Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank both delegates for their excellent presentations. I am always amused when I arrive back here because I spent a good part of my life thrashing business organisations in my trade union activity. I compliment both organisations for the tremendous work they have done in the last couple of years in providing information for their members and running roadshows. Part of the sadness is what Mr. McDonnell alluded to, the low uptake as a result of people hoping it will be all right on the night or that maybe it will go away. A colleague of mine here believes there will be a dedicated carriageway running both ways from Holyhead to Dover, but we both know that is not realistic.

One of my concerns pertaining to IBEC is the size of the soft balance sheets held in Ireland. Mr. Danny McCoy recently stated 40% of the world's soft balance sheets were in this country. With Brexit coming down the line, companies are moving into Ireland from the United Kingdom, putting further pressure on accommodation costs. In speaking to the last group that appeared before us I made the point that we were seeing companies bid for employees in specialist areas. Rather than a jobs market, we almost have an auction market for specific highly skilled jobs. I really wonder about the damage that could be caused by something from which we are all hoping to benefit. Is there a latent aspect of high finance companies and various other firms coming into the country? I refer to the risk that they will end up pricing Ireland out of the market with reference to both labour costs and the cost of living. Have the two organisations looked at that issue?

Dr. Ivory referred to a hard border. This is an old hobby horse of mine. This country has never had a hard border in its entire history. It had a highly militarised border and I really fear the return of something similar. The fact that it was highly militarised, with so many ways to get across it, gave rise to a black market and smuggling operations. I wonder in particular about the danger of beef being imported from, say, Argentina into Northern Ireland which is within the United Kingdom before being loaded onto trucks, smuggled south and transported to Europe as Irish beef.

If that happens and it is caught, I cannot begin to think what it is going to do to us.

A number of the international chambers of commerce operating in Ireland are encouraging manufacturing to look to Europe for alternative sources of components. Have IBEC and ISME looked at the cost of changing to European-based component suppliers? Are there issues with quality if there is a move away from the UK to source alternative suppliers?

I turn now to the issue of the seabridge versus the landbridge. We were given an estimate earlier of the landbridge costing five hours. Concerning the seabridge, the Germans are looking at trying to get direct routes into Duisburg or the Hook of Holland. They think Cherbourg and Le Havre are too far away from mainland Europe. Have the organisations examined the cost of that for their members?

Regarding what happens post Brexit, at a recent conference I was told that we could expect that it would be ten years before this issue settles down. Have IBEC and ISME examined this and do they have an estimate of how long we are looking at? I think Mr. McDonnell referred to the backstop and that its latent aspect might be to make things worse. Will he elaborate on that? Has ISME considered an alternative system? Would it prefer a border to be in place with proper checks as against free movement over and back? I thank the representatives from both organisations for being here.