Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses.

Usually we ask questions and expect to get answers, but I can see the witnesses are asking as many questions as I am going to ask because we are in total limbo. I cannot give them answers.

When they speak of Brazilian beef coming into England, if there is some deal done between England and Brazil, what is to stop it coming into the North of Ireland? If one does not have some kind of border control, it will be down here, down as far as Kerry where I come from, overnight. Whether hard border or soft border, I cannot see but there will be a border. There will have to be control, customs and all that goes with it. The South of Ireland is in Europe and all the Europeans have direct access to the South of Ireland. England voted for Brexit because they wanted to keep out a certain amount of those immigrants or whatever. Surely they will not accept that the immigrants that they do not want to come in to their country would be allowed in here to the South of Ireland and walk up over the Border into the United Kingdom. We are all in cloud cuckoo land if we do not realise that will be the case if it goes through. I, for one, hope that Brexit does not go through or that England will pull back at the last minute or whatever, if they do not get the deal that they want or that they think they may get, but I suppose there is no hope of that. It is very serious, especially for farmers and those in rural areas. It may, as IBEC told us, help places like Dublin or the large urban areas but it will hurt us in the regions. Down in the distant districts, we are already struggling with infrastructure being one of the main issues. It is serious and it is impossible to contemplate what will be the outcome. If, as I believe, England voted to get out of Europe mostly because of immigration reasons, can they explain to me that there will not be a border to stop those who come to Ireland from going to the North of Ireland? What other way will there be? One could say it is fine to let England itself maintain the Border if it wants to but that could work against us if we do not have officials there to stop what we do not want coming in by way of agricultural or whatever produce from other parts of the world.