Mr. Niall Cody:

I thought when the Deputy was asking her question that she was going to ask whether there was a degree of panic but she asked whether there is a degree of planning and I was going to agree.

We have put a lot of thought into what will be the impact of Brexit on customs controls. In a way, excise and VAT all flow from customs when it involves third-country imports and exports. The issue is confused because it depends on the actual model that is taken. There are various different models and we are looking at the contingency. There is the Norway agreement, which has a level of cross-border checking between Norway and Sweden even though they are part of the Single Market. There is a Turkey arrangement that has Turkey as part of the customs union for the EU but it all involves a level of customs declarations, not tariffs, so there is a process. We have done scoping of the implications. One can compare the present with the time before the Single Market in 1993 or before we joined the EU in 1973 and 99.9% customs control of the legitimate trade is handled electronically. It is all based on a risk-based approach to flagging goods for physical presentation. We have done an analysis of our IT systems to be able to cope with the scale if customs procedures will be required between the UK and the Republic.

The issue is that the level of imports and exports from non-EU third countries will double when the UK leave. That is the scale. The values will double. The numbers will probably be something in the region of five times that because there are far more small importers and exporters. For years they have not even considered themselves as being importers and exporters so there are significant implications. Just to scale up our IT systems for customs procedures would probably cost something in the region of €3 million.

In the budget on Tuesday, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform mentioned in his Brexit chapter that additional resources are being provided to us for planning around Brexit. What happened in this year’s budget is that we looked for an indicative number of something in the region of an additional 40 resources. Thanks to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, we got that approved but we will not be bringing them in now because it depends on what happens in March. By the end of next year we would expect to have additional resources.

We had started a process of reorganising our customs policy division. The division, for about the past 15 years, has been based in Nenagh as part of the overall decentralisation process. Last year, we had decided to pull back some of it to Dublin because the problem about having a customs policy area in the middle of the country is that the people who work in the ports are not easily moved in and one does not keep refreshing with practical operational things.

It is like we must have known something was coming, but we did not. We have started that process. We are looking at how to facilitate legitimate trade because first we must concentrate on how to let legitimate trade work. There are significant problems. Deputy Cassells mentioned the cross-Border movement in the agricultural sector. This is an all island market and theoretically there are customs procedures. If we look at the supply chain of any of the big multiples, it is just a stock control system for them at present, but theoretically there are potentially imports and exports post-Brexit.

We are putting a lot of thought into it. Obviously we cannot negotiate agreements with HM Revenue & Customs, HMRC, but we have excellent relationships with it. We have bilateral meetings at board level on an 18 month basis and we have ongoing bilaterals on practical issues. We hope that whatever the outcome, legitimate trade will be facilitated as much as possible.