Mr. John Sheridan:

I have not seen it moved forward. The Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, said there would be no hard border but just this week we saw customs officials examining where checkpoints could possibly be located. Are we to wake up one morning, see the bulldozer outside and still be placated by being told that bulldozer is not going to do anything in respect of a Border checkpoint? Some people have suggested that instead of it being along the Border, a zone or a line, that a Border clearance centre could be, say, two, three or five miles in, but that is all borderisation by stealth. I agree fully with what the Chairman said. The Border needs to be moved to the Irish sea and the island needs to be one economy that works together as a proper integrated economy. It is already very much integrated in agriculture. We see the problems when people talk about social dumping, it does not work like that when one has a Border or two different regions.

The Chairman also mentioned foreign workers coming in. My colleague, Mr. O'Hara, mentioned that there were over 270 Border crossings on about 330 miles of Border, about one every mile. How can anyone effectively make that happen? It is nonsense.