Brexit: Council heads deny knowledge of port concern letter

Two council chief executives had no knowledge of a letter to the Cabinet Office expressing Brexit concerns, a Stormont committee has been told.

Suzanne Wylie of Belfast City Council and Marie Ward of Newry Mourne and Down Council, gave evidence on Thursday.

Mid and East Antrim Council chief executive Anne Donaghy wrote the letter.

Ms Donaghy had previously told MLAs she had written on behalf of a body representing council chief executives.

The letter was later leaked and was found to contain no reference to the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (Solace).

In the letter, Ms Donaghy said she had been advised by three DUP MPs to set out her Brexit concerns.

Those included the effect on port operations and allegations of threatening behaviour towards staff and the appearance of threatening graffiti.

Suzanne Wylie said police told her there was no specific security issue regarding Belfast Port

The Stormont Agriculture Committee is conducting an inquiry into the withdrawal of departmental staff from some Brexit duties at Larne and Belfast ports.

It followed a decision by Mid and East Antrim Council to withdraw its workers from Larne port on 1 February.

The PSNI's assessment was that the threat level was low and there was no involvement of paramilitary involvement.

'Escalating community tensions'

Ms Wylie said she had been phoned on Sunday 31 January at 21:30 GMT by Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots who expressed concerns about what he described as "escalating community tensions".

He said he had spoken to Ms Donaghy who had also expressed serious concerns.

Ms Wylie agreed to investigate and spoke to police the next day who told her there had been no specific security issue in respect of Belfast port.

• Why were Northern Ireland port checks suspended?

She told MLAs that staff in Belfast worked in a secure area covered by CCTV.

During a council committee meeting on 1 February she became aware that Mid and East Antrim Council had pulled its workers and the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (Daera) had halted some Brexit checks.

Belfast then decided to temporarily pause physical checks until more information was available, she said.

Ms Wylie added that staff were able to resume checks the following day, 2 February, on goods from third countries.

However, it was another week before that could be extended to goods from Great Britain because of the reliance on Daera staff who did not return until then.

MLAs heard that Warrenpoint Port staff worked on Brexit checks throughout the period

The committee also heard that staff at Warrenpoint Port had worked on Brexit checks throughout the period.

It has a low level of traffic with just two sailings a day from Heysham in England.

It became aware of the issue from news reports on the evening of 1 February.

The council said it had intended to ask the staff member due to work the following morning to begin their shift working from home.

However, as they had a 04:30 GMT start time they had not received the message and had turned up on site.