett formula, agriculture in the North of Ireland gets 10% because it was an intensive and hardworking sector. Between 2000 to 2002, they created a large pool of funding which left a high payment to each farmer. In fact, if we were to go by the Barnett formula, we would lose 7% of the funding coming in already. That money coming in involves 1 million ha in the North getting €329 per hectare. Approximately €330 million is what comes into the North.