Other markets needed

MANY sectors will be impacted by Brexit, chief amongst them those engaged in argi food, farming and tourism.

Joe Dolan, President of the Irish Hotels Federation told the gathering in The Sligo Park Hotel that one in four jobs in Sligo/ Leitrim was in tourism with 5,600 supporting jobs. While the counties were exceeding all forecasts in terms of revenue and visitor numbers over the past few years, the area was still very much in the early stages of tourism recovery unlike the dominant counties of Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Galway and Dublin.

He stressed the importance of the UK market, with 42% of all visitors to Ireland from there, and some 83% of arrivals into Knock Airport also British. One third of visitors from the US came to Ireland via the UK.

Mr Dolan said UK visitors have the best and deepest penetration into the regions and they came here all year around not just in July and August while they were also excellent for return visits. Currency fluctuations were not good for the market and there was already a noticeable fall- off in bookings including coach tours. .

He also said people from the South would go North to avail of better value with the euro. The recreation of a border like before would be detrimental he warned. Mr Dolan also stressed the need to maintain an all Ireland approach to tourism and to remain competitive. Ongoing investment was needed in the sector and he pointed to festivals as key to bringing visitors away from the traditional hotspots. While there were enormous challenges he believed there were also opportunities and he was confident prospects were good for the North West and Ireland.

Local businessman, Des Faul said there was massive underinvestment in Sligo and it was the least visited county on the Wild Atlantic.

Lack of investment in infrastructure was also a point echoed by Anthony Gray, President of the Restaurants Association of Ireland. He organised a march to the Dáil last week to press for a motorway for the N4 and said Sligo hadn’t seen any economic growth due to a lack of investment in infrastructure.

Audience member, Eddie Carr said the impact of Brexit on the fishing industry was being forgotten about and he called for it to be put on the agenda. He pointed out that the largest white fish processing plant was in Gurteen and which employed 60 people.

County Sligo IFA Chairman, J P Cowley said the farming sector feared the introduction of tariffs on exports to the UK post Brexit, some as high as 15% the meeting heard.

“Europe will have to stand up for us. We didn’t sign up for this. It was forced on us and we shouldn’t have to pay for it and we need to be compensated. The Taoiseach said the farming sector drew down some € 1.2 billion yearly in EU payments and he stressed that opportunities would arise for farmers with the opening up of markets in the US and China. Gabriel Gilmartin of the ICSA, asked if there was a plan ‘ B’ if tariffs were proven to be too high for live exports to the UK.

Aaron Forde, CEO at Aurivo, said in the short term Brexit had brought a lot of uncertainty in terms of currency and in the longer term there would be complexity issues surrounding access to markets. “We have to prepare for a difficult process and outcome of Brexit,” he said. He stressed how the industry put money into every parish in the country. Some 23% of the country’s milk pool went to the UK and 55% of the country’s beef end up on a table there and it took decades to build up that market. He also spoke of how one quarter of Northern Ireland’s milk pool was processed in the south and how there were 40,000 truck movements around the border each year. A return of a border would be a disaster.

“We require free trade to remain,” he said, adding: “We have 26 other members to convince that letting a student off with no homework is a good idea.” He said no single measure would insulate the agri food industry from the impact of Brexit but Government help was needed especially in the area of energy costs.

“It’s going to be a long and expensive journey to building alternative markets for the industry to the UK but we will overcome this with the support of Government,” said Mr Forde.