Protocol goods checks cost nearly £10m last year: Poots

Checks on goods required under the Northern Ireland Protocol by a Stormont department cost the public purse around £10 million last year, Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots has said.
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Mr Poots gave the figure in the Assembly yesterday, following a query from TUV MLA Jim Allister.

He said just under £4.5 million had been spent on staff costs at Belfast, Larne and Warrenpoint Harbour.

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Another £4.2 million was spent on service contracts for seal checks over the same period, from January to December 2021.

Agriculture Minister Edwin PootsAgriculture Minister Edwin Poots
Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots

Mr Poots (pictured) said the UK Treasury had given an assurance to Finance Minister Conor Murphy in October 2020 that it would cover the cost of “infrastructure and resources to implement the SPS [sanitary and phytosantiary] checks” and that it would “cover any additional funding for Northern Ireland to meet the UK’s obligations under the protocol”.

Responding, Mr Allister suggested the expenditure was an example of “squander”.

In a statement issued following the exchange, Mr Allister said: “This is just the basic salary costs, etcetera, and takes no account of the huge costs to our economy.

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“£10m would have employed over 200 nurses, but instead under the iniquitous protocol it was spent on partitioning the United Kingdom through implementing the Irish Sea b order.”

He added: “If, as now advised this expenditure was without Executive approval then it is irregular spending, which adds to the scandal.”