Sir, – Our Taoiseach in his contacts with his EU counterparts and the British prime minister has repeatedly stressed the need to avoid a “hard border” as a consequence of Brexit.
It seems to me that the avoidance of the UK leaving the customs union is a much more urgent and important issue for our Taoiseach to be stressing during his EU meetings because it seems much of our food industry could be devastated as a result of Brexit.
Whether we have a hard or soft border with the North after Brexit will be of little consequence if our food industry is paying tariffs of up to 50 per cent to continue selling food into the UK.
So our Taoiseach’s priority should be to seek to maintain free access for our food into the UK, whatever the outcome of the Brexit negotiations. – Yours, etc,
MARTIN CROTTY,
Blackrock, Co Louth.