Varadkar warns of violence return

IRELAND’S premier has warned there is a “real risk” of a return to violence in Ireland if a hard border returns.

Leo Varadkar was speaking after he used a newspaper article on an IRA bombing of a customs post as a “prop” to emphasise the importance of the issue to EU leaders.

Mr Varadkar took a copy of the Irish Times, which featured the story of the blast which killed nine people in August 1972, to a summit dinner on Wednesday.

Four customs officials, two lorry drivers and three IRA men died in the explosion at Newry customs clearing station in Co Down.

Mr Varadkar said: “I just wanted to make sure that there was no sense in the room that in any way anybody in Ireland or in the Irish government was exaggerating the real risk of a return to violence in Ireland.”

He described the article as “a useful prop to demonstrate to all the European leaders the extent to which the concerns about the reemergence of a hard border and the possibility of a return to violence are very real”.

He added: “I pointed out as well that we have gone now for nearly two years without a functioning Executive and Assembly in Northern Ireland.

“I met both leaders of the two main parties and they were both in agreement that the uncertainty around Brexit was one of the major reasons why they haven’t been able to form an Executive, so we can see the uncertainty of Brexit is already having an impact.”