Dublin minister expects border checks after no deal

Shane Ross made the comments hours after MPs resoundingly rejected the prime minister’s Brexit deal.

An independent member of the Irish Parliament, he had been asked about a situation where a lorry carrying food produce from Scotland arrived at the Irish border.

Speaking during a briefing on the country’s contingency planning, the BBC reported him as saying: “I would anticipate that there would be checks.”

Senior Irish politicians have said whatever the circumstances the border would not be hardened.

“Well no,” said Tánaiste Simon Coveney, intervening after Mr Ross answered, saying that the Border would be dealt with through the divorce deal.

Mr Coveney said that the Government had “deliberately not” gone into contingency plans for dealing with the Border in a no-deal scenario because the UK had not voted on the plan, the Irish Times reported.

“If Britain leaves without a deal well, then we obviously have to difficult discussions with the European Commission and with the UK in terms of how we protect the EU single market,” he said.

EU planning notices published last month said that in the event of no deal, every consignment of animal products, including food, coming into the EU from the UK would have to undergo checks “at the point of entry.”

It did not suggest that Ireland would be exempt.

On Monday the UK Prime Minister said EU plans “make it clear there will be no flexibility on border checks in no deal. The Irish government will be expected to apply EU checks in full.”

Meanwhile, DUP leader Arlene Foster has stated there was never a hard border between north and south.

Ms Foster, said “there is no need for the backstop,” before pointing to the “fact that the Irish prime minister has indicated he will not be putting up a hard border on the island of Ireland”. “You know as someone who lived through the troubles, we never had a hard-border.

“There were 20,000 soldiers in Northern Ireland and they couldn’t hermetically seal the border in Northern Ireland.

“So it is a bit of a nonsense frankly to talk about a hard border,” she added.

The DUP props up Theresa May’s minority Conservative government through a confidence and supply agreement. Mrs Foster spoke at a Brexiteer event in London which was also attended by former Brexit secretaries Dominic Raab and David Davis.