Revealed: EU deliberately prevented Irish Customs bosses from sorting out N.I. border four years ago
Irish Customs heads saw no need for a hard border, but were quashed by the EU
© Facts4EU.Org 2021
Facts4EU.Org presents testimony of Irish Republic’s Customs, leaving no doubt that EU manufactured this issue
Informing the World about the EU's vindictive 'Northern Ireland Protocol'Part Three of a series of reports demonstrating the EU's true nature
The full series:-
Part One - The Protocol itself
| Part Two - How the EU has threatened peace
| Part Three - Irish Customs overruled by EU (this report)
| Part Four - UK Customs stopped from solution by EU
| Part Five - Trade involved is minuscule
In this third part of our exposé of the EU’s ‘Northern Ireland Protocol’ which is threatening peace in Northern Ireland and splitting the United Kingdom, Facts4EU.Org reveals the shocking evidence given by those who were actually in charge of developing simple solutions at the time.
We show how the experts in charge of dealing with the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland were at one. From their own words readers will be able to discern very quickly from the Heads of the Customs operations of each country that the border issue was only ever an artificial device from the EU:-
- Used by the EU to punish the UK for voting to leave its empire by siphoning off part of the UK’s territory, and
- Used by the Irish government in its moves to take over Northern Ireland by stealth
The EU prevented those in charge from even talking to each other to provide a simple solution
Below we show how those whose responsibility it was to police the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland were prevented by the EU – with the full collusion of the Irish government – from even talking.
We start with testimony from Irish Customs. (Tomorrow we will reveal how the UK Customs bosses agreed with their Irish counterparts.) The top individuals responsible for Irish Customs were questioned one week apart, and below we quote the key passages relating to the various headings relevant to the whole N.I. border question.
Brexit Facts4EU.Org Summary
PLEASE NOTE: These are the IRISH customs officials,
giving testimony to the IRISH parliament in 2017
Testimonies were given on the basis that the entire UK (including Northern Ireland) would be OUT of the Single Market, and OUT of the Customs Union
Mr Niall Cody: “…The margins are such that there will be cross-Border shopping but it will not put a hole in the Exchequer receipts.… However, we have always had to address them while we have been part of the Single Market, because of excise duty differentials on high volume stuff.”
Photo right: Mr. Niall Cody, Chairman of the Board of the Irish Revenue Commissioners,
© Irish Revenue
Mr. Liam Irwin (Irish Customs): “That is not true.”
Q: “That is not true?”Mr. Liam Irwin (Irish Customs): “That is not true.”Photo right: Mr. Liam Irwin, then Irish Revenue Commissioner
© Irish Revenue
In tomorrow's edition we will reveal the testimony of the head of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC), who goes much further about this.
Observations
Border officials not allowed to talk to each other
Mr Cody, head of the Irish Revenue, stated that effectively they were not allowed to talk to their counterparts in the UK about the Irish border. This was back in 2017, four years ago, when there was still plenty of time to agree technical solutions to the north-south border and before any 'Northern Ireland Protocol' had been agreed.
In our Sunday edition tomorrow, Facts4EU.Org will demonstrate via the testimony of the head of HMRC to the UK Parliament that talks between the Customs organisations on each side of the border were terminated - despite the officers wanting to discuss and agree light touch regulation.
There were no plans for border infrastructure because it wasn't going to be needed
Perhaps one of the most illuminating parts of the two encounters which the heads of Irish Customs and Excise had with the Dáil Éireann (Irish parliament) in 2017 was the question of border controls. Despite TDs (MPs) doing their utmost to get the Customs officials to describe a calamitous post-Brexit situation with a hard border having to be introduced, the Customs bosses would have none of it.
Instead they talked of zero infrastructure being needed at the border, the vast bulk of cross border trade being processed electronically, and of the extended use of 'trusted trader' status. Never at any stage did they indicate any sense of alarm, nor did they suggest that the technology was not available and was not already being used. Naturally systems would change and need to be enhanced, but the Customs organisations quite rightly saw this as something they would sort out.
This contrasts with the nonsense coming out of Brussels (and Dublin) at the time and to this day. The EU Commission and Irish government both said that the technology and systems were not available and that the only way to prevent a hard border was with the Northern Ireland Protocol.
This simply wasn't - and isn't - true. This was ideological on the part of the EU.
As Niall Cody, head of Irish Customs said: "We implement the policy and the law." It was the politicians and the bureaucrats in Brussels who interfered and who decided to use the virtually non-existent issue of the border to create the monster that is the Northern Ireland Protocol. It is clear from the testimony of the HMRC (in tomorrow's edition) that left to their own devices the Customs organisations on each side of the border could easily have developed simple solutions with no impact on the Good Friday Agreement.
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[ Sources: The Dáil (Irish Parliament) | Irish Revenue Commissioners ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.
Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Sat 12 Jun 2021
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