Tipperary's ICMSA president demands to know Government's no-deal Brexit plans

Tipperary farmer and ICMSA president Pat McCormack has added his voice to the growing demand that the Government publish its contingency plans for a no-deal crash-out Brexit next March.

Mr McCormack said that what he called “airy declarations” that the Government was not planning for a no-deal eventuality were simply not sufficient reassurance for the State’s vital farming and food sectors.

“Whether we think that this will happen or calculate that it won’t is actually secondary. The point is that as long as there’s any possibility – and there very definitely is a possibility – then we simply have to prepare for the possibility of that serious outcome and we have to disseminate the plans and information needed for our multi-billion farming and food sector to bring their plans up-to-date.,” he said.

Mr McCormack said that the plain fact, and it had been remarked upon by several commentators, was that we know more about the UK’s no-deal arrangements than was publicly known about our own.

Mr McCormack said that newspaper reports seemed to indicate that a decision had been taken at Cabinet to accelerate plans already well developed, but there was still a void where public knowledge of those arrangements should be.

He said that the widespread anxiety in the farming and food sectors about what happens “the day after” was not being allayed by dateline-free assurances that more information was on the way.

It is time, said Mr McCormack, that we moved on to the nuts-and-bolts arrangements that would apply in the worst eventuality of a no-deal situation on March 30.

“We have a multi-billion euro food export sector with the UK that is potentially facing tariffs and we have thousands of cross-Border deliveries and collections from farms and processors. This aspect of the business has to have the schedules and procedural arrangements as quickly as possible and – as of now – we don’t know where any of this is going to end up,” said Mr McCormack.

He said that they were not necessarily talking about a hard border, but about the administrative and bureaucratic procedures that will apply on March 30, 2019.

Even the chance that a no-deal Brexit could occur without us being prepared and knowing what we have to do the day after is too much of a gamble, said the ICMSA president.

“That is why ICMSA is adding its voice to those calling for Ireland’s No-Deal Contingency Plan to be made public immediately so that we can see where we are, where the gaps are going to be, and most importantly, how the Government and the EU intends to support the agri-food sector,” he said.