Brexit has seen Irish food exports to Britain decline by a quarter

Irish food exports to Britain have declined by a quarter as a result of Brexit, a new study has found.

The research conducted by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) and the Department of Finance attempts to estimate the Brexit impact on trade between the Republic and Britain in isolation of other drivers such as the pandemic.

It found that food exports fell 24 per cent between 2015, the year prior to the UK’s referendum on EU membership, and the first eight months of 2021, while beverage exports fell by 41 per cent.

Overall the study found that Brexit has had a much bigger impact on goods imports from Britain.

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It found that Britain's share of total exports to Ireland has declined from 23 per cent in 2015, the year prior to the UK's referendum on EU membership, to 7.2 per cent in early 2021.

The share of Irish exports destined for Britain also declined but by a smaller amount (from 10.9 per cent to 6.3 per cent).

Negatively impacted

However, the report noted “ some individual sectors” faced substantial reductions in their exports to Britain, with the food and beverages sectors particularly negatively impacted.

It noted that the estimated direct impact of Brexit is highly asymmetric, reducing imports from the UK to Ireland substantially but without any statistically significant impact on exports.

This is likely due to the gradual implementation of customs procedures by the UK, with a range of checks to be introduced in 2022.

The largest decreases in imports have been in the areas of food, machinery and equipment, with firms citing challenges of complying with customs requirements as the cause.

Marks and Spencer (M&S) said last week that post-Brexit rules and "excessive paperwork" has forced it to cut about 800 lines from its stores in the Republic, roughly 20 per cent of its total range of goods here.

The ESRI/Department of Finance report said that there has been a decline in imports from Britain; this has been "slightly offset" by an increase in imports from Northern Ireland.

Aftermath

The share of Northern Ireland in total Irish imports has increased from 1.5 per cent in 2015 to 5 per cent in the aftermath of Brexit, it said.

The key sectors driving this shift have been food and beverages. “This supply reorientation means that the share of Irish imports from the UK originating in Northern Ireland has increased from 6 per cent to over 40 per cent,” it said.

The report's co-author Martina Lawless said: "Although many supply chain challenges have come together since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the greatest driver of the reduction in Irish imports from Britain can be traced to a Brexit effect.

“There has been a less-substantial impact on exporters so far and continued good news coming from the deferral of customs checks on goods moving from Ireland to Great Britain which had been due to be introduced in January,” she added.