Statement by TUV leader Jim Allister:-
“Today the DAERA minister, in answer to an Oral Question from me, confirmed in the Assembly that in just 12 months the costs of implementing the Poots Posts has been of the order of £10m – this is just the basic salary costs etc and takes no account of the huge costs to our economy.
“£10m would have employed over 200 nurses, but instead under the iniquitous Protocol it was spent on partitioning the United Kingdom through implementing the Irish Sea Border.
“If, as now advised this expenditure was without Executive approval then it is irregular spending, which adds to the scandal of the Protocol.
“Huge as this squander is, it is only a fraction of what the EU demands because of the extant grace periods. Yet another illustration of the absurd demands of the ‘rigorous implementers’.
“Northern Ireland cannot afford to be bled dry, both economically and financially, by this Union-dismantling Protocol.”