Border is tackled in Constitution

■ Perhaps you have among your readers an expert in Irish constitutional law.

If so, would they please answer a couple of points which may shed more light on the supposedly intractable EU/UK border issue than has so far emerged from the EU (blame and punish the UK government for allowing its voters to vote ‘leave’) or from the Taoiseach (it’s all up to the Brits to find a solution).

My understanding is that the Irish Constitution does not allow any treaty entered into with the EU – or any action taken to change the make-up of the EU – either to override the constitutional

status of all 32 counties or (more immediately) to entitle the EU to compel the Republic to recognise, let alone enforce against its own citizens, a border whose existence is not recognised by the Constitution.

Only a referendum can change that starting position; and I accept that this may be politically difficult given the commitments made to the population of the six counties.

The Sunningdale Agreement and the way in which Irish elections have been held in only the 26 counties may have recognised the Border as a ‘fact on the ground’, but I suggest that Mr Varadkar has a duty to disabuse his EU peers of any notion that he is obliged to impose tariffs or customs duties on any citizen of Ireland seeking to move self, goods or services from one county to another.

If the EU has threatened explicitly (or even amicably) to penalise Ireland for upholding its legitimate but inconvenient Constitution rather than kowtowing to the EU then we shall find out soon enough how genuine and disinterested is the EU’s stated intention to back Ireland to the hilt on the border issue.

Liam O’Hanlon Winchmore Hill, London