FILE PHOTO: Ireland's Foreign Minister Simon Coveney speaks during a news conference in Dublin, Ireland, April 12, 2018. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne

DUBLIN (Reuters) - It is “very, very unlikely” that Britain will crash out of the European Union next year without an exit deal with the bloc, Ireland’s Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said on Sunday.

“I have said and I continue to say that I believe a no-deal Brexit is very, very unlikely,” Coveney told Irish state broadcaster RTE, when asked about the publication by the British government last week of planning for a possible no-deal Brexit.

But he also warned that Ireland would not change its own red lines on the key Brexit issue of the Irish border, saying Ireland’s position “has remained consistent and firm ... and is not going to change.”