Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I join my colleagues Senator Daly and the Chairman in welcoming our guests today. I am delighted they are here. I thank them for the accessible documentation they provided to the committee. It is very clear and easy to deal with. Before going into specifics, in a general sense, is the Ulster Farmers Union contemplating a special deal for the island of Ireland within the overall deal? Are Northern Ireland's farmers contemplating the special trading arrangement that might emerge from the possibility of using a combination of the Good Friday Agreement and our relationship with the EU that could result in east-west trading between Ireland and England, which would facilitate trade if at all possible without customs and tariffs? Are the farmers contemplating that sort of solution or is that too pie in the sky?

I live in County Cavan and I am very conscious of the specifics that have been raised such as the 30% of milk being processed in the South, the 40% of lamb and the numbers of pigs that go North. A local co-op has a processing plant in my own town. Lakeland Dairies is a substantial employer in the area and accesses quite an amount of its milk north of the Border. It is processed in Bailieborough and in Lough Egish. It was said that we need imaginative supports and I presume the witnesses are speaking of customs being electronic or involving minimal physical delays. There would be costs associated with that. Would this make it an unviable option for an organisation such as Lakeland Dairies to continue that arrangement and would it be unviable for the pigs to travel to the North in the event of a customs union? This raises another question. From their meetings or from anecdotal evidence, does Mr. Bell or Mr. Aston believe there is any chance that we will get a return to anything akin to free trade between the UK and the EU, although that prospect may have receded a bit lately?

Subsidies are a very serious issue, obviously. I presume that the Ulster Farmers Union see the source of subsidies of food as being the domestic UK Government after the transition period post-Brexit? Are the witnesses concerned about the political factors that will be at work there? The political factors and the strong lobbyists must surely concern them. There would not be a strong farmer lobby in an overall UK context but there would be a need for food and relatively cheaply produced food. One would have to look at how the second consideration would work.

With regard to food and the veterinary area, are the farmers in Northern Ireland advocating for the veterinary standards, about which Senator Daly spoke earlier? Will veterinary standards, traceability and food standards for hormone-free food all be maintained at current levels whatever the regulatory body is? Are they of the view that food could not come in from other outside countries - Commonwealth or otherwise - that would be sub-standard? Is the Ulster Farmers Union advocating strongly on that issue? I would be interested to hear their views on it.

The labour aspect is very interesting. From talking with people at all levels in the UK - public and private individuals - the big issue in determining the Brexit referendum vote appears to have been immigration. It is clear from what the witnesses have said, and I agree with them as I know it to be the case in Ireland also, that there will be a need for labour to come in from outside. I would like the union representative to elaborate more on this. How does the Ulster Farmers Union see this objective being achieved in the context of the controls wanted by Brexiteers? Keeping control of immigration was their number one issue. The labour issue is a practical reality that may not have dawned on everybody. It would have dawned on people at the witnesses' level but ordinary punters wanted to vote out aspects of immigration they perceived as troublesome. They did not realise the downside to that.

I am very heartened to see the destination of Northern Ireland's food and drink sector sales and growth over the last years and the trading relationship between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland strengthening.

It would be a shame that anything would thwart or change this. I ask the witnesses to comment on this. It is great that a delegation from the Ulster Farmers Union is present because we want to hear from it, and then put the same questions in a converse way to the IFA to see if we can arrive at an overview.