Ms Nicola Byrne:

As for the Border being devastating, yes that would be a concern, particularly for the milk quotas. Dairy products account for a large part of our exports. I have a list and can show it to committee members afterwards if they are interested. The idea that we can drop our powdered milk into China has not been as successful as we had all hoped it would be. Even having known the milk quotas were disappearing and having stocked up ahead, we have failed dismally to get markets to open to us because there are so many other markets that can compete with us, even in Europe. The status quodoes not fix the Border problem but Brexit certainly does not help, it makes it far worse. If that Border did return and even if customs activities were based in Stranraer but not on the island of Ireland - being an island there might be exceptions - these problems regarding the Border will not go away because we will have two different markets, with the UK controlling Six Counties while we control the rest. The solution is half way between politics and trade.

Northern Ireland is not of interest at the moment to the members of the Irish Exporters Association, IEA, because we pass through it, we do not trade with it. I do not mean to sound heartless, although this will come across as being completely selfish, Northern Ireland is of no relevance to us because there is no trade North and South. As a trade organisation that is trying to export we do not generally export to Northern Ireland. The amount of trade it accounts for is so small it is not worth even writing on a page. We need to fix that but that is an internal not an external issue. Our time would not be well spent on that issue. That will fix organically with time. There are plenty of people working on it. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade needs to concern itself more with how we will prepare the 66% of exports from foreign direct investment, FDI, that cross that landbridge and go from here around the world.