Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We are dealing with Northern Ireland and New Decade, New Approach. One of Ireland's legacy issues that I would be concerned about is trade between our country and the UK. Trade between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland has surged ahead. The latest official trade figures show that exports of goods from the Republic to the North increased by almost €2.6 billion between January 2021 and the end of September 2021 compared with the same period a year earlier, while imports from the North to the Republic climbed by €2.8 billion.

By anyone's standards, this is a success. However, when looking at this a bit closer, it seems Northern Ireland is the winner here because the regulation of imports from the UK is much easier to navigate when compared with the customs in Dublin. These figures can be verified by the customs regulation figures and practices. All regulations cost consumers money. The customs union code is designed to contribute to and harmonise implementation of customs rules and procedures across the EU. The code also implies that the system should be fully electronic and the systems should have unified data flow.

I am not talking here about the Northern Ireland protocol, which the EU rejects, but about the EU's commitment to mitigate the trade disruption, which only affects Ireland. We know that Brexit happened but it was accepted there would be an easement of regulation between Ireland and the UK. Northern Ireland is getting an easement of restrictions that does not exist in the South. For example, we import cereals every day from Kellogg's in the UK from and we import flour and bakery products. It is practically the same order every day, day after day, week after week.

The delays in our ports and in customs are causing importers to move away to different countries. The result is pushing the UK to markets in Argentina, since it is easier to import and export from there. The bottom line is that the cost to us of importing produce from the UK is now higher for the hauliers, which drives inflation. That drives the prices for food and basic goods in our houses through the roof. The Government needs to ease restrictions in our ports so that people in Ireland can be fed at a reasonable cost.

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