Trade in products be it ranging from alcohol to steel and more could be displaced directly to Northern Ireland as a result of this week’s Windsor Framework deal reached between the UK and EU, hauliers say.
The Irish Road Haulage Association (founded in 1973, the same year when Ireland and the UK joined the European Economic Community, now the EU), have warned that imports of concrete, timber and even breakfast cereal will be subject to the new deal.
As Independent.ie reports, this would involve stricter rules and higher costs affecting the ports of Dublin and Rosslare (see related story) than Belfast Harbour’s (ferry links to GB) leading to a competitive disadvantage in the Republic.
Eugene Drennan, president of the IRHA said “I just hope this State has Plan B,” when he told an Oireachtas committee that was held yesterday.
“Steel out of Wales should be coming into Rosslare, really. It can now flow freely as a product into Northern Ireland: no tariff, no quota, different Vat regime. Where are we going to shop for steel?”
Monday’s deal of the Windsor framework concludes more than three years of an impasse over the practical workings of the Northern Ireland Protocol to the UK’s 2019 EU exit deal.
More from the newspaper here.
