ICMSA: Ireland-Britain trade more important than border

One of the country’s main farming representative organisations has warned that Ireland’s view of Brexit cannot be anchored entirely to the issue of the border and that more attention should be paid to cross-channel trade.

The president of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA), Pat McCormack, said farmers and agri-food operators were becoming “anxious” regarding what it termed the weight of consideration being given to the border question, rather than the Ireland-UK ‘East-West’ trading relationships, which, he said, were “economically much more significant”.

Mr McCormack was speaking after a Bord Bia survey showed that a majority of Irish food and drinks companies continued to believe that they would have trade opportunities in the UK, despite Brexit.