Irish border checks

SIR – Judith Tanner (Letters, May 18) was right to expect that there would be a solution to the customs border problem in Ireland.

In May 2017 the head of the Irish tax authority told the Irish parliament that it used a combination of pre-authorised traders and advance declarations to check imports from outside the EU. In 2016 it had checked only 6 per cent of imports. Less than 2 per cent were physical checks, mostly at approved warehouses and other premises. At that time, even the Republic saw no need to check UK goods at the border.

It was only after Leo Varadaker became Taoiseach that he and Simon Coveney, Ireland’s minister for foreign affairs, weaponised the border issue for political purposes.

S J Morris

Whittlebury, Northamptonshire

SIR – How dare Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, warn our Foreign Secretary against taking appropriate action in the Brexit negotiations (report, May 17)? Does the she not realise that at present the Northern Ireland Protocol denies a significant number of UK citizens their inalienable democratic rights?

Furthermore, it would be appropriate to remind those who wish to interfere in the process of improving the Protocol that it was the EU which previously acted in “bad faith” by triggering Article 16, when it disagreed over the logistics of coronavirus vaccine deliveries.

Malcolm H Wheeler

Bonvilston, Glamorgan