DEAR SIR: One of Winston Churchill’s most succinct observations about the difference between Ireland and the UK was this – “In Ireland, everything is always critical, but never serious: In the UK, everything is always serious, but never critical”.

Churchill could very well be describing the current contrasting Irish and British approaches to Brexit. But if he was around today, Churchill would probably consider Brexit to be both serious and critical, for both Ireland and the UK. His terse observations are all particularly relevant to how Ireland and the UK are dealing with the fallout from Brexit.

Although the circumstances are completely different, undoubtedly Brexit is the most momentous step the UK has taken since 1939. In particular, it is also equally both serious and critical for Irish farmers and food producers/exporters.

To date, economists and media commentators have focussed on only one aspect of this problem, ie Irish food and agricultural exports to the UK. Our only priorities appear to be to get a “soft” Brexit and a “seamless” border with Northern Ireland.

This is a very dangerous strategy for Irish farmers and for Ireland Inc in general. Indeed, it could even be catastrophic for Ireland.

This is because the UK always had an appalling record in causing and spreading animal diseases. The record got immeasurably worse after Thatcherism.

Specifically, every one of the most highly infectious and most devastating animal diseases to hit this country spread to Ireland from the UK.

For example, foot-and-mouth disease, mad cow disease (BSE), avian flu (Newcastle Disease), Schmallenberg virus, bluetongue, Aujeszky’s disease (pigs), etc. Indeed, at least one of these devastating animal diseases (mad cow disease (BSE)) actually originated in the UK.

These risks are already getting much bigger and more frequent. Two years ago, UK animal production at €15.74bn fell by €1.67bn (9.8%), compared with the previous year (2014).

Eurostat found that “veterinary expenses” at €527m were the lowest farm input item on UK farms during 2013. This represents only 2.7% of total expenditure on farm inputs.

Ireland, in contrast, had veterinary expenses accounting for 5% of total farm inputs, ie twice the level of their UK counterparts.

Ninety-five per cent (95%) of the veterinary surgeons now working on UK farms and in UK meat factories are from Poland and Romania.

Finally, the UK has now positioned itself to import most of its food supplies from regions of doubtful food safety and animal health credentials. This surely will open up an appalling vista for Irish farmers, food producers and Ireland Inc.

For all these reasons, the UK now finds itself at the very bottom of every scale which measures animal health.

So for our food and agricultural exports, by all means we should have a “seamless border” and a “soft Brexit”.

But for animal disease prevention and control, we must have a totally sealed border, and a very hard Brexit.

Otherwise, we’ll have nothing to export. Ireland without livestock would be like Saudi Arabia without oil wells – a desert!