Mr. John Sheridan:

Such companies would have to be given time to build processing facilities on both sides of the Border. It would make a mockery of the whole thing to need to have a processing facility for the milk in the North and a processing facility for the milk in the South. Certification issues would have to be dealt with to ensure customers accept milk from the North in the first place. The whole thing might end up with companies deciding to leave producers with milk they do not need. The main thing for them would be to keep their customers. Between 30% and 40% of the North's milk is going south. Some 30% of the North's lamb - 100,000 lambs a day - goes south. I will put this in perspective. I am involved in red meat production. There are over 1 million suckler cows in the South and 260,000 or 270,000 suckler cows in the North. The North's gross agricultural output is up to £5 billion, whereas gross agricultural output in the South is over €30 billion. We have one marketing body - the LMC, which does not really have an office outside the North - whereas Bord Bia has offices in 28 countries around the world. This is about the synergies of economies of scale and working together. As someone who has lived on the Border all my life - I have probably spent as much time in the South as I have in the North - I truly believe it would be a shame to allow Brexit, which is being triggered today, to ruin this country.