Mr. Stephen Kelly:

We are a miserable lot in the North. We are never happier than when we are miserable. We like to moan and groan about things. That is a really happy place for us, so it is interesting that the Deputy has picked up that we are probably a bit more positive today. What we have had to deal with since 2016 has been challenging for us all, so we are maybe now just facing forward a little, even for our own sanity, never mind anything else. It is interesting she picked up on that.

As regards her question about new or returning barriers, Northern Ireland is not in the EU. The protocol and, by extension, the Windsor Framework do not mean that Northern Ireland is in the EU; it is just a series of roles that Northern Ireland businesses have to adhere to in order to avoid a border on the island of Ireland. Even in the manufacturing community, our manufacturers cannot lead on public procurement projects in Ireland, for instance. Services are not covered at all. We do not have freedom of movement. A Northern Irish entrepreneur cannot establish a business in the South unless there is a resident of the State on the board. All those things that were not in place when Northern Ireland, as part of the UK, was in the EU alongside Ireland have returned now. I refer to the recognition of professional qualifications, etc. The two economies have never been so far apart since before we were jointly members of the EU. The challenge or the call that Northern Ireland is still part of the EU is simply not true. We left the EU as part of the UK, and barriers now exist that did not exist prior to both countries acceding to the EU.

We have seen the Irish Government introduce good economic plans or programmes. I will give a couple of examples. There was a liming scheme for improving soil quality on farms. The initial rules for that basically completely excluded the mills in the North that produced the lime. It was blatant. Lime can only be bought from producers in the South. That was an unnecessary barrier to the all-island economy. That first piece was removed but then the criteria in terms of the type of lime that could be used meant that no mill in the North could do it anyway. There are passive barriers and some barriers deliberately being put in place in terms of that all-island economy, in the interest, to be fair, of producers in Ireland. In one respect, that is exactly the right thing to do.

The new DRS system is open, and our new DRS will launch on 1 February, I think. As somebody who resides on the Border, I can see across County Donegal those new deposit return schemes, where people will bring their plastic bottles or PET bottles. Many drinks producers in Northern Ireland cannot participate in that scheme, despite the fact that some of them sell millions of units in Ireland, because they cannot get the QR code or the logo. When they ask where they can get those, no one will tell them. There are barriers being placed here all the time. There are probably good reasons, from a taxation point of view or a waste transfer point of view, for Derry not gathering up a hundred thousand bottles and just taking them up from Donegal and starting to claim the tax back on them. I can understand that. However, thought should be given to how businesses North and South should be participating in both those things.

European rules on CBAM were launched on 1 October. It is really going to come in from the beginning of February. The Revenue Commissioners in the South are contacting engineering firms in Ireland and have said, "You need to begin the reporting on this." Businesses in the South have said, "This is a problem for us now." They went immediately to their supply chain and said, "This is your problem, not my problem." They contacted their suppliers for engineering products in the North and said, "You need to give us all this information for CBAM." Nobody has any idea about it because we are not part of it. We have not been introduced to it. When we talk to the UK Government, it says that is an EU thing and none of its business. When we talk to the Irish Government, it says it is waiting for guidance from the EU. When we talk to the EU, we say we are trying to work out what is going on. There will always be these wrinkles, these little bumps in the road, in terms of the relationship with the UK and, by extension, Northern Ireland out of the EU.

We need structures in place to ensure two things. One is that before either the EU or the UK moves on divergence, it thinks about what the mitigation should be and ensures that the mitigation is in place before the policy is introduced. The second is that there are structures, processes and people in place to manage what the fallout from those divergence issues may be.

The Department of Foreign Affairs has been useful to the business community in Northern Ireland during the whole Brexit process. We have had incredibly good relationships with officials and successive Ministers. That has been critical to getting where we are today. We are only at the starting line of what Brexit looks like for Ireland and Northern Ireland. We will have this in perpetuity now because the UK is not going to join the EU again. There will always be issues and problems which will be identifiable first on the island of Ireland. The UK's new import border comes into play on 1 February 2024. Only at that point will the rest of the UK understand what Brexit looks like because there was an open door until that point in time. That will be a big challenge for Irish traders selling goods into the island of Britain. Equally, it is a challenge for us because we are meant to have unfettered access. Dublin Port is critical for us getting goods to market in Great Britain. The next few months will present a series of problems and issues. The Windsor Framework will continue to roll out until October 2024. We need as many people as possible continuing to talk, taking an interest and, potentially, taking a Northern Irish voice to the European Parliament while we are not there in person.