Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed has said Ireland would insist on having the UK’s commitment, made last December, to avoid border checks with the Republic of Ireland fully included in any final Brexit agreement.

“Regulatory alignment is as important as the issue of customs and tariffs,” Minister Creed said.

“Although we may negotiate a very satisfactory agreement on the area of customs and tariffs, without having stitched into that an element that deals with regulatory alignment, we may well have a situation where because of divergence of standards, there’s an obligation to have checks at borders,” said the minister.

Trade deals

This is because of potential trade deals between regions of the world applying lower standards and the UK, which could then become “a back door for entry into the EU market for products that are not of a regulatory equivalent to that which our producers and manufacturers are obliged to meet”, Minister Creed added.

He was speaking at a conference on the findings of the Copenhagen Economics report on the impact of Brexit, which attributed the biggest threat to Irish agri food as the risk of losing regulatory alignment with the UK.

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Regardless of agreement on customs and tariffs, different food standards between the UK and the EU would lead to a hard border around Ireland, Minister Creed has warned.