Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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Let us tease out some of the contingency issues. This committee is very conscious of the fact that this is contingency planning and if Revenue was not engaged in such planning, I would be the first to criticise it. I have huge regard for the office of the Revenue Commissioners and how it has operated over a substantial period of time. We heard last week from Mr. Irwin about trade facilitation or customs posts. In his opening statement today, Mr. Cody said that 6% of import declarations were checked and less than 2% were physically checked in 2016. These checks were carried out in approved warehouses, ports or airports. Obviously, in the context of Brexit, on the island of Ireland there are many routes for import and export. We have had a discussion about the Border, and I am not going to split hairs about whether we are talking about "on" the Border or 15 km away from the Border. If we have to conduct the checks, as was suggested by Ms Lynch, where will they take place? I am trying to think about this from the perspective of my own county of Donegal, for example. There are numerous Border crossings in Donegal. Does the contingency planning provide that there would be one warehouse per county or three warehouses, for example? If people are being diverted to warehouses, that could be a huge imposition. If I am crossing the Border at Derry as opposed to Pettigo, for example, and have to travel 30 km to the Donegal warehouse because I am part of the 2% or 6% that is being checked, I could lose one or two hours in terms of transit time and there would be additional fuel costs too. What are we thinking about here? Are we thinking about multiple warehouses in each county along the Border or is it one facility per county?