TUV leader Jim Allister
Jim Allister has said the owners of budgies continue to face problems importing the birds to Northern Ireland – while another MLA said he didn’t expect the TUV leader to raise the topic of “budgie smugglers” at the Assembly.
Speaking at a plenary session on Tuesday, Mr Allister made a statement on a constituent in Cullybackey who breeds the bird.
Also known as the common parakeet, shell parakeet or budgerigar is a small, long-tailed, seed-eating parrot.
“Every year he brings in a new budgie from England to vary the strain,” said Mr Allister.
“Now he has to have a veterinary certificate in England on the budgie, he has to have a veterinary certificate in Northern Ireland when it arrives, he has to fill in all the paperwork and pay all the fees.”
Mr Allister continued: “Who would have thought the EU single market was so fragile that the import of a budgie from Cheltenham to Cullybackey puts it at risk?”
The TUV leader said he knows someone else who shows birds and arrived back in Belfast, only for his birds to be sent to England to be quarantined at his own expense.
“There are some who’d be so foolish to believe we have no sea border,” said Mr Allister. “Sadly it continues to exist in all it’s ugliness and all it’s partitioning of this United Kingdom.”
SDLP leader Matthew O’Toole rose to make an announcement after Mr Allister.
Before persevering with along with his assertion, he mentioned: “I did not count on to listen to Mr Allister converse on the subject of budgie smugglers however there are some nice surprises which await you within the Assembly.”
