Ireland will not 'design border for Brexiteers', Leo Varadkar says
Dublin denies a report that it wants a border in the Irish Sea, but says the onus of coming up with a solution lies with London.
Friday 28 July 2017 19:19, UK
Ireland is opposed to an "economic border" with Northern Ireland and will not help Britain design one for Brexiteers, the Irish Prime Minister has said.
Signalling growing impatience with London, Leo Varadkar also said little progress had been made in Brexit talks and insisted the onus of finding a workable solution lies with the British Government.
The border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland is a sensitive and key issue as London negotiates its divorce from Brussels.
It will be the only land frontier between the UK and the EU once Britain leaves in March 2019.
But Dublin is unconvinced by the UK's plans to use technology to maintain the invisible land border between the north and south of the island.
Instead, according to The Times, Dublin wants customs and immigration checks moved to ports and airports - effectively .
"As far as this government is concerned there shouldn't be an economic border. We don't want one," Mr Varadkar told reporters.
He said the border had been political and not economic since the creation of the European single market at the end of 1992.
Politicians in London, Dublin, Belfast and Brussels have all said they want to avoid the return of a "hard border", which many think would endanger the peace process.
But a solution remains elusive.
Speaking in Dublin, the Irish PM rejected suggestions from some British pro-Brexit politicians that technological solutions, such as the tagging of goods and vehicles and computerised customs declarations, might allow free movement and maintain a soft border.
"It's the United Kingdom - it's Britain that has decided to leave, and if they want to put forward smart solutions, technological solutions for borders of the future and all of that, that's up to them," he said.
"What we are not going to do is design a border for the Brexiteers.
"They are the ones who want a border, it is up to them to say what it is, to say how it would work and to convince their own people, their own voters, that this is a good idea."
Any suggestion of a sea border was dismissed by the Irish foreign minister, Simon Coveney, who said no such proposal existed.
The report in The Times sparked fury among members of the DUP, which props up Theresa May's Government in Westminster.
A spokesman for the Department of Exiting the EU said the Government aims for "as frictionless and seamless a border as possible" and wants no new barriers.
"Therefore, we cannot create a border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain," said the spokesman.
"It is our priority to deliver a practical solution that recognises the unique social, political and economic circumstances of the border."
DUP chief whip Sir Jeffrey Donaldson told the BBC'S Today programme that the idea of a sea border was "absurd and unconstitutional".
About 30,000 people cross the current, invisible frontier each day for work, and many farms straddle the border. But a year on from the Brexit vote, little progress has been made on the issue.
Former Irish premier Bertie Ahern told Sky News "there is no realistic solution that has been put forward".
"I really worry that the issue has not been examined to the extent that it requires, looking at the legal and constitutional issues and the trade ramifications," he said.
"A year has gone by and very little has happened."