Revenue chair: Brexiteers wrong to say no-deal Brexit won't affect cross-border trade

Brexiteers are ‘not right’ to say cross-border trade will continue as normal should the UK and Europe fail to negotiate a withdrawal agreement, the chair of the Revenue Commissioners has warned.

Niall Cody told the Oireachtas Finance Committee that Revenue will need to bring forward plans to have 600 extra staff in place by 2021 to ‘as soon as possible’ in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

Sinn Fein Finance Spokesperson Pearse Doherty asked Mr Cody if Brexiteers are right to say a no-deal scenario will not result in any border checks, that things will go on as normal, and that those who say otherwise are scaremongering.

“The implications of Brexit itself will lead to significant change in how trade is conducted,” Mr Cody said. “I have to be very careful in what I say, because when I say something it ends up as headlines in various places, but the Brexiteers are not right.

"There will be significant change and what we have to do, and what we’re trying to do, is manage the implications of legitimate trade and concentrate all the time on how we facilitate legitimate trade.

“There are other significant challenges that will flow into the future in relation to tackling illegitimate trade, but the first concern is to ensure that there are systems in place to deal with legitimate trade.”

Responding to Fianna Fail finance spokesperson Michael McGrath, Mr Cody said Revenue estimates it needs 600 extra staff as a result of Brexit, regardless of whether or not there is a withdrawal agreement.

“The central case that formed the basis for the Government decisions in July and September was based on a withdrawal agreement, a transition period, and essentially the full implementation of the process from January 1, 2021,” Mr Cody said.

“So what we planned for was January 1 2021, that we would need in the region of 600 staff and infrastructure to administer that. Effectively what we have to do in the event of no deal is pull that forward to as soon as possible in 2019. So the 600 for January 1, 2021 has to be now put in place as soon as possible, and we won’t be able to put it all in place for March 30.”

Mr Cody refused to rule out the possibility of customs officials conducting border checks, saying it wasn’t in his authority to “rule out something forever”.

Mr Doherty said a solution would need to be found for those doing cross-border shopping.

“You’re not going to stop cross-border trade, so don’t make us criminals because we’re buying our shopping in Derry, or Omagh, or vice versa. We need to sort that out, because it’s been happening for decades, it’s going to continue happening, so we’re going to need to find a specific arrangement there,” he said.

Mr Cody said he personally believed trying to prevent such shopping was ‘an impossibility’.

“That’s an area where there is not a particularly big fiscal risk, but it is a particular challenge,” he said.

Mr Cody also gave assurances that there are no secret works being carried out to build custom posts along the border.

“We don’t have the facility to have secret funds and secret expenditure, it has to be voted on,” he said.

He added that Budget 2017 included the provision of €2 million for investment in scaling up Revenue’s customs IT framework, and that he is confident its IT systems will handle the increased transaction levels in a no deal scenario.