Any deal is up to EU and Britain, not DUP, says Leo

THE Taoiseach has said the Government did not liaise with the Democratic Unionist Party on the Brexit deal as the talks involve ‘structured negotiation’.

Leo Varadkar said: ‘We are not negotiating with a political party in the North, in Britain or anywhere else.’

The Taoiseach said he was in Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh for a full day last month and met DUP leader Arlene Foster.

‘We discussed, of course, all of these matters and the future,’ said Mr Varadkar, hinting that the former Northern Ireland First Minister was fully up to speed on where the Republic stood.

‘This is a structured negotiation – on the one side the EU task force, led by Michel Barnier and into which we have a very strong input, and, on the other side, the UK Government,’ the Taoiseach told the Dáil. ‘This is how this will be concluded.

‘We are in a much stronger position represented by the task force as a union of 27 countries and 440 million people negotiating with the UK, than we would be in some sort of trilateral negotiation involving the Irish and British Governments and one of the parties in Northern Ireland.

‘We are not going to do that. We are going to continue to negotiate as we have been up until now.’

He quoted Sylvia Hermon, independent unionist MP from North Down, who said in the House of Commons: ‘The DUP does not speak for or represent all the people of Northern Ireland.’

Mrs Hermon, widow of former RUC chief constable Jack Hermon, referred to the ‘benefits’ of the proposals taken to Brussels, saying: ‘We should remember there are many voices in Northern Ireland, even some Unionist voices are very much behind the proposals… We need to listen to all of the voices and parties in Northern Ireland, not just one.’

Meanwhile, DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds accused Mr Varadkar of ‘playing a dangerous game’ with the Irish economy and said ‘the Republic would suffer far worse than the UK’ in a ‘no trade deal’ scenario.