Cork’s history of trade with Europe ‘cushions’ region from worst of Brexit effects

Cork’s long history of trade with Europe has helped cushion the region from the worst effects of Brexit in several key sectors including pharmaceuticals, food and drink and agriculture, a new study has found.

The University College Cork (UCC) report, Cork and The Brexit Effect is the first study of Brexit’s longer-term consequences for the Cork region and highlights both the challenges and opportunities for Leeside posed by Brexit.

Report editor Mary C Murphy, UCC Jean Monnet Chair in European Integration, said the report found the sectors in the region which bore the brunt of the Brexit fallout included agriculture, finance, and industry which all suffered to varying degrees.

However, the report also found that “Cork’s physical proximity to the European continent has facilitated a strong European focused and facing economic and trading outlook”, particularly in the pharma/biotech, life sciences, marine, energy, food and drink, agriculture and fishing and financial sectors.

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The report, which will be launched on Friday at UCC by Taoiseach Micheál Martin, noted that while clusters in some of these sectors had been resilient in meeting the challenge of Brexit, others such as tourism have been more exposed

“In the first two years after the UK vote to leave the EU, Brexit impacted significantly on tourism and this was linked to a shift in Sterling-Euro exchange rate and it was exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic,” noted Dr Murphy.

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However, the Cork region was comparatively less affected by shifting tourist numbers than other parts of Ireland, the report found. It said an important component of Cork city’s attractiveness to tourists was its reputation as one of Ireland’s leading arts and culture hot spots.

Cork, as the EU’s second-largest English-speaking city, has the potential to become an attractive location for international students who, but for Brexit, might otherwise have chosen Britain for their studies, the report found.

The Port of Cork has seen the number of direct shipping routes to Europe increase as more and more producers seek to avoid the land bridge through the UK, the 32-page report also found.