Mr. Paul Kelly:

Food companies are commercial businesses and if they sniff out any opportunity, they will be chasing it down pretty quickly. Walking around many supermarkets in the North over the years, we see quite an amount of Irish produce there and, obviously, we see many products which we would not see down South. There would be more UK products. There are certainly opportunities but, to go back to some of the points from the previous session, some of the final outcomes of the joint committee on 17 December simply did not provide time for companies to prepare, whether that is companies in Northern Ireland or their pre-existing suppliers from Britain. We can see why some of those grace periods are needed but, where we have certain supply difficulties, that does create supply opportunities for other companies as well.

Companies will be looking at all markets. Perhaps southern companies will be looking with some trepidation at 1 April and the introduction of a lot more non-tariff barriers, given what they see happening in Dublin, Belfast and the other ports currently is going to start facing them from 1 April as well. Where opportunities arise, they will not be slow in following up and seeing whether they can be capitalised upon.