Dr. Martina Lawless:

Unfortunately, the opposite is probably the case. Northern Ireland as a relatively small economic unit is not able to replace all the trade that we were getting in from Great Britain and some of that has been diverted further afield. When we look at trade flows, we are always very conscious of distance. Generally, trading over shorter distances is much more efficient and cheaper. We have considered distance not so much from the perspective of carbon footprint, but more as an actual cost of getting the goods to market etc., although the two are obviously very closely correlated and it is an area that could be gone into in greater depth.