Robinson: Any hard border will pose a threat to our peace
Former president warns a return to violence ‘real risk’
A HARD border in Ireland after Brexit could threaten the peace process, former president Mary Robinson has warned.
The 74-year-old appeared to back Leo Varadkar’s comments on the risk of a return to violence should customs posts be erected between the North and South.
The Taoiseach has been accused of scaremongering after making the claim during this week’s EU summit.
Mrs Robinson, speaking at the One Young World event in The Hague yesterday, told how a such a Brexit scenario could provide a “visible opportunity” to those who wish to disrupt the peace process.
She said: “I think there is a real risk, if we had a hard border in Ireland, that there are people, as we would say, lying in the long grass, on both sides waiting to do mischief and unfortunately it could lead to that. We have had a peace process and a peace outcome that the world has admired.
“It’s really important that, on the island of Ireland, we live in peace and friendship and harmony, and that is what we have been doing.
“And I think it’s important we don’t have a border that provides a visible opportunity for those who could be not only disruptive but actually go back to violence. “Most of the people I have spoken to in Northern Ireland believe this.” Addressing fellow EU leaders in Brussels on Wednesday, Mr Varadkar told the story of an IRA bomb attack at a customs post in Newry, Co Down, in 1972, in which four officials, two lorry drivers and three IRA men died. The Democratic Unionist Party’s Brexit spokesman Sammy Wilson branded Mr Varadkar “vile” and accused him of using victims of terrorism in order to scaremonger. But the Taoiseach was defended by Tanaiste Simon Coveney, who said concerns about the potential to destabilise the island’s “very precious peace” were real.