[nomadking]

Originally Posted by jonbxx

Bit confused by this. The EU wants to protect its' Single Market and Ireland has not intention of leaving the EU any time soon so there were three options - closing the border between the Republic and Northern Ireland, threatening the Good Friday Agreement, the whole of the UK staying in the Single Market or having the North stay in the Single Market.

Options 1 and 2 were no go due to either international or internal relations so option 3 was the only one. I am not sure why you think there's no risk of non-EU approved goods crossing the border in to the EU if there is essentially no border. Bringing goods in to a country where they are prohibited is certainly illegal, it's called smuggling

NI is not part of the EU single market, but as the NI protocol specifies, IS part of the UK single market.
Non-approved doesn't mean illegal. EU states can legally produce non-approved items, just as long as they don't market them etc within the EU. Small amounts of goods will always move across ANY border. There just wouldn't be the shipping of large quantities of non-approved goods from the UK into the EU via NI. Even then it would be an issue for the EU alone, just as it is for every other country on the planet. EG Chinese producers sometimes can and DO ship non-approved items into the EU and UK. Nothing new about that. Then again EU countries sometimes can and DO ship non-approved items to other EU countries and the UK. There simply was no justification for imposing restrictions on moving items between GB and NI.

---------- Post added at 17:19 ---------- Previous post was at 17:14 ----------

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

Can you clarify how this is a favour to Ireland.

Link

Around 4,000 or 60-70% of medicines in Ireland come from or via the UK and the Government has confirmed this supply will be threatened by a no-deal Brexit.

Link

The industry’s other concern is that any regulatory divergence between Ireland and a post-Brexit Britain may see manufacturers pull out of the Irish market if it deems the cost of doing business here too prohibitive.
“Ireland has had access to the pharma market by piggybacking on the UK. Having some 60m people next door who speak the same language has been beneficial,” said Mr Connolly.
“If manufacturers have to produce different batches, or packaging, or marketing material for Ireland and that drives up costs, they might decide not to bother if they think it won’t pay them to do it.”

Irish farmers used to prefer to buy their seed potatoes from the UK, as they were better quality and less disease-ridden than those from the EU.