Taoiseach confident of progress in EU-UK talks to avoid hard Brexit

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has expressed confidence that sufficient progress will be made in Brexit talks between the EU and Britain on Ireland, citizens' rights and a financial setttlement by December to allow negotiations to move on to the next phase on future relationships.

Mr Varadkar acknowledged a hard Brexit was always a possibility but he pointed out that no one in Europe, Ireland or Britain wanted a hard Brexit and that it would represent a huge political failure if the EU and Britain failed to reach an agreement on the UK's departure.

"Of course it (a hard Brexit) is a possibility but I'm confident it won't be the outcome, nobody seems to want that whether I talk to other European prime ministers and presidents as I will in Brussels next week when I talk to the British prime minister; when I talk to the different parties in Northern Ireland, nobody is advocating a hard Brexit, so it would be some monumental disaster and political failure all around if that is the outcome we ended up with," said Mr Varadkar.

Speaking at University College Cork prior to chairing a Cabinet meeting to discuss Brexit negotiations in Europe, Mr Varadkar acknowledged Ireland would to prepare for the possibility of a hard Brexit but stressed this preparation did not mean it would become a reality.

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“Of course we have to prepare for all scenarios but preparing for all scenarios and doing desk top planning and war gaming is a far cry from what some people seem to be suggesting - some people seem to be suggesting we should admit defeat already,” he said.

“Some people are suggesting that we should start implementing the worse-case scenario, looking for sites for truck stops and customs posts, training dogs and hiring border guards; I can absolutely guarantee you that is not the kind of preparation we are doing or even contemplating.

Mr Varadkar said there was a danger when a government or anybody starts preparation for a worse-case scenario that “it becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophesy”, but he pledged that such a situation would not arise over Brexit.

People would expect the Government to prepare for a hard Brexit as happened when the Government had prepared for a possible collapse of the euro, but the Government was committing to a political solution to allow existing north-south and Anglo-Irish relationships continue, he said.

Mr Varadkar acknowledged there had not yet been sufficient progress across the three areas that make up the first phase of the Brexit negotiations - the rights of EU citizens in the UK, Irish issues and the ‘divorce bill’ that the UK will have to pay when it leaves the EU.

“I think it’s fair to say there hasn’t really been sufficient progress across those three issues to allow us to proceed. What I should say - and I think it’s important - it’s not that we have to fully conclude those three areas to move on to talking about the transition period or the future relationships.

"We just need to make sufficient progress, and while we anticipate the European Council, which will meet next week, will agree with Michel Barnier's assessment that we have not made sufficient progress yet - that does not mean we cannot make it by the time we meet again in December, and I hope that minds will really focus in the next couple of weeks to make that possible."