Ibec and CBI call on Dublin and Stormont for 'joined-up thinking' to promote Covid-19 economic recovery

The two main business groups on the island have urged Dublin and Stormont to work together for “joined up thinking” to promote economic recovery across the island and between Ireland and Britain.

In a joint letter to the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and to Arlene Foster and Michelle O’Neill in the Stormonth executive, the Ibec and the CBI said that “co-ordination across the UK and Ireland” will “provide the best chance of protecting public health and restoring people’s prosperity”.

It said that the North-South Ministerial Council and the British-Irish Council would be “the appropriate formal frameworks for such discussions”.

“One of the areas of most immediate concern is our mature and integrated supply chains. This includes essential goods like medicines and pharmaceuticals, with substantial trade annually between Ireland and the UK,” Ibec and the CBI said in the letter..

“To support these supply chains and ensure that the measures taken in the recovery phase, help to sustain the wide range of business activity between the two jurisdictions we will need the highest level of co-operation, co-ordination and joined-up thinking,” it said.