Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Obviously, I share the concerns about the Border communities raised by Senator Black and the concerns about qualifications raised by Senator Ó Donnghaile. That said, I wish to raise two specific questions very briefly. I was approached by some niche food importers for specific ethnic smaller communities. They told me that the documentation coming through for customs is too slow. I am interested to hear the views of the two gentlemen from IBEC. There is the difficulty that I did not hear Mr. Kelly at the beginning. Are the requisite documents to facilitate the movement of goods flowing quickly and with efficiency? They would have to be almost ahead of trade, as it were. Is there a basis for the anecdotes being raised with me? Hopefully, there is not.

Second, we all have parliamentary party meetings tomorrow evening and I would like to attend mine with clarity about one matter. I thank Mr. Ivory and Mr. Kelly for their presentations and I thank the Chairperson for this opportunity. Am I getting an impression, because it was discussed last week and I wish to raise it again, that Mr. Ivory and Mr. Kelly are saying to us that the protocol is settling down after the Commission's approval, that we are back on an even-enough keel, that it is levelling out now and they do not anticipate a further challenge to the protocol? Are things stabilising in that regard?

Perhaps they can give us a brief on that. All of us should know that before tomorrow evening, so we can raise a problem, if there is one, in our respective political parties.