Ms Carol Lynch:

When exporting from Ireland to Great Britain, or importing into Great Britain – this mirrors what happens with Great British companies importing into Ireland or elsewhere in the EU – the company has to lodge a customs declaration and account for its customs duties and its import VAT. If the products are food and agri products, the company has to get health certificates and be registered with the department. If selling in the UK, there will be another VAT point, along with complying with the UK rules for the specific products one is trading, as is similar with the EU. The regulatory requirements at the border can mount up, and that has become apparent to a large extent this year. The system was in place for European exporters and, as I have said, it has been in place for Great British importers into Ireland since Brexit kicked off. Irish companies had a derogation whereby they could choose, when their products arrived in Great Britain, not to lodge their customs declaration then but to do so within six months.

I would say the rules with regard to whether a company should be established in the UK to act as importer were not applied with significant rigour. The health certificates have really only started to be introduced. That avalanche of regulation came into effect as the derogations for Irish exporters were removed. These issues have started to come to the fore as HMRC has become more active in auditing and as the rules have been applied more strictly.

As Mr. Lynam said, the UK has the right now, as it is outside the EU, to apply the customs regulations within the context of the WTO rules, in its own manner. It is correct that we could not have a common travel area for goods. What I was suggesting was whether we could look at Irish companies, which export to the UK, establishing and having a UK company in place, or whether that could be resolved in some way. That is the particular regulatory issue for Irish companies.

The reason for having that, as is the case in Europe, is that if you are not established in the territory and something goes wrong, such as the wrong customs duties, the wrong SPS requirements or the wrong VAT, who do you go after? In order to go after someone, to knock on the door, essentially you have to have the established company. However, that starts a tsunami of different requirements that are behind it, when you start to dig into it and ask, "How do I import or export, if I am not established?" and say, "I will just get an agent." However, you realise that you cannot get an agent, so what happens next?