Ms Kerry Curran:

I thank the committee for inviting InterTrade Ireland here today to share its plans for Brexit. We see Brexit as one of the biggest prevailing challenges for the all-island economy and we primarily want to see more businesses planning for that challenge. As an organisation we established a cross-disciplinary Brexit team in November 2016 to look primarily at the development of our Brexit advisory service and our Brexit research programme. That team has also examined the impact of Brexit on our organisation as a whole and on our service provision. If I may, I will share a little more about the research programme and the advisory service.

In terms of our research programme, it is very important to us as an organisation that we respond in an objective manner, basing the decisions we make, the advice we give and the operational service we deliver on evidence-based research. To that end, we have developed a multifaceted research programme to help us better understand the implications of Brexit on existing trade structures across the island and on the sectors and business types which may be most impacted by Brexit. In addition we have developed our business monitor from the third quarter of 2016 to provide us with additional insights on the impact of Brexit on businesses to date, on the concerns that businesses have and on the planning that is taking place for Brexit.

From our research programme, we already have two reports that have been completed to date. The first one, with which the committee will be familiar, is Potential Impact of WTO Tariffs on Cross-Border Trade, which looked at the impact of a hard Brexit at an aggregate sectoral and product level and it identified a potential drop of 16% under both WTO tariffs and non-tariff barriers on that cross-border trade. That impact disproportionately affected the agriculture sector and, in particular for Ireland, the export of beef products to Northern Ireland.

We have a second report, which has been completed and which we hope to have published next week. It looks specifically at the integrated nature of cross-Border trade on the island of Ireland and at supply chain linkages.

It shows a very high level of integration of supply chains on the island of Ireland and the fact that, across all sectors, it is much higher between Ireland and Northern Ireland than Ireland and Great Britain. The report also shows that businesses have a very high reliance on that cross-Border trade. For more than one-quarter of Irish businesses, their export market is Northern Ireland. That cross-Border trade is primarily in intermediate goods, that is, the goods are component parts within the supply chain. Further information on that will be published next week.

There is a full range of research, both under way and forthcoming in the next number of months, on cross-Border trade in services, in the ability of businesses to absorb the cost of Brexit, on the implications of divergence and access to skills and on tariff barriers. All those will help us, as an organisation, better identify which supports businesses will need during the transition period and after Brexit.

The Brexit Advisory Service is the business-facing arm of InterTradeIreland’s Brexit supports. We have been these out and about across the whole island - from Dundalk, Monaghan, Cavan, Offaly, Sligo, Cork and Mayo - and have planned a raft of events for 2018 which InterTradeIreland is using to engage with businesses in order to help them plan, act and engage for the best possible Brexit outcome. In addition to these events, we have also prepared and made available Brexit fact sheets and a glossary of terms on the website. We have provided access to a tariff database that gives businesses free advice on how tariffs might impact them in the event of a hard Brexit and we also have a Brexit start to plan voucher scheme which gives businesses up to €2,000 of professional advice and guidance to help them in the process of planning for Brexit.

That is a whirlwind tour of our services but I hope it demonstrates to the committee how InterTradeIreland has fully taken on board the challenge of Brexit. We live and breathe it. We have redirected a significant proportion of our resources and organisational effort to ensure that we have the evidence base to understand the challenge of Brexit and we are also working directly with businesses to help them in their preparations regardless of the outcome of the current trade negotiations.