Hello and welcome to the Beyond Brexit podcast.

I'm your host, Shalina Poffenberger.

Today we're going to be talking about Northern Ireland and how the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland will operate post-Brexit.

In October last year, the UK and the EU agreed the Northern Ireland protocol, which is intended to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland, while also allowing the UK to manage an independent trade policy.

The protocol will come into effect on the 1st of January 2021, irrespective of whether a trade deal has been agreed between the EU and the UK.

But as yet, the detail of how the protocol will be implemented and what that will mean in practical terms for businesses is extremely limited.

And I have to confess that I've had to do some studying up on the history of Northern Ireland,

the Good Friday Agreement, and how this extraordinarily important part of the United Kingdom

is the

most challenging aspect of Brexit. And I've had some really energetic conversations with my

Northern Irish colleagues about how Northern Ireland might be positioned advantageously as the

connecting point between Great Britain and the European Union. So with the clock running down to

the end of the transition period, I'm joined remotely today by colleagues Kara Haffey, leader for deals in Northern Ireland, and David Armstrong, a strategy and economics partner to discuss the implications of the Northern Ireland protocol and the complexity, the costs, and the commercial opportunities for business. So Kara, if I could come to you first, Brexit itself is obviously a very complex issue,

but the relationship between Great Britain, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland,

and therefore the rest of the EU seems even more complicated.

Can you kick us off in explaining what makes Brexit more complex for Northern Ireland?

Well, Shalina, that's a big question. Without going deep into politics or history, which would take

much longer than this podcast, in overall terms, we're on the same island as the EU, and many

wanted to avoid a border in the Irish Sea as well. So there's a really increased complexity of doing business as a result of both of those

borders to negotiate and some new rules to think about.

So really for us the complexity is around customs and actually what is going to apply.

What are the declarations that businesses are going to have to fill in?

...