Brexit: Vets helping firms complete Irish Sea border forms

NI's chief vet Dr Robert Huey says his staff have spent the past week helping businesses fill in forms to get over the Irish Sea border

Northern Ireland's chief vet has said his staff have spent the past week helping businesses fill in forms to get over the Irish Sea border.

Dr Robert Huey was giving evidence to a Stormont Committee.

He said his original plan on how to deal with checks had quickly fallen apart because firms were not complying with the rules.

They were meant to pre-notify officials of their load and seal the vehicles before getting on the ferry to GB.

However, in many cases this did not take place and officials in Belfast had to help hauliers retrospectively fill in the forms to comply.

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After Brexit, Northern Ireland has remained in the EU's Single Market for goods and continues to apply EU customs rules.

It means goods moving from Britain to Northern Ireland need customs and food standards paperwork.

The first lorries to cross the new Irish Sea trade border arrived in Belfast and Larne on Friday

Dr Huey told the Agriculture and Environment Committee that so far he had not sent any loads back to Britain, as a strict interpretation of the rules would allow.

But he said his scope for showing flexibility was running out and he would have to start to tighten up the processes in the coming days.

In one case a staff member had to show a major supermarket how to fill in the necessary paperwork.

'Huge kerfuffle'

He said he expected a "huge kerfuffle" in the media when the first load was returned to Britain but he had a responsibility to keep the law as well as keep goods moving.

Dr Huey said he understood some companies contracted to do paperwork on behalf of hauliers had been "overwhelmed".

Stormont's MLAs also heard how business was struggling to cope with the red tape on imports from Britain.

Representatives said after seven days of operation, a series of problems had emerged.

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New customs IT systems were struggling and a £355m government support service was proving hard to contact.

Seamus Leheny of Logistics UK was giving evidence. He represents almost 400 companies in Northern Ireland.

Aodhan Connolly of the Northern Ireland Retail Consortium says some food supplies have been affected

Aodhan Connolly, who represents NI retailers and sits on on a wider Business Brexit Group, said some food supplies had been affected.

But he said it wasn't all down to Brexit and was in part linked to the disruption on EU-UK trade over Christmas due to Covid-19.

He said people should shop normally and while there was a "little less choice" now, retailers were working on restoring normal service.

"Supply lines are robust," he said.