Mr. Conor Mulvihill:

I will continue on that issue. It speaks to the questions asked by Senators Dooley and Gallagher. I have recommendations for Ireland, the EU and London. The first is to ensure that everyone is on the same page in terms of understanding that some sort of SPS agreement needs to be hammered out now. Vice-President Šefovi has been clear in recent days that such an agreement will solve 80% of the issues relating to the Irish Sea. That is a no-brainer and it needs to be progressed.

As regards the Government, there needs to be clarity regarding island of Ireland labelling such that items are identified as Irish or products of Ireland. It has to be clear that this can be stated on the packaging in which a product from the island comes. We in Dairy Industry Ireland sometimes get questions from authorities in the South regarding such labelling. It would be anathema if it is not copper-fastened and clear that the island of Ireland is our brand.

As regards the EU side, I did not mention in my opening statement that all members of the committee will have heard from a dairy perspective of intervention and private storage aid, which are market tools that are used by the EU when, invariably, dairy markets go a bit south. At the moment, things are very good for processors and farmers, thank God, but, as all present are aware, that will not be the case forever. The EU is stating that mixed island of Ireland dairy products cannot access intervention and private storage aid, which is a crazy situation. It is in the gift of the EU to solve that.

My final point, which is for all parties, is that within the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement there is an infrastructure of committees to solve all these issues which heretofore have not been solved. For example, there is an SPS committee. We are now six months into the agreement and that committee has not even been convened, never mind formed properly. Those are my recommendations.