Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There is an administrative cost associated with that declaration process that has been estimated at being in the region of €100 per movement. It will impose a significant burden on industry and business. Mr. Cody also mentioned that, notwithstanding the beefing up of the IT system in Revenue, certain importers and exporters will not be using the system online. Therefore they will have to present at fixed positions that already exist in Donegal and elsewhere. Have those customs premises, to which people will be diverted, been upscaled to deal with the increased activity that will take place?

In Donegal there is a lot of suspicion about the coincidence that there have been significant works going on in the three customs posts in Bridgend, Lifford and Pettigo-Belleek, in recent months. Indeed the Lifford one received planning permission last year where the old customs facilities have been demolished and the site cleaned up and secured with 2.4 m high fencing. It is coincidental that these three sites were left like that for decades and now all of a sudden, there is significant work and tidying up going on at the three major crossings. There is a concern that there is potentially more than what is being laid before the public.

Mr. Cody says difficult conversations are needed with the Commission but what is the Revenue's understanding now, in the context of a no-deal Brexit, of the demands or expectations of the Commission on the Border on the island of Ireland vis à vis checks and monitoring of the Border?