Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Let me start in reverse. First of all, it is welcome that the Northern Ireland planned healthcare scheme and transition cross-Border directive arrangements have been successfully in operation since 1 January. Both these measures continue to ensure that patients have access to healthcare in Northern Ireland and, in limited circumstances, the UK. While the scheme has been operating on an administrative basis to date, the Government intends to place the scheme on a statutory basis. An extensive examination of options to inform the drafting of the general scheme is currently being undertaken by officials in the Department of Health, and that work continues at pace. Effectively, there has been an ad hocarrangement in place since 1 January, but we will put that on a statutory footing and the Department of Health is looking to finalise how to do that.

On ports, it might be good to put a number of things on the record. Initial difficulties in adjusting to the new trading environment have largely settled. The vast majority of goods movements are now green-routed, which means they are not checked at all and are permitted to leave the port without any interaction with customs or the other regulatory authorities. Well over 80% of goods are green-routed now. Revenue, the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine and the HSE Environmental Health Service are actively working together to streamline processes and reduce the administrative burden for traders as much as they can, while continuing to meet our obligations under EU law. Work is under way to improve inter-agency communication, increase data sharing and reduce duplication and to streamline processes as much as possible while ensuring that the necessary controls are performed.

The committee raised the issue in its interim report, in that it wanted State agencies to effectively be in one location in ports. To be fair, they are trying to do as much of that as they can. There have been a number of developments since the start of the year and further developments are intended to address the key requests of traders. For example, a key request from trade was to provide an interface that allowed system-to-system communications between traders, customs systems, and the Revenue RoRo system. This has been delivered and has removed some of the manual work involved in completing the pre-boarding notification. There are limits to what can be done in terms of co-location of authorities at ports. At Dublin Port, for example, there are space and layout limitations. In addition, certain checks such as animal health checks or food safety checks may require dedicated infrastructure to ensure that such checks can be safely undertaken, like stables in Dublin Port, for example. That said, the agencies continue to work together to identify ways in which the passage of trucks through Dublin Port, in particular, can be streamlined.Since the start of the year we have seen a very significant increase in the traffic from Dublin and Rosslare directly to mainland Europe, into France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

We have seen quite a significant reduction in the use of the land bridge, but also quite an increase in UK-Northern Ireland trade, with product coming in through Larne and Belfast. A significant amount of Northern Ireland product would previously have come through Dublin. Approximately 40% of product coming into Northern Ireland from Great Britain would have come through Dublin Port, and some of that has now been diverted directly into Larne and Belfast.

There has been a dramatic shift to direct ferry routes. There are about 36 direct ferry routes a week now. That figure would have been less than a dozen this time last year, so it happened in the space of a short period of time. We had conversations about whether the State needed to subsidise direct routes and our response to that was that we believed the market would respond. If you subsidise it, you could undermine market forces in terms of the viability of that. To be fair, the advice from the shipping companies was not to subsidise these routes. If it makes sense to do it from a commercial perspective, it will happen anyway. That is exactly what has happened, and it continues to grow. If anything, we are investing in port infrastructure in mainland Europe to streamline a number of those routes. The Minister of State with responsibility for European affairs, Deputy Thomas Byrne, has visited a number of those ports in relation to the investment that is taking place. The port infrastructure story is a positive one. While there much focus in Northern Ireland on the problems in terms of checks and goods coming in from Great Britain, the ports in the South have just got on with making the changes and trying to make it work, and some of the supply chains have changed accordingly.

In terms of an update on agriculture and on Brexit in general, having a trade and co-operation agreement, TCA, in place is hugely important for agriculture. A big part of our agricultural trade is with Britain, but a big part of Britain's food trade comes to Ireland as well. It is an €8 billion trading relationship back and forth across the Irish sea. It sells much food to us. It is not quite as much as we sell to them, but it is still a very significant figure. Therefore, avoiding tariffs on that trade with a TCA was, and is, hugely important.

In terms of the protocol, anyone in the food industry in Northern Ireland, and certainly the agricultural industry in Northern Ireland, recognises the value of the protocol. Whether you are nationalist or unionist, the capacity for seamless all-island trade in terms of the food industry is really important, and the protocol guarantees that. However, one of the problems with that has been the country of origin rules. What was clear through the Brexit debates was that even though the protocol effectively extends the EU Single Market for goods to Northern Ireland, de facto, the country of origin issues were not solved by that. If a dairy product is produced in Northern Ireland, it is Northern Ireland product. It is not EU origin. Even though it is produced to EU standards and it is produced within the EU Single Market, it is not EU origin. This has allowed that product to be sold into the EU Single Market seamlessly. However, if the product is going to take advantage of EU trade agreements with other parts of the world, because it is not origin EU but origin UK, that creates a difficulty.

I have been raising this issue for three years. We wanted to try to get it resolved in the Brexit negotiations but it was not possible to do that. There was not a big ask from the UK Government to solve this issue. Many dairy processors, such as Lakeland Dairies, source a significant portion of their raw material from farmers in Northern Ireland. That is really important for Northern Ireland agriculture. I would like to see a situation where the EU works to accommodate Northern Ireland produced product in future trade agreements and to look at whether it is possible to amend existing trade agreements to facilitate Northern Ireland product being considered as EU product of origin, because it is EU standard. Therefore, if we are going to have Northern Ireland as part of an extended EU Single Market for goods, then one of the upsides of that is to benefit from EU trade agreements in terms of origin. We have to find a way of doing that that does not undermine the UK origin as well, in terms of potential future UK trade agreements for product produced in Northern Ireland. That is tricky and it has not been solved yet.

The truth is that it has not been that disruptive to the dairy industry. Dairy prices are strong at the moment. Senator Lombard and other dairy farmers will know that. That has not been a big issue yet because there has been a strong demand for dairy products across the EU Single Market. This will only become an issue if you are relying on that product, or mixed pools from North and South, being sold under EU trade agreements to other parts of the world. Companies have managed that in a clever enough way so far, and it certainly has not undermined price or market access so far. However, it is something that the dairy industry would like to have resolved. It is not just dairy; it is other product as well, including beef, sheep meat, poultry product or whatever. We import a lot of poultry product across the Border from Moy Park and others.

It would be useful if we could facilitate a sort of dual labelling, if you like. If a product is produced to EU standards, it should, therefore, be seen as part of the EU system, but of course it is UK product and should, therefore, be facilitated as UK product in the future as well. That is a tricky issue that is not resolved yet. If we can get the protocol settled in terms of its implementation on the basics through the negotiations between the Šefovi and Frost teams, then hopefully, through partnership, we might be able to find ways of dealing with that country of origin issue over time. Luckily, for now, dairy prices are strong so the industry has managed to cope with that country of origin issue, from what I have heard. It is not an anomaly; it is a real issue. This could be problematic if there were an oversupply of dairy product in the EU and people were looking to rely much more on access through trade agreements and so on. Those are the long answers to three short questions.