Brendan Smith warns of major economic shock from Brexit

Firstly I want to compliment Minister Coveney and Minister Borne and their officials in the department on preparing this legislation and I know other departments fed into it quite necessarily as well. This is an important legislation and it is welcome from many points of view. It ensures reciprocal access to health services for residents of Ireland and Britain and indeed Deputy Burke has outlined that in good detail. It ensures the European Health Insurance Card for residents of Northern Ireland should they lose that particular facility when Britain post the first of January next. It continues the financial support for Irish third level students in British colleges. It maintains continuity of social protection arrangements in the common travel area. It protects employees in Ireland of a company that has been made insolvent in Britain. It enables extradition between Ireland and Britain when Britain leaves the European arrest warrant scheme. So these are issues that we deal with on a daily basis and that we take for granted. But they are very very important protections for our citizens. In barely seven weeks time Britain will be outside not just the European Union but most importantly and very regrettably will be outside the customs union and the single market. The trading and economic relationship between Ireland and Britain which has been gradually and progressively aligning and harmonising for almost 50 years will receive a cold hard shock. Those almost 50 years of progress will be very substantially reversed and that has to be a cause of concern to all of us. Moving goods to and from Ireland and Britain will become more expensive and cumbersome. Not to mention the added difficulties of trading goods with our EU partners when those goods must travel through the so called land bridge that runs right through Britain. It is not just about goods. Much of the economic and trade activity across our two islands is in services and increasingly so in recent years. The obstacles, costs and impediments to the trading of goods are replicated when it comes to trading services with the added difficulty of data transfers and an area where there is increasing uncertainty. We have been seeing the battles over the protection and integrity of personal data transferred to the US being played out in our courts. The two methods introduced to permit businesses to transfer the personal data of EU citizens to the US have both been struck down. Safe harbour and privacy shield. Could we face the same problems and difficulties in transferring data to Britain when Britain is outside the EU and no longer under the aegis of the GDPR? Our economy unfortunately is about to receive a major jolt if not a seismic shock and yet with just seven weeks to go we remain unsure as to the nature and construction of the new relationship. And that is not the fault of anybody in our state or in government at political or official level. It is extraordinary that we cannot state with any certainty now, with only seven weeks to go, if there will be a post Brexit deal between Britain and the European Union, never mind what it will contain. I know Anthe Shook and the Minister for Foreign Affairs have repeatedly said that we anticipate that there will be such a deal and that is an important message to give out. I know that there is very little evidence that can be said right now as if government were to talk about a no deal situation, it would be seized upon by the Brexiteers in the British government as evidence that the EU just wants to punish England for having the temerity to leave the EU. But the delay in reaching agreement and negotiations is going to cause businesses in my constituency and many, many other areas and right across the border on both sides. We are working in the hope that there will be some last-minute agreement on such outstanding issues as fishing and a level playing field. But we are also seeing deadline after deadline pass. I know that Minister Coveney spoke at the committee on the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement recently and we all spoke about the need to implement the withdrawal agreement and the Northern Ireland Protocol, not just implement them but implement them in good faith as well. We know that any agreement reached in negotiations led by Michelle Barney and David Frost, we need to go through a ratification process and yet we watch the clock tick down. It is worth asking the question, just how sustainable and long-lasting will any agreement reached in these stop-start talks with the representatives of the current British Government be? A British National Audit Office report on the British border preparedness published last week makes it clear that there will be significant disruption at the end of the transition period because of inadequate infrastructure and IT systems. The report also said that there was lack of preparation on the part of British businesses. What it does not say is how British businesses can be expected to prepare themselves for the post January the first black hole when their own Government has not a clue what it is doing or trying to achieve. Irish businesses are in a similar position though the Irish government and state agencies have been working hard in so far as they can to help businesses to prepare by offering its best assessment of what the situation will look like and very importantly as well giving financial support to businesses to prepare. After January 1st I know that all of us as public representatives will be inundated with queries and questions about economic operators registration identification numbers. These are the unique numbers as members know, the unique reference numbers that allow businesses to import or export with countries outside the European Union and are required in all customs declaration forums. We are going to see the return of the customs broker, a job title we had thought had gone the way of the glimmer man. Companies exporting goods will now have to have customs brokers and have a mechanism to pay the customs duty and the right information documentation to support the importation of goods. How companies large and small do business is going to change. Almost no one running a business today will have any muscle memory of operating customs processes. I know this will be a problem for all companies but given the issues, scale and the capacity of larger companies to deal with this, it will be a much bigger issue for the small to medium enterprises. Over a series of speeches here over the past few years, both in the plenary session in the Dáil and at various committees, I have set out in the starkest terms my particular anxieties about the very many economic and social problems that Brexit heralds for my community and my region both North and South. For the past three years, we have been feeling the early impact on the agri-food sector and we recall the huge difficulties the mushroom sector faced immediately after the Brexit referendum when sterling fell in value. Similarly, the dairy industry which is a major economic contributor across the border region with large producers such as Lakeland Dairies and others where they source the raw material from both sides of the border. Thankfully, since 1998 we have witnessed a huge growth in the all Ireland economy. Thankfully today most of our major food businesses, be it in dairy, pig meat, sheep meat or beef, they are all Ireland businesses. So those industries are true cross-border industries but they still have a lot of uncertainty in how they'll go about their day-to-day trading, how raw product collected in one jurisdiction, it's processed now in the other jurisdiction, what will be the mechanics and the modus operandi of getting that product to its destination for processing and then to its final destination and onto the shelf. Our region and our communities are effectively being held hostage and used as leverage by a Tory party driven by what we have to regard as Brexit madness. As I have said here many times, this is not the action of a good neighbour. Last June I said here in another debate that the government must prepare for the worst and this bill is an important further step in doing that. I commend the government for producing such a wide ranging and comprehensive omnibus bill. It is a vital element in tackling the huge range of complex issues individuals and businesses alike will face post Brexit transition. Its aim is clear to reduce as far as we practically can the impact of the post Brexit situation on Irish businesses and ameliorating the disturbance that Brexit will bring. I know that there was an understandable weariness about moving too quickly in that direction in the forlorn hope that sense might prevail in Westminster. As we can see it, it has not. The careless and reckless abandon that Mr Johnston's government has shown to its neighbours in Europe, not to mention its mandatious approach to its responsibilities under the Good Friday Agreement, would take years to repair. Future British governments will find themselves having to undo the damage inflicted by Mr Johnston, Mr Gove, Mr Rabbit and their colleagues, just as President-elect Biden must undo some of the damage caused by his predecessor. Indeed, the election of Joe Biden reinforces the message sent by such great Friends of Ireland and the Good Friday Agreement as Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Congressman Richie Neal and Congressman Brendan Boyle, that Britain will not be allowed to shirk its responsibilities to the Good Friday Agreement. I think it is very important to put on the record in our discussions in this country in regard to American support for the Good Friday Agreement, that that comes from both sides of the aisle. It comes from members of Congress and Senators from both the Democratic and the Republican Party. It is important to also put on the record that a motion passed in the US House of Representatives in December of 2018, that that was a cross-party motion where they were calling on the British government to ensure that in leaving the European Union, that there would be no damage done to the Good Friday Agreement. So, I compliment again Minister Coveney, Minister Burden and their officials in the department and in other departments on preparing this necessary piece of legislation. It would be great if we did not need to have this legislation, but it is very important protection to have in place should Britain leave the European Union without a deal, and we sincerely hope that that will not be the situation. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.