Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:10 pm on 17 January 2017.
I wouldn’t want to see customs at all between any point in the UK and any point in the Republic of Ireland. What I fear is that a deal will be done where there will be no customs posts at all on the border between Northern Ireland and the republic, but yet there will be in the Welsh ports. If you were an operator, the last thing you would want is to have to go through customs physically, and instead of going through Holyhead you go through Cairnryan to Larne and into Northern Ireland, which gives Northern Ireland a significant competitive advantage over the Welsh ports. That would represent, for me, an unfair outcome.