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 “hard to know” if the new “backstop” proposal Britain is working on for how to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland would work, Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney was quoted as saying on Friday.

“We have simply heard concepts from the UK, so what’s required is an intensification of the negotiations in Brussels,” Coveney was quoted by the Irish Times newspaper as telling reporters at a Brexit event in Cork.