Mr. Conor Mulvihill:

The only one of significant exporters. We think only three other countries in the EU are without a state-backed export credit insurance scheme. It comes down to one word: competitiveness. We are expected to diversify from the British market and engage in hand-to-hand combat with our colleagues across the EU, including France, the Netherlands and Denmark, into new markets but they have export credit insurance and we do not. Our issue falls between two stools. It is a Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment competency but we are dealing more with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. We are calling on the committee to energise our work on export credit insurance.

The island of Ireland dairy industry is unifying. It is Ireland's model all-island industry. We have an exposure of approximately 4 billion litres of milk in all-island dairy products. The developments between the Secretary of State, Michael Gove, and Commission vice-president, Maroš Šefcovic, on the implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol are very welcome. If there is a deal, we must move forward very quickly in getting all-island dairy product recognised in European free trade agreements, FTAs, and also to have the access to private storage aids and intervention for those products in case of market crisis. We would really appreciate the committee's support on that.