The government’s instruction to Northern Ireland businesses to ask Dublin what they should do in the event of no deal on Brexit has been described as “madness” by manufacturers in the region.

Hilary Benn, the Labour MP and chair of the Brexit select committee, described the guidance as an “abdication of responsibility”.

In what is being seen as a deliberate attempt to put pressure on Ireland’s prime minister, Leo Varadkar, the UK government has recommended that businesses trading across the border “should consider whether you will need advice from the Irish government about preparations you need to make”.

In technical notices published on Thursday designed to help firms make specific plans for a breakdown in Brexit talks, the government said it was committed to “act in the best interests of the people of Northern Ireland”.

Stephen Kelly, the chief executive of Manufacturing Northern Ireland, said it was “not on” that business in the region was being treated as a political football.

“To tell businesses in Northern Ireland just to sort out their own problems with Ireland is madness,” he said. “I don’t think they will be telling businesses in Portsmouth to ‘talk to Paris’ if they trade with France or businesses in Birmingham to ‘talk to Berlin’ if they trade with Germany.”

Benn said: “There is still no clarity on how the return of a hard border in Northern Ireland will be avoided, and ministers have simply told businesses to seek advice from the Irish government. This is an extraordinary abdication of responsibility.”

Ann McGregor, the chief executive of the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said businesses across the region needed “far clearer” advice than the three paragraphs issued on Thursday.

Kelly said there were an estimated 85,000 businesses in Northern Ireland, almost all of which had an element of import or export trade across the border.

“When you talk about business you are talking about retailers, hospitality, hospitals, the government itself. This impacts on everyone,” he said. “The government is choosing to do Brexit in a particular way and they have a responsibility to protect business and jobs.”

The Irish government said it would continue to focus on negotiations over the Irish border and urged the UK to do the same and to engage with “all the issues” in relation to the backstop policy designed to preserve the invisible border.

Among the businesses that trade across the border in large volumes is Guinness, which makes stout in Dublin, bottles it in Belfast and reroutes it to Dublin port for export to the UK and beyond.

The dairy industry is also highly integrated across the border, with a single island market evolving after the peace agreement in 1998. Farms on both sides of the border send milk across it for the manufacture of cheese.

Some businesses are making contingencies for a no-deal or bad-deal Brexit. Almac, a Northern Ireland pharmaceuticals firm, announced this year that it would set up operations in Dundalk, a town just south of the border, to maintain a presence in the EU.

The Brexit spokeswoman for Northern Ireland’s SDLP, Claire Hanna, has said that “the lack of a technical paper on ‘no deal’ preparations for Northern Ireland is due to the fact that the government know that committing such a ludicrous plan to writing will expose the damage it would inflict”. She said the approach was “abysmal”.

Sinn Féin said the absence of a technical paper on Ireland betrayed the UK government’s lack of commitment to the backstop. “The taoiseach and his government cannot allow this to stand,” said its Brexit spokesman, David Cullinane.

