Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I realise the line Ministers are not here because everyone is taking their turn to lay out their own Department's position. My party's position was well articulated by our senior spokesman, Deputy Lisa Chambers, and I do not want to go over that. Obviously, we will support the Bill. I think everyone in the House is donning the green jersey in that regard and we all hope none of this ever comes to pass.

However, it would be remiss of me not to be critical of the timing of it. I can appreciate that the Ministers may have thought, or the Government may have taken the position, that we should not have the UK thinking we are fully prepared and we do not need a backstop at all, and that therefore we should leave this legislation until the last minute. As Deputy O'Dea has said, with approximately ten days to go, time is short. I have a problem with that because this is not enabling legislation to allow for certain measures to be implemented or to allow for certain things to happen but rather is concerned with the tangibles that will affect various sectors in society and what will be needed in terms of support and compensation to keep people in jobs and in their livelihoods if disaster strikes and there is a no-deal Brexit. In that regard, the kind of consultation that has taken place with the various sectors has fallen short. While the Government might have wanted to be careful not to show its hand and its negotiating position within the EU to the British, it has been remiss in not fully engaging with the various sectors in society, social and commercial, in preparing the sort of measures that it will have to implement to keep Ireland's socio-economic fabric functioning. Being from one of the six Border counties, I and my constituents are probably set to be affected more significantly than anywhere else in the country.

I am sure we, like everybody, are suffering from Brexit fatigue. It is like War and Peacecubed to the power of infinity in terms of length. It is like a pantomime in terms of the ongoing calls of "You do not need the backstop", "You need the backstop", "We are not reopening the backstop", "Yes, they will reopen the backstop", and so on. The Sky News House of Commons coverage would give us supreme confidence in how we do our business here when one looks at times to see the car crash which is happening in Westminster.

As I said, we need more leadership from Government on this in terms of the tangibles. To take the dairying sector alone as an example, 20% of the milk pool in the six Border counties comes from the North of Ireland. In fact, the North of Ireland itself does not have the processing capacity to deal with that milk and it comes south to Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, Cavan, Monaghan and Louth. As it stands, if there was a no-deal Brexit, it would be a nightmare with the number of loads that have to come across the Border for processing. There have been negotiations between some in the dairying sector and Revenue on inward processing relief, but I am told the administrative burden involved in that would be like a tonne of paperwork for each load of milk that is coming in. We need to be cognisant of measures being put in place to ensure that the administrative burden is not prohibitive to businesses. Considering that 20% of the raw material is coming south, the dairy sector is one that will cause major problems. The three co-operatives that are most affected would be Aurivo in the north west, Glanbia and Lakeland. There is a major issue with how those people will do their business and there is nothing in the legislation today to show or give guidance on how things will operate. That is why I say that, from a trade perspective, the Government needs to be liaising with the sectoral interests. In the context of dairying, this would be with the various co-operatives or their umbrella organisation, Ornua.

Equally, on dairying, we are the biggest supplier of cheddar cheese, for example, to Tesco, and substantial suppliers of butter into the UK. For example, 23% of all cheese sold in Britain comes from here. It is priced at €3,000 per tonne. In the event of a no-deal Brexit, that price becomes €4,671 per tonne. The tariff is €1,671 under the GATT rules. It would be a disaster. How will the Government square that circle? What level of compensation is in place? What funds are in place? Is it coming from the EU? Do we have to come up with our own resources?

Similarly, with beef, a significant amount of our beef, and up to 40% of fresh beef, goes into the UK market. The tariffs there, depending on what it is, are between 40% and 70%. How will the Government cover that? I am from the north west and many would say the four or five counties there are the engine room of the suckler herd nationally which produces much of our beef. What will the Government do for those farmers? Many of them are small farming families dependent on modest incomes. All of a sudden their product will be up to 70% less competitive than it was a day before, and that is in an era where there is already a beef crisis where the multiples, factories, etc. are leveraging their positions at the expense of small farming families. That is something that needs to be addressed.

Returning to the topic of dairying for the moment, as it stands according to Ornua and the various co-operatives, there is no space in a cold store or chill in Britain at present because they have stockpiled six to nine months' supply of butter and cheese. In cold stores and chills, it is literally stacked in the aisles. That involves a cash outlay from our dairying sector so far of €200 million to €400 million, and that is before there is no deal, a deal or whatever. There has been a tremendous cost on the sector and that needs to be taken on board.

The haulage sector is totally in the dark and feels that it has received no clarification on the situation regarding non-Irish drivers crossing what the Minister, Deputy Ross, likes to refer to as a land bridge. This will have a detrimental impact on time-sensitive products such as fresh food, meat and dairy products. Incredibly, when tackled about this at the Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport, where the members of all parties and none stated he needs to engage with the sector, the Minister's response was that he could not see how the Department publicly discussing using the UK as a handy land bridge and discussing its vital importance with haulage representatives would help our negotiating position, in that the UK would not appreciate being little more than a convenient gateway to Europe for Ireland. That frightens me. As I stated at the beginning, I accept we need to be cautious and strategic in our negotiating position, but not at the expense of the appropriate engagement with sectoral interests. I have mentioned dairying, beef finishing, etc. Here is a prime example, with haulage, of the Minister not engaging and feeling the good excuse for that is that, strategically, it could weaken our negotiating position. I do not buy that. It worries me.

The Departments of Business, Enterprise and Innovation and Agriculture, Food and the Marine have jointly leveraged Exchequer funding of €300 million for a loan scheme for businesses impacted by Brexit, but 40% of the fund has been ring-fenced for the food sector. From responses to parliamentary questions that I have seen, of 42 eligible applications from food companies, only eight have been sanctioned for finance under this loan scheme. This effectively means one in five eligible loan applications for the sector has been approved. It is like a box-ticking exercise. That funding is there. What sort of underwriting criteria is the Government applying? Are they prohibitive? Is the Government looking to give this money out to help people and give them the supports they need or is it talking the talk without walking the walk? If the Government is putting measures in place, let us make them available to people. Certainly, the lending rate so far does not engender confidence. With one in five or only eight out of 42 eligible applications sanctioned, if there is a no-deal Brexit, how will the Government get funding to where it is needed quickly? A prohibitive underwriting or application criteria will not assist us. The response would suggest to me that that particular scheme is not fit for purpose in that regard.

Apart from that, obviously my party will support the legislation. We will don the green jersey. I fear, however, that the Government adopting a strategic position of not showing its hand in its negotiating position means it is not adequately prepared in terms of tangible measures it will be expected to implement instantaneously in a no-deal Brexit scenario.

That is getting cash to people who need it and ensuring businesses can operate. The absence of the appropriate sectoral consultation is telling and very worrying, so we must up our game very much in that regard.

The six Border counties, including that of the Leas-Cheann Comhairle, my county and the others I mentioned earlier are clearly going to be the most affected. Post Brexit, deal or no deal, a special package of measures must be made available for those counties with respect to farming, agriculture and food production, infrastructure, cross-Border connectivity and capital city and port and airport connectivity. That is for Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, Cavan, Monaghan and Louth, which is already pretty well serviced with motorways, etc. The rest of us are not. I would like to see the Government prioritising this and not using the post-Brexit scenario as an opportunity to resource parts of the country that may be better placed to meet challenges than the six counties on the Border. I hope the Government will be able to make that a priority.

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