Mr. Eugene Drennan:

Quite a lot from Donegal, or what is left of that trade, cross Northern Ireland, travel into Scotland and then must drive down the country. There is quite a mixture of stuff, which has been relatively straightened out.

In terms of France, general loads go through the UK but this type of goods, namely, fresh goods, must get to market. The T1 form or customs documentation must be finalised in the port of arrival in France. We have commitments from France to terminate. It used to be a town called Boulogne-sur-Mer. Through our negotiations with the French, we were given a facility in some of the ports we use from the UK into Calais or one of the others but the deficiencies there are very bad. We have had trouble with our customs here where they tell they have terminated the T1 form. The officials will say everything is okay and the truck driver can go but will not sign or stamp the form. However, if you pay €25 at the filling station up the road, which has an agency, then that is terminated immediately.

To be seamless, if we are allowed now into the UK IT system, and if the movement of goods is evident and obvious to everybody, then we should have seamless passage from Dover to Calais when we have to use that route. The UK and the EU have it so why are trucks being stopped and delayed if they have a trusted trader or whatever arrangement? We should have a pretty seamless system. Here, in the arrangements to date about seamless efficiencies, we were very poor in the development of IT for Brexit at the start. It was won on tender and developed by another country, which did not seem to have a grasp of the totality of trade between Ireland and the EU, and Ireland to the UK. In the last two years the IT system has broken down a dozen times. There was a major outage before Christmas, which caused mayhem because it is overloaded.