Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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I welcome the witnesses and thank them for their written presentations, which were helpful. Brexit has been an unprecedented disruptor. I know it is the job of the witnesses to be positive but the best we have been doing in recent years, both with the trade and co-operation agreement and in negotiating the Windsor Framework, has been to mitigate as far as we can the negative impacts of that disruptor, which created two different markets on this island. There are ongoing issues to see how we can improve things.

I have a number of questions.

We had the opportunity last Thursday for discussions with the new Minister for the Cabinet Office, Nick Thomas-Symonds, who indicated to us a degree of optimism about conducting a proper analysis of where we are at and seeing if things can be improved without any major structural change such as joining the Single Market or the customs union, which will not happen for the foreseeable. I am interested to hear the witnesses' preparation for that. Mr. Thomas-Symonds also indicated to us that next year there will be a significant summit between the UK Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, the President-elect of the European Council, António Costa, and Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission. They seem to present an optimistic view of what might come of that.

Are any of the witnesses' organisations in touch with their membership to see what can practically be done? We had meetings last week with, for example, Lakeland Dairies, which is a big cross-Border company. It crosses the Border hundreds of times daily and is very worried about the expiration of the veterinary agreement at the end of next year. It is very anxious that there be a replacement veterinary agreement and a phytosanitary agreement. This obviously has separate implications for the Republic of Ireland directing into Great Britain but from the witnesses' own perspective, what preparation has been done and what practical proposals, if any, will they present for that?

I have a second question regarding Ms Hearty's interesting response to Deputy Harkin earlier. In the context of companies that already have been operating for years on both sides of the Border or through joint manufacturing, how has that worked out? I was interested in the comment that some people were accidentally exporting. Is there a formula for dealing with that sort of co-operative work that we could facilitate, if possible, without having onerous regulation for it?

I am afraid I come from the south east, where we have benefited greatly from Brexit through the port in Rosslare. Direct sailings have gone from six weekly to 46 weekly. That is an unexpected bonus for us. However, we are also aware from speaking to hauliers, it is a point I put to them, that many goods heading to Northern Ireland would have taken the southern corridor route into Rosslare or the central corridor route into Dublin. Instead, they are now going the land route up the British coast, which is adding enormously to travel miles. I know one criterion is to reduce the environmental impact but all that extra travel is impacting on cost, fuel consumption and so on. Do the witnesses think there is any issue in mitigating that?