Mr. Peter Conway:

I will go back for a moment to some of the ideas raised by Senator Feighan and also Deputy Brendan Smith in terms of solutions. Deputy Breathnach also made a contribution in that regard. If I could just look at the ports industry for a moment, the way I have to describe this is as a double whammy because, first, the ports throughout the UK and including Northern Ireland have a challenge we are dealing with on the maritime side with European Union countries. Just over 50% of UK trade is with countries in the European Union, so something has to happen there. Some people say it will be just the same as how we currently deal with trade coming from Canada. That does operate fairly much on a modern basis, digitally, with very little paper involved, but the scale of the systems that are required to handle all of that in the future if there are tariffs will be colossal.

That is one challenge, but the bigger challenge for the main ports in the North - Derry, Warrenpoint and Belfast - relates to our landward trade, which is the trade we have once the goods are landed or prepared for export. In Warrenpoint's case, 48% of our overall trade is to and from the Republic. That breaks down in different markets. If one takes the timber business, the majority of that, 70%, comes to the South. That is because of the major construction market in the South versus the North. When we had the recession back in 2009, we could see for a short time before that that the recession would hit because our timber volumes dramatically dropped. When one takes steel, for example, most of the steel that was used for the construction of the new terminal in Dublin Airport came through Warrenpoint. One might ask why that was. I suspect it is to do with competition, price and costs. This is all good for the economy both North and South. In terms of agricultural goods such as grain, the importation is split both ways. It is a double whammy and it is a serious challenge to business, not just the ports' business but all businesses because in this day and age we cannot put ourselves in silos. We must think of marketing on both sides of the Border.

On the solutions, the Norway-Sweden solution seems to work quite well but Norway is not in the customs union and makes major contributions to the EU. That model could work but there are still spot checks on that border. It is not just as it is today on the Border between North and South here, which does not really exist. One can drive to the North and not know the Border is there. Switzerland has borders with France, Italy, Germany and Austria, which are all in the European Union, and it seems to be able to manage all right. We should not be a naysayer for everything but it is not going to be as easy as it is there because it makes contributions also to the EU and it is a very wealthy country, so that works for Switzerland. The border between Canada and the United States of America has special arrangements for cross-border workers who do not need to stop at the border. Their cars can go into a separate lane to go through, but there are checks on that border also. These solutions being put forward are worth investigating but we need to have a tailored solution, as Dr. Patterson has said, with special arrangements for Northern Ireland because of the geography, relationships, politics and people on this island.