Thoughts Please: 'Irish Brexit protocol is ‘bullet proof’': Varadkar to Dáil

[GerryT]

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/irish-brexit-protocol-is-bullet-proof-t%C3%A1naiste-tells-d%C3%A1il-1.4433018

How can the Brexit protocol simultaneously be bullet proof, while examining all evidence points to the fact that WTO Brexit is going to have a big hit on Irl? I'm guessing he means "we've planned for it insofar as we made every provision possible; to mitigate the effects as much as possible..".

Not sure how that works out in reality though, you can't mitigate against what you don't know and there are still plenty of unknowns. The problem with this sort of politicking is that it often ends up with egg on the politician's face...

Rushing here and haven't read the link but looking at the title I think he's talking about the NI protocol, which is part of the WA. IRL's main concern was about trade on the island of Ireland. so keeping tariff free business/trade between NI and ROI with no border was a key objective. This was resolved in the WA and was again confirmed by Johnson on Tuesday when he said he will remove the clauses from the UK IMB.

The bullet proof wouldn't be regarding the ROI to GB trade as this is up in the air, but that's mostly mitigated as we can ship practically everything direct to/from the EU. But agriculture is a concern, think about it this way. IRL sells 1b of bovine meat to the UK, but the UK sells 456m of bovine meat to the EU. With hefty tariffs this 456m can be supplied by IRL to other EU countries currently buying from the UK. Wash and repeat for allmost everything IRL sells into the UK.
IRL exports are now below 7% going to the UK and that number keeps falling. Irl is expecting a hit but it is something we feel is easily managed.

[Borg Refinery]

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/irish-brexit-protocol-is-bullet-proof-t%C3%A1naiste-tells-d%C3%A1il-1.4433018

How can the Brexit protocol simultaneously be bullet proof, while examining all evidence points to the fact that WTO Brexit is going to have a big hit on Irl? I'm guessing he means "we've planned for it insofar as we made every provision possible; to mitigate the effects as much as possible..".

Not sure how that works out in reality though, you can't mitigate against what you don't know and there are still plenty of unknowns. The problem with this sort of politicking is that it often ends up with egg on the politician's face...