Brexit: May to hold talks with Ireland's PM over 'hard border' concerns

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jan/30/brexit-theresa-may-talks-ireland-pm-hard-border

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Theresa May will hold talks with Ireland’s taoiseach, Enda Kenny, in Dublin where they will discuss Irish fears over a “hard border” with Northern Ireland after Brexit.

The prime minister is expected to stress on Monday that the UK wants to maintain the common travel area between Britain and Ireland, which allows for freedom of movement on either side of the Irish Sea for British and Irish citizens.

It is also anticipated that the discussions will focus on ensuring that any new post-Brexit customs controls on the republic’s border with Northern Ireland will be as unobtrusive as possible.

Before the meeting, Ireland’s foreign minister said May was aware of Irish concerns over Brexit and, in particular, the border on the island.

“I believe it’s important that today we hear her view on what again is a great challenge to the island of Ireland with particular reference to our economy, our trade with the United Kingdom and, of course, the Good Friday agreement and the peace process,” Charlie Flanagan said.

May’s discussion with the taoiseach comes at a time of political turbulence in Northern Ireland. The region faces an election to a new assembly at Stormont after the power-sharing government in Belfast between the Democratic Unionist party and Sinn Féin broke down in acrimony over a botched green energy scheme that will cost the taxpayer up to half a billion pounds.

The outgoing first minister, Arlene Foster, refused to stand down from her post while a public inquiry into the renewable heat incentive scheme was held. Her main partner in government, Sinn Féin’s deputy first minister, Martin McGuinness, resigned in protest over Foster’s stance and his departure from the administration triggered its collapse.

Earlier on Monday, Theresa May will hold talks with the leaders of the three devolved parliaments in Belfast, Cardiff and Edinburgh. She will chair the meeting of the joint ministerial committee in Cardiff, which coordinates relations between Downing Street and the devolved administrations.

While in Dublin, the two leaders are also likely to be questioned about the fallout from Donald Trump’s ban on immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim countries.

Kenny faces demands that he cancel a trip to the White House as part of the annual St Patrick’s Day celebrations in Washington DC hosted by successive US presidents.

One minister in Kenny’s government has also called for the possible removal of US immigration officials from Dublin and Shannon airports in protest at the Trump ban. US homeland security officers vet passengers at Dublin and Shannon where their part of both airports have been designated US territory.

Katherine Zappone, Ireland’s children’s minister, warned that if the travel ban into the US was not lifted she would forward a proposal to the cabinet that Ireland remove US homeland security’s right to screen passengers at the country’s two main airports.

Zappone, one of the ministers in Kenny’s coalition belonging to an independent group of Dáil deputies, said: “We need to determine whether our constitution and the international treaties we have signed up to, that those laws operate in context of Irish soil in terms of prohibiting those policies of discrimination against nationalities, and also people of particular religions, that Donald Trump has implemented.”

On the St Patrick’s Day visit, a spokesperson for Kenny said the taoiseach would attend the White House party hosted by Trump.

Kenny’s spokesperson said: “In order to maintain the historically strong links between the Irish and American peoples it is important that the taoiseach continues to engage with the US president and his administration in Washington around the events of St Patrick’s Day.

“Doing so allows the taoiseach to outline, in person, his government’s views on a range of issues, including business and economic ties, immigration and other matters of common interest.

“He will continue to act in the interests of Irish people and to that end he will raise these matters again this year.”