Brexit: NI port staff return to work following security concerns

Staff from NI's agriculture department returned to work at post-Brexit border posts on Wednesday.

It has been more than a week since officials were withdrawn from duty and checks at the ports were temporarily suspended amid security concerns.

The department said the decision to return was taken following a "full threat assessment from the PSNI".

It said it had conducted an internal risk assessment and liaised with staff and unions to put mitigations in place.

Physical checks on products of animal origin will now resume.

The end of the Brexit transition period saw the Irish Sea border come into effect

Northern Ireland remained part of the EU's single market for goods when the rest of the UK left at the end of the transition period.

This means that some products from Great Britain now have to enter NI through border control posts.

On 1 February, a council and the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs withdrew staff amid claims of intimidation.

Threatening graffiti had appeared on walls in loyalist areas of Northern Ireland.

In mid January anti-protocol graffiti started to appear in NI

The council staff later returned to work, but the department's stayed out.

On Monday, the PSNI chief constable Simon Byrne said he had no evidence of a "credible threat" to them.

Later that day, Sinn Féin MLA John O'Dowd told the Stormont assembly that the information that led to the suspension of the checks was based on "misinformation" and the staff were used as pawns in a "very cruel game".