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An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has stressded the need for the UK to come with a border solution post-Brexit.
Speaking at the opening of a new feed mill in Drinagh Co-op, Co Cork, Varadkar responded to a statement made by the UK prime minister Theresa May, stating that the current backstop proposed and backed by the Irish Government would be in breach of the Good Friday Agreement.
"As far as the Irish Government is concerned, we don’t want any barriers to trade or a border, north-south or east-west," Varadkar said.
"Obviously the best way that that can be avoided is if the UK, including Northern Ireland, stays in the single market and the customs union. They’ve decided that they don’t want to do that so we need to come up with an alternative."
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"The backstop that the European Union, including Ireland, had put forward back in March is workable and gives us the guarantee that we need that there would be no border between Northern Ireland and Ireland under any circumstances.
"If the UK has alternative proposals as to how to achieve that we’re very happy to consider them but the proposals that they’ve produced so far, a few months ago, doesn’t quite do that because it’s time-limited and doesn’t cover the whole issue of regulatory alignment.
"We’re absolutely open to discussions on a backstop that achieves what we want it to achieve but it must be better or the same to the one that we would have proposed."
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