In addition, during yesterday’s meeting of the British-Irish Council – which consists of the Republic, Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland, England and the channel islands – Northern Ireland’s deputy first minister Martin McGuinness said there are “huge concerns about the prospect of a hard border” developing.
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The British Irish Council summit in the Welsh capital was called for by Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones.
New Northern Ireland secretary James Brokenshire said “I do not want to see a return to the borders of the past”.
The summit comes after the UK Attorney General, Jeremy Wright, said Scotland will be leaving the European Union with the UK.
The French president had also urged Britain not to delay the process of negotiations to pull the country out of the bloc – a sentiment echoed by Taoiseach Mr Kenny.
“It’s very hard to see how it can be protected in the aftermath of the debate that was held mostly in England around the whole issue of immigration and which effectively won that vote for the racists within Ukip and the loony, right-wing of the Tory party”, he said following the meeting.
“In that [agreement] if there is a clear evidence of a majority of people wishing to leave the United Kingdom and join the Republic, that should be catered for in the discussions”.
“Many of the commitments that are being given right now are welcome, but we need to now translate them into reality so that we have a process in advance of triggering Article 50 that we all understand and are comfortable with”, she said.
“We are going to lose £600 million a year of European funding. We have not got that money yet nor a promise of it”.
“People voted to Leave”.
“Our strategy is to continue to increase the number of globally diversified Irish companies and we will now firmly focus on opportunities in Northern Europe, the USA, Canada and other high-growth markets including the Middle East and Asia Pacific”, she added. And I think that we have to be prepared to think about unprecedented solutions to the circumstances we found ourselves in.
“The UK is a multinational state and if it’s not able to demonstrate that the voices of the different nations can be heard and listened to, then certain conclusions will be drawn from that”.
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“Or do we have to look at other options to secure our interests?”
