Documents show DUP minister Edwin Poots’ officials building Irish Sea border – which he says he opposes

Edwin Poots’ officials are heavily involved in constructing the Irish Sea border infrastructure, new documents reveal – despite the DUP minister’s insistence he fundamentally opposes that border.
From January it will be easier to trade between Northern Ireland and the Republic than it will be with GBFrom January it will be easier to trade between Northern Ireland and the Republic than it will be with GB
From January it will be easier to trade between Northern Ireland and the Republic than it will be with GB

Two months ago Mr Poots dramatically intervened to halt his officials’ work on the project before recanting within days by deciding not to use his ministerial authority to order them to permanently stop work on new ‘border control posts’ at multiple sites including Larne, Belfast and Warrenpoint ports.

Mr Poots said that he was given legal advice that if he instructed his officials to refuse to help construct the infrastructure they may be able to disregard his wishes – although Mr Poots’ brief decision to halt work on the project suggests that he considered testing that in court before rowing back.

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Now documentation seen by the News Letter shows clearly that it is officials in Mr Poots’ Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs who have submitted planning applications for border posts – and at least one of those applications has been rushed through.

The Larne application is to expand an existing agricultural inspection facility to become a “Point of Entries NI Inspection Facility”.

The application has been made under permitted development rights and on Monday the council granted a ‘certificate of lawfulness’ for the work.

The plans show that the total area of the site will be three hectares (7.4 acres) and would include a ‘product inspection facility’ at which six lorries and two vans could at any one point be simultaneously inspected.

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It will also include multiple separate buildings for the inspection of small animals, horses, ‘other commercial transport animals’, as well as a bedding store, a feed store and underground tanks.

The entire bill for the infrastructure across all ports and airports is around £40 million – but there will then be an ongoing bill to staff the facilities.

There is no suggestion that civil servants are acting improperly or without Mr Poots’ implicit authorisation for what they are doing.

TUV leader Jim Allister, who for weeks has been attempting to get Mr Poots’ department and Mid and East Antrim Borough Council to release information about what is going on, said: “The extensive nature of these plans should concern every unionist.

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“The fact that they are being pushed through by a department headed by a unionist – Edwin Poots – is outrageous. He faces the very real prospect of his most abiding legacy being that he built the gallows for the Union.”

Mr Allister questioned why the controversial work was being fast-tracked through planning when farmers are prosecuted for unauthorised buildings, “yet here we have a government department bypassing the normal process for a much more significant project.”

The North Antrim MLA added: “This infrastructure is a real and present danger to the Union as it will orientate our economy onto an all-Ireland footing, divide us from the Kingdom of which we are a part and lay a foundation for the anticipated constitutional change that motivated EU intransigence in the first place.”

Mr Poots was approached for comment but at the time of going to press there had been no response.