Bono pays tribute to Varadkar and Coveney at New York concert

U2 frontman Bono paid tribute on Sunday night to the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Tánaiste Simon Coveney for their "very hard work" in protecting "our borderless island".

Speaking from the stage at the band's concert at Madison Square Garden in New York, the singer recognised the attendance of Mr Varadkar and Mr Coveney and their work on seeking a solution to avoid a hard border in Ireland after the UK leaves the EU.

The band lent their support to the Government's campaign being formally launched on Monday to win a seat on the United Nations Security Council by inviting UN ambassadors from the 193 nation states to the concert.

About 150 ambassadors attended the gig on the eve of the Government’s event that will kickstart a two-year campaign to try to win the Security Council seat for the 2021-22 term.

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“We are proud of the island of Ireland,” Bono told the crowd on the band’s second-last date of the US leg of their Experience & Innocence tour.

“They work very hard to protect our borderless island,” he added, referring to Mr Varadkar and Mr Coveney. “Are we up for a borderless island here?” he asked the crowd, to shouts of yes.

The U2 singer also paid tribute to former Irish president Mary Robinson who was also in attendance at the concert for her work in the Northern Irish peace process.

Mrs Robinson with Bono will help the Taoiseach and Tánaiste launch the campaign on Monday. The Government hopes the high-profile support will help the campaign to take one of the 10 non-permanent seats on the security council, the most powerful body at the UN, over competition from Norway and Canada.

Speaking on stage last night, Bono applauded the UN’s peacekeeping work saying that the world has “watched those blue hats put themselves in harm’s way all over the world.”

“Tonight we have 150 ambassadors representing the United Nations here tonight; we want to thank you for keeping the world more peaceful,” he said.

"You do f**k up the traffic here sometimes but that's okay," he added, referring to the notorious traffic congestion caused during the UN General Assembly every September.

In a call to action, he urged more women and young people to get involved in campaigns, pointing to demonstrations in the US at the Trump administration's separation of immigrant children from parents at the border with Mexico.

There needed to be “less of people like - less older white guys,” he joked.

“Seriously though we have got to diversify, we have got to open up. That’s why if the United Nations did not exist, we would have to invent it because it is the one thing that puts peace on our table,” he said, before introducing the band’s song, One.

Mr Coveney, speaking earlier to reporters, said the campaign with a “big bang tonight” with the hosting of UN ambassadors by U2 at the concert.

“This is really the top table of world decision-making,” the Tánaiste said of the council.

He acknowledged that the council's failure to act in the conflicts in Syria and Yemen showed the body needed to be reformed. "If Ireland isn't part of that discussion, then we can't influence it," he said.

Mr Varadkar told a press conference that the Government wanted a seat on the council because it believed in “working together through international organisations to solve some of the world’s problems.”

He was not able to provide a figure on how much the campaign would cost but most of the work would be done by politicians and diplomats over the course of the work they would be doing anyway.