Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Not for a while. I look to the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, Deputy Simon Coveney, to outline his position on this issue.

For over four months, the Taoiseach has denied there will be customs checks along the Border. In fact, he denied that the Government was looking for locations for such checks even though that was patently untrue and was verified by the Minister for Finance who confirmed that Revenue was looking for such locations. The position of the Taoiseach was also contradicted by Michel Barnier in his address to the Oireachtas last week, when he said, "Customs controls are part of the EU border management. They protect the Single Market. They protect our food safety and our standards".

The economic implications of customs checks for the two economies on this island, especially Border communities, are enormous. Currently, island-wide trade generates over €3 billion annually. Around 60% of exports in the North are to the Irish State. Over 30,000 people travel across the Border every day for work, study and recreation. Everybody knows that if Brexit leads to tariffs and customs checks the effect will be devastating, in particular beyond the Pale in rural Ireland. Jim Woulf, chief executive of Dairygold, said, "You'll have decimation in rural Ireland with the beef, and the dairy and the mushrooms, you have the drink industry".

The Taoiseach is bound to know this. Why continue with the fiction that there will be no customs checks? As far as I can establish, this is based on the wholly meaningless statement from the British Primer Minister that there will be no return to the borders of the past. As I said, Mr. Barnier said customs controls are part of EU border management, which the Taoiseach now knows.

Clearly, negotiations are going on as we speak before their adoption at the General Affairs Council on 22 May. There is time to press for the EU to take on board the proposition for designated special status for the North within the European Union. Would it not be better to do that instead of pedalling the pretence that there will be no customs checks when the Government is looking for such locations?

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