Taoiseach ‘made it clear to Britain’ Border to have no customs posts

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has insisted in the Dáil that he would not “stand or sign for anything to do with borders of the past”.

During a series of questions on the challenges of Brexit, including the impact on the Border, Mr Kenny said the political challenge was not to return to the kind of Border that would bring a return to the sectarian violence of the Troubles.

He also said the State wanted to see the wording of the Belfast Agreement put into a negotiated settlement so that, if in the future the electorate decided to have a united Ireland, Northern Ireland could “rejoin the Republic as a member of the European Union in a seamless fashion and without having to wait 20 years in an application process”.

The Taoiseach told Sinn Féin TD Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin: “I have made that perfectly clear to the British government. We are not having those customs posts along the Border at different locations.”

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Worst-case scenario

Mr Ó Caoláin had asked about reports that the Revenue Commissioners were looking at sites for possible customs posts and checkpoints in the event of a worst-case scenario.

“Is there a plan for the numbers and locations of such posts, and what of the hundreds of roads that crisscross the Border, so many of which, as I knew only too well as a Border resident, were closed and cratered by the British not that many years ago?”

Mr Kenny said the Government had not directed officials to go looking at sites for the possibility that they would need large car parks or sites for lorries.

“We are not going back there because it brings with it sectarian violence,” Mr Kenny insisted. “This is not a technological issue. It is a political issue.”

He stressed: “We are not going to have that kind of Border”; but then said: “That is my starting point.”

But he followed up by saying: “I will not stand or sign for anything to do with a return to that kind of Border of the past.”

He said the Revenue Commissioners and customs officials, who knew how to operate borders, had been talking about this but “there is no direction from Government for officials to go looking at sites for the possibility that one will have need of large car parks or sites for lorries”.

‘Asks’

Labour leader Brendan Howlin referred to comments by European Commission vice-president Frans Timmermans, who said Ireland should have specific "asks" that should be made early. He asked what had Ireland sought to mitigate against the impact of Brexit.

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin expressed concern about London’s announcement that restrictions would be applied from next month to European Union migrants arriving in Britain. This “shows that the British are much further advanced in detailing new barriers than they are in proposing ways of limiting their impact”.

It seemed that assurances about the Common Travel Area “are secondary to the Eurosceptic-driven agenda to limit EU immigration”.