Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

18. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if he is developing contingency plans for businesses for a situation in which the landbridge through Britain becomes unusable for Irish lorries travelling to and from the Continent; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30826/18]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Government’s contingency planning for Brexit has from the start included issues relating to the continued effective use of the UK landbridge. This is a priority for the Government given its importance in getting Irish products to market on continental Europe, in particular with regard to agri-food products. This is an important issue with regard to protecting the competitiveness of our producers and ensuring continued unhampered access to the EU Single Market.

A Landbridge Project Group is chaired by my Department and involves all relevant Government Departments, including the Department of Finance, the Revenue Commissioners, Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and the Marine, Department of Health, Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport and the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation. The Project Group has met four times to date.

Work on is being taken forward in two strands. The first is through the Article 50 negotiations. In the mandate provided to the European Commission by the EU27 in May 2017, it was agreed that the Withdrawal Agreement will take account of Ireland’s unique geographic situation, including the transit of goods (to and from Ireland via the UK). The need to address this issue as part of the distinct strand of the negotiations on Irish specific issues was agreed between the EU and the UK in the Joint Progress report of December 2017.

To this end, I welcome the UK’s formal notification to the European Commission of its intention to join the Common Transit Convention. The UK’s accession to the Common Travel Convention will play an important role in ensuring Ireland’s access to other EU Member States via the UK landbridge.

The second strand is our work with the European Commission and other affected Member States (Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden) with a view to preparing EU ports to facilitate the transit of EU products through the UK once it becomes a third country through the use of EU rules on internal transit set out under the Union’s Custom Code. This work is intensifying and good progress is being made.

Our work on the landbridge must also include the possibility of a no-deal or worse-case outcome.

To this end, relevant Departments have now been tasked by the Government to roll out detailed Action Plans with a view to advancing, as appropriate, the mitigating measures which have been identified in the areas of their responsibility from the planning to the implementation phase. In line with this approach, the Government has already approved a number of key Brexit preparedness measures focused on East-West trade which will also take account of the continued use of the landbridge.