Ireland’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister has said he believes a Brexit deal on the Irish border question is “doable”, and confirmed that his government had held talks on the subject with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist party.

Simon Coveney said a breakthrough was possible before Theresa May’s crunch meeting with Jean-Claude Juncker on Monday, when Britain has to table satisfactory offers on three issues to progress to the next phase of negotiations.



“I think it is doable ... We are not where we need to be today, but I think it is possible to get to be where we need to be in the next few days,” said Coveney in Dublin on Friday.



He said Ireland needed “some movement and more flexibility than we have seen to date” but he was hopeful the impasse could be broken.



Coveney also confirmed that behind-the-scenes conversations were being held with the DUP, which on Thursday threatened to pull the plug on its deal to prop up May’s Conservative government. “We have had discussions with the DUP … the DUP also want to look at a practical solution,” he said.

The Irish border issue is the biggest problem still to be resolved before a crucial Brussels summit starting on 14 December where EU leaders are hoping to agree to open talks on trade, provided “sufficient progress” has been made on three preliminary issues: Ireland, citizens’ rights and the financial settlement.

The EU is expected to reiterate its commitment to Ireland’s position at a meeting between Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, and the Irish taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, on Friday at 4pm.

While British and EU teams expected to work into the weekend to find the “formula of words” satisfactory to all sides, Coveney indicated on Friday that Ireland was not looking for a written commitment to Northern Ireland remaining in the customs union. A new bespoke customs arrangement was possible, he added.

“I don’t mind what we can call it. We can call it a customs partnership, we can call it a grand trade partnership whatever you want to call it, but the bottom line is that if goods are going to have to move from one country’s union to another country’s union there will have to be customs checks somewhere, whether it is on a business premises or a border and we are trying to avoid that. And I think we can avoid it in the context of the negotiations,” said Coveney.

Trying to damp down the flames fuelled by accusations by the DUP that Ireland had acted “disgracefully”, Coveney declared: “There is not an anti-British bone in my body. Britain is a great country and we want a good deal. A good deal for Britain is a good deal for us, but Ireland will not be steamrolled on this issue.”

He described Ireland’s stance as firm and stubborn but fair, insisting its threat to veto progress to the next phase of Brexit talks was “not some kind of political bluff”.



“We cannot just move to phase two discussions in the hope that this can be resolved,” he said. “We can work through this. We want to listen to unionism. They are of equal importance but at the same time, we can’t allow one party to dictate what is acceptable and what is not.”

The row with the unionists blew up last month after the EU suggested that the best way to avoid a hard border was for Northern Ireland to stay in the customs union and the single market. Ireland has insisted it wants a written guarantee from Britain that it will ensure that there will be no border between Northern Ireland and Ireland for trade or people.

Earlier, Dublin repeated its demand for an assurance from the UK that there would not be any regulatory divergence between Northern Ireland and the Republic after Brexit.



In an interview with the BBC on Friday, Coveney said that without such a guarantee Britain would be asking the Republic to take “a leap in the dark” regarding its future.

He said a British promise that there would be no divergence should cover not just agriculture – a key issue because of the importance of agri-business on both sides of the border – but areas such as health too.

Q&A Why is Dublin opposed to the idea of a hard border? Show Ireland’s taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, has been much more sceptical than the UK about the potential for avoiding border posts via virtual checks on importers. Whilst agreeing with British ministers and EU negotiators that it is inconceivable for there to be a return to a hard border with the north, Dublin argues that the best way for the UK to achieve this would be by permanently remaining in a customs union with the EU and seeking single market membership like Norway through the European Economic Area. The UK has conceded that some of this will be necessary in its interim phase after Brexit, but hopes clever technological solutions can allow it have looser economic links in the long run. Varadkar is not alone in being sceptical about whether such a cake-and-eat-it customs and trade strategy is viable.

“If you have different standards in terms of food safety, animal welfare, animal health,” he said, “if you have different standards in relation to medical devices and the approval of drugs and so on, how then can you maintain practical north-south cooperation as we have it today if that regulatory divergence appears after Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom leaves the European Union?”