Mr. William Lavelle:

There has been much mention of Bailieborough in Cavan. I would be shot by my own members if I did not mention Terra Spirits and Liqueurs based in Bailieborough. I am sure the Senator will drop in to the company shortly. It is a very good spirits and bottling company based in Bailieborough.

The Chair's summation of the issue was very good. We really need the Irish Government to be the champion for reform of the rules of origin. The all-island economy has grown significantly since the Good Friday Agreement. We want to protect that all-island economy and to grow it further. In doing that, we are looking at the matter from an economic viewpoint and leaving out politics, issues of sovereignty and all of that. An all-island economy makes sense. Critical to that are cross-Border supply chains. The protocol protects those supply chains but there is no point in having such supply chains if we are to penalise companies that use them by imposing tariffs that would not apply if they were to use goods sourced solely in either this jurisdiction or in Northern Ireland. We need cross-Border supply chains to be protected through reform of the rules of origin.

Irish whiskey has seen growth of 140% over the past decade. The bulk of that growth came from continental Europe and North America. As we are already seeing, the decade ahead of us it going to be one of market diversification. We hear a lot from the Government and the EU about market diversification. We are going to see more of our growth occurring in more markets, particularly in Asia, Africa and potentially Latin America. We either have EU free trade agreements with many of these markets or such agreements are coming down the track. It would be terrible for us to end up in a two-tier or even a three-tier scenario whereby there would be Irish whiskey from the State of Ireland, Irish whiskey from the State of Northern Ireland and Irish whiskey produced on an all-island basis, this latter product being the poor relation because it is the one subject to tariffs. That is the reality of what we are facing if we do not sort out the issue of rules of origin. We would be most grateful for anything the committee can do to amplify our asks as industry representatives. I thank the Cathaoirleach and the Senators.