Cross-border fuel-smuggling is becoming a means of funding paramilitary activities, the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee of the Westminster parliament has concluded. Its report is one of three publications released by the committee in Belfast yesterday.
The committee acknowledges that the impact of fuel price differentials has presented it with a "very difficult issue".
"There is no doubt that the differential in fuel prices across the land border in the island of Ireland has serious consequences for fuel suppliers and road hauliers," the report states. "It is also a wider problem in that, besides distorting trading patterns, it appears to have become a means of funding for paramilitaries and racketeers. It is therefore damaging the social fabric of Northern Ireland."
The report sums up the British government's attitude towards retailers in Northern Ireland Border areas, whose sales have been severely affected by the price differences, as one of "sympathy but inaction".
While they welcome the increase in staffing levels in the North's customs and excise division, the report says the British government's description of £100 million of annually lost revenue as "insignificant" is worrying. "It appears the government is not taking the financial loss to Northern Ireland seriously," Mr Peter Brooke, the committee's chairman, said.
The report describes the impact as severe and the loss of £100 million in revenue as "material". It recommends the British government investigate further the experience of other EU member states in dealing with similar problems.
According to Mr Brooke, it is important for the British government to recognise that there are "no marked industrial and environmental differences between the two jurisdictions" and that different fiscal treatment is at the root of some of the problems experienced by retailers in the North.
Mr Brooke also pointed to the Kyoto Convention, which stipulates the need for the UK to reduce overall emissions of greenhouse gases by 12.5 per cent in the next 12 years while allowing the Republic to increase its overall emissions by 13 per cent, as an issue in need of re-examination.
Another report by the Committee takes Northern Ireland Electricity to task over its failure to cope adequately with the problems caused by the 1998 St Stephen's Day storms, and urges the NIE to consider using part of a £40 million price cut fund to invest in the strengthening of overhead power lines.
The committee's final report concerned the operation of the Fair Employment Act 10 years after it was introduced in Northern Ireland.
Its findings, among them the provision of additional resources for the new Equality Commission to deal with its obligations under the Belfast Agreement, were warmly welcomed by the Committee on the Administration of Justice.