The manager of one border station said that up to 75 per cent of his business is coming down from the North, writes Brian Byrne. The station had to stop the practice of filling plastic container with petrol.
Another station had stacks of "industrial strenght" 25-litre plastic containers, "cleaned and ready for use", on sale for €3 each. "I wouldn't exactly recommend them for petrol, but it's up to yourself," the operator told me. "We do have 20-litre metal jerricans for sale at €24."
The station had a half-mile queue of Northern cars waiting to fill up in the middle of a Saturday afternoon. As many as one in three "filled their boots" as well as their tanks.
According to the Retail Motor Industry Federation, one in two litres of motor fuel used in Northern Ireland comes from the Republic. This is costing the British Treasury £500 million a year in lost taxes and "rapidly destroying the infrastructure of the forecourt industry" in Northern Ireland. The financial advantages of coming south of the Border for motor fuel are irresistible.
Both diesel and petrol in the Newry area were costing the equivalent of €1.26 a litre last week, while prices in Dundalk were 88.2 cents a litre for unleaded petrol and 76.2 cents a litre for road diesel.
"I save myself a fortune by coming down here ever week," one Northern Ireland customer at the Ballymac Service Station on the Carlingford Road told me as he filled his car and four 25-litre containers with diesel. Though one wonders if it was all for "personal use" - his purchase would give him a range of more than 1,500 miles for the week.
Buying petrol for personal use and transporting it across the Border is not illegal, but Northern Ireland's Organised Crime Task Force is very aware of the involvement of criminals and paramilitary groups in the bulk smuggling of fuel from the Republic. But it says it can't put a figure on the level of this activity to separate it out from the total cross-border movement of the commodity.
Last week the Northern ireland Affairs Committee made a number of proposals which it believes could reduce the illegal trade in fuel.
They include a request that the British government implement a separate lower rate of fuel duty in Northern Ireland, by a derogation if necessary. There is also a request to consult with the Irish Government to ensure that duty rates move broadly in line in order to achieve greater harmonisation.