Apology demanded after Bertie Ahern says loyalists ‘haven’t got a clue’ about NI Protocol

Speaking at an event hosted by the Brexit Institute at Dublin City University (DCU) yesterday, Mr Ahern said they view the arrangements as being solely about identity.

His comments prompted DUP MP Gavin Robinson to demand an apology to loyalists and to east Belfast.

The former taoiseach (pictured) said the contentious post-Brexit arrangements are not properly understood by the community, and viewed as a backdoor to a united Ireland.

He said: “I spend a lot of my life still in the North. The reality is in east Belfast and in the ghettos and in the areas where you’re likely to get trouble, is that people haven’t got a clue about the protocol, not a clue. They see it as identity.

“They see it as a road to the Dublin government taking over again and this is a pathway to that. That’s the hard reality.”

The EU and the UK remain deadlocked in negotiations over the implementation of the NI Protocol, with the new barriers to east/west trade creating tensions in loyalist and unionist communities.

Mr Ahern, a former Fianna Fail leader and one of the architects of the Belfast Agreement, said the idea that protocol is about trade “just passes them by”.

He added: “In fact they’re not interested. It’s seen as a trick by the south to move the border from across the island, and to put it down the Irish Sea, as a trap for government. That’s how they see it. Even those who you might consider to be a bit more intelligent and articulate. That is the difficulty.”

Mr Ahern said negotiations over the protocol are made more difficult by this view.

He said: “We’re trying to do two things. We’re trying to solve the difficulties of medicine and meats and everything else in the protocol.

“But there’s another issue in the protocol, and that’s what is in the head and the ideological one, and that’s a far more difficult one to deal with.

“(DUP leader) Jeffrey Donaldson well understands how we might get over the detail, and the reason he keeps on about the other issue is because he’s trying to – which I don’t blame him for – he’s trying to serve the loyalist community as well.”

His comments angered the DUP’s Gavin Robinson, who said: “To associate East Belfast with a ghetto and suggest loyalists are not able to understand the Protocol is demeaning and degrading.

“People in my constituency who can’t get their Amazon parcels from another part of the United Kingdom well understand the impact of the Protocol.

“Rather than belittling those who oppose the Protocol, Bertie Ahern should seek to understand why not a single elected unionist in Northern Ireland supports the Protocol.

“As a man who was central to the Belfast Agreement being negotiated, Bertie should be honest in recognising that the Protocol does alter Northern Ireland’s status within the United Kingdom single market without any consent from people living here. Driving a coach and horses through the Belfast Agreement.”

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