As the UK submits its first papers to Brussels, there is a growing sense of optimism about a Brexit deal, with senior cabinet ministers visiting Dublin at the rate of almost one a day at the moment fueling hopes that a deal is quietly being done on the Irish border.

After visits by the Foreign Secretary, the Chancellor, the Northern Ireland Secretary and the DUP leader Arlene Foster this week alone, there are now whispers in Westminster of ‘back-channels’ and the rising expectation that ‘something must be cooking’.

Hopes are raised even further when Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president says he is "doing everything" to get a deal, the dreaded backstop can be scrapped and a deal can be done by October 31 - if the objectives (an open border in Ireland that respects the EU single market) are met by other means.

But it is the sheer size of that ‘if’ which led Simon Coveney, the Irish deputy prime minister, to introduce what he called “a dose of reality” to the discussion in Dublin on Thursday, warning publicly of the “significant gap” between the two sides.