No bilateral deals on Brexit with UK - Mairead McGuinness

Ireland will not do any bilateral deals with the UK on Brexit, MEP Mairead McGuinness has said.

It is important there is full co-operation between all EU member states on border controls, added the Fine Gael MEP for Midlands North-West, who is also a vice-president of the European Parliament.

She was speaking after comments from Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire who said the Irish and British governments would work to strengthen Ireland's external borders after Brexit takes effect to make them proxy ports of entry into Britain.

Tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald also said the Irish Government was agreeable to Irish ports and airports being used to control immigration into Britain.

"Until Article 50 is triggered by [British prime minister] Teresa May - and we know where the UK is heading post-Brexit - then there are no negotiations. Anything else is in the realm of speculation," Ms McGuinness said.

‘Awful lot of speculation’

“We’re going to see an awful lot of speculation about this. What is very clear from an Irish point of view - the negotiations will be led by and with our colleagues. We will not do bilateral deals.

“It is not in our interest to do that. It is very much in our interest and our responsibility, and me as a border MEP, to stress the significance of this situation on the island of Ireland. We do not want to see a return to a hard border,” she told RTÉ’s Today with Sean O’Rourke show.

"Sometimes when I listen to what UK ministers are saying or suggesting I'm not sure they are in touch with reality of what they have voted for, although the people of Northern Ireland did not vote for this, they voted to remain within the European Union. "

On the same programme, Sinn Féin MEP Matt Carthy said one of the things that had become quite clear since the Brexit vote is that everybody is agreed there should be no return to a hard border.

“The difficulty is getting agreement on what exactly a hard border is - certainly I don’t envisage a scenario where we return to British army patrolling or blocking every single road across the entire Border region.

“It wasn’t possible for the British to do that at the height of the conflict - I can’t imagine them being willing to put in place the type of resources to do that.

"For me what a hard border means is anything that would make it more difficult for a company to operate on a cross-Border basis, or for a student in Monaghan to travel to Queen's or for a student in Fermanagh to travel to Sligo IT or for community groups to operate together and draw down European funding.

Democratic feelings

“All of these things are under threat under the stated intention of the British government to actually disrespect and ignore the democratic feelings of the people of the North who voted emphatically to remain part of the EU.

“The key priority of the Irish Government and the European Union has to be to find the mechanism by which that democratic decision can be upheld.

“I am firmly of the belief that the island of Ireland will suffer more than anyone if Brexit is proceeded with along the current intentions of the British government, including the island of Britain, in terms of the impact it would have.

“To add on top of all the challenges the task of sorting out the British immigration system is just a ludicrous suggestion.”

Ms McGuinness added that comments at the recent Tory conference did not help in terms of “the arrogance and disrespect towards the European Union”.

“We need the environment to calm a little and to have a negotiation of equals rather then the current scenario.

“Some of the rhetoric around the movement of workers, around students and who they will take advice from has been very unhelpful from the point of view of the other European Union states.

“What exactly are the UK looking for? What mood are they entering into negotiations in? There is a sense in which there is a desire on their side to have their cake and eat it - that cannot be the case.”