Despite Edwin Poots’ agreement, Irish Sea border checks won’t be ready for Brexit, says official

Contingency arrangements are being prepared, including the repurposing of old buildings and an interim paper-based checking system, when the requirement for additional regulatory checks at ports comes into effect on January 1, the civil servant said.

Denis McMahon, the permanent secretary in the Department of Agriculture Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA), said he and his colleagues had been left in an “impossible position” as they worked on a project that was openly opposed by their minister, Edwin Poots.

However, speaking at the Assembly’s agriculture committee, Mr McMahon made clear that Mr Poots has not blocked their work even though they continue to report to him on the issue.

Pressed by the committee’s Sinn Féin chairman, Declan McAleer, to ask if he was working with full executive authority on creating the Irish Sea border checks and whether there was therefore “no ministerial oversight”, Mr McMahon gave a lengthy answer in which he eventually said that “the challenge now is around the legality of this”.

He said that “the minister recognises there is a legal position and there is nothing can be done about that other than to comply with the law”.

Mr McAleer asked: “Are you reporting to [Whitehall minister] George Eustice or Edwin Poots?”

Mr McMahon said he was “absolutely” reporting to Mr Poots, even though he said “that does not remove his fundamental opposition to the issue”.

He said that Mr Poots accepted the legal requirement to set up the infrastructure.

He said: “My message to you today is, despite monumental efforts by the team, not everything will be place by the 1st of January 2021.”

Mr McMahon said he was legally obliged to introduce the new SPS (sanitary and phytosanitary) checking facilities and would be acting unlawfully if they did not do so.

“We are caught in an impossible position and the impossible position we’re caught in is that we do work to ministers, I absolutely believe in the democratic principle of working to ministers...However, I am also absolutely required to comply with the law and what we found is because we have been put in an impossible situation as a result of the wider politics around this we find ourselves having to navigate our way through this process.”

Mr McMahon said lack of clarity on what checks were required, due to the ongoing absence of agreement between the EU and UK, was hampering their efforts.

One consequence of that lack of agreement was that officials did not know what size of facilities were needed, he said.

Under the protocol, which is contained in the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement, Northern Ireland will remain in the EU Single Market for goods when the transition period ends.

That will required additional regulatory checks for animal-based food products entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain.

He said if there was no agreement on minimising checks the average supermarket lorry coming from Great Britain would require 400 separate certifications to enter Northern Ireland.

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