It would be heartbreaking if border checks were introduced after Brexit, says McAleese

FORMER President of Ireland Mary McAleese has spoken of her “heartbreak” at the prospect of identity checks on the border post-Brexit.

Speaking to Irish State broadcaster RTE from the Edinburgh Festival, the former QUB academic said she thought border checks would be an inevitable consequence of Brexit.

“Brexit is like pulling a tooth with 10,000 roots,” she said.

“And I don’t think people have got their heads fully around the implications what’s lying at the end of all those roots. “There will be pain. “And part of the pain will be — possibly — the imposition of con- trols in a place where we have become so delighted no longer to have such controls.”

Mrs McAleese was visiting the Scottish capital to take part in an event with Scots nationalist figure Alex Salmond.

RTE reported Mrs McAleese as saying she would be very upset if she was required to produce some form of identity each time she crossed the border.

“I would be heartbroken if that is where we end up from where we are now,” she told the station.

“I would be deeply, deeply unhappy about it.”

Ms McAleese, who served from 1997 to 2011, also expressed concern about the future of power-sharing in Northern Ireland. “At the moment I am very worried that we are not going to have power sharing either in the short or medium term — and that is tragic for Northern Ireland,” she said.

And she voiced her fears that the post-Brexit border come become a “flashpoint” for people who regard violence as “a useful phenomenon”. The former lawyer also warned that the existing Common Travel Area between the UK and Ireland could come under pressure: she feared that Irish citizens would eventually have to prove their entitlement to

its privileges.