Debate contribution: The Animals (Identification, Records, Movement and Enforcement) (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2025: Prayer of Annulment
Debate contribution by Mr Matthew O'Toole on .
- MLA
- Mr Matthew O'Toole
- Party at the time
- Social Democratic and Labour Party
- Date
- 24 February 2025
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Private Members' Business
- Heading
- The Animals (Identification, Records, Movement and Enforcement) (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2025: Prayer of Annulment
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4813533
Read the official Assembly record
Text
My colleague Patsy McGlone has ably put on record the issues with this, frankly, absurd prayer of annulment, but I will make a couple of additional points. We have here a situation where, I am afraid, the in-denial meet the incompetent. The DUP has tabled a prayer of annulment on, effectively, the continuation of core animal health rules that affect farms and food producers in Northern Ireland. Let us rewind the tape a little to the years between 2016 and 2020, if those of us present can bear it, when the people who did not want Northern Ireland to align to plant and animal health standards were repeatedly asked what their alternative was and how they could make our agri-food sector work when the two bits of Ireland — the two jurisdictions on the island — followed different sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) standards. That is in the context of there being cattle on the island that graze in both County Fermanagh and County Cavan. That is a fact. We have farms that straddle the border. It is not that they are next to the border; they are on the border. There are cattle, sheep and other livestock that graze and are farmed in both jurisdictions. There is milk being served in the canteen downstairs that will have been milked on one side of the border and processed on the other side of the border. There is not and has never been any practical way of disaggregating our food production and our agriculture sector on the island — never, ever. The DUP and its fellow travellers never offered us any practical solution for that. If they were serious about this stuff, they would be using the pressure and the leverage that they have to press the British Government for a comprehensive veterinary agreement to deal with the issues. The prayer of annulment is, frankly, nonsense. It is a distraction. Not only that, but it is not serious. If it were serious, it would damage the agriculture sector. I would love food businesses to come here and say that they want the annulment to happen, but they will not, because, if it were to happen, it would jeopardise trust in our product. One of the big priorities in promoting Northern Ireland's brilliant beef industry over the last while has been securing the all-island grass-fed beef certification. Am I wrong? Any member of the DUP or anyone else can correct me on that. The sector wants all-Ireland grass-fed beef certification. It wants our great beef and dairy products to be acknowledged for their high-quality and traceable nature.
I will happily give way.
I am happy that I gave way to my colleague Patsy McGlone to make that point. That is exactly right. Minister Muir, I am sure, would agree with that and agree that, if you want traceability and confidence in the brilliant produce that comes from this part of the world — lots of it is produced, by the way, on both sides of the border, collectively; most famously, lots of our milk — you cannot simply disapply the rules. It is absurd, and it is not serious. It is about promulgating the, frankly, ridiculous version of events that the Irish Sea border, as it is called, is the root of all evil. Of course, the root of all evil in all these issues is, I am afraid, Brexit, in the first place, and the hard Brexit. If you want to solve the issues, back greater alignment between the UK Government and the EU. Back a comprehensive veterinary agreement so that the differences are not required. In the meantime, let us keep confidence in our food product. I cannot believe that I have to make those obvious points to DUP Members from agricultural constituencies. Back it, but, in the meantime, do not do stupid things that would jeopardise confidence in and undermine our brilliant food production and the product that our farmers export across the EU. That is another point: we have a vast opportunity to export. We already do that, and we should grow the export of our amazing products all over the European continent. How does the motion help that project? All the while, the great Donald Trump is thinking about imposing tariffs on produce from outside the US, so the grand plan to replace the European market with Trump's America is going nowhere fast for food producers here. I talked not just about those in denial, such as the DUP, but about the incompetent. It is clear that we have had a slightly concerning — to put it mildly — situation in which there has been a legal anomaly for the past three or four years because of the Department. That is why the DUP has been able to table the prayer of annulment in the first place. It did not lick it off the ground — to use an expression from this part of the world — it was able to bring it forward because the Department clearly did not copper-bottom the legalities around all of this. I am glad that we at least have had the opportunity to debate the issue in the Assembly. We have been debating plenty of Mickey Mouse and Daffy Duck stuff in the Chamber; at least we are debating a proper problem. It is concerning to hear that there was an attempt to close off the issue in a Committee and not expose it to the proper sunlight of public scrutiny. My colleague Patsy McGlone and I have no difficulty with debating the issues properly in the open, whether that is in a Committee or in an Assembly plenary sitting: that is where we should debate them. That is where you can tackle issues and confront arguments, such as the absurd ones that have been made by the DUP today around the prayer of annulment. Let us be absolutely clear: we should not have been in this legal situation in the first place. Part of the reason why we have the protocol or Windsor framework is to give absolute certainty to our brilliant food producers so that they can continue to produce food to the highest possible standards; produce and process dairy products on both sides of the border; and export those products across this continent of half a billion consumers. The Department should do its job and make sure that we have the legal framework to protect all of that and give absolute certainty not just to the European Commission but to the farmers, food producers and industries that rely on it. We robustly oppose the prayer of annulment, but we are concerned about some of the incompetence that seems to have been revealed in the Department. I hope that the Minister can provide some certainty and reassurance for us. Ultimately, it is about backing our farmers and our food producers and giving them the legal certainty that they need to sell their brilliant products. It is not about engaging in the, frankly, pathetic stunts of the parties opposite, which, as with others who supported Brexit, created all these issues in the first place.
1,193 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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