Irish government exploring sites for possible border checkpoints

The Irish Government has begun the process of exploring sites for possible border checkpoints in the event of a hard border post-Brexit.

However the Irish government has said that it is only contingency work.

It said that it does not envisage a return of customs officers along the border and Taoiseach (PM) Enda Kenny had said he was confident the border would not return.

Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan told an Irish parliamentary committee that contingency plans had to be drawn up in the light of the Brexit vote.

Fine Gael MEP and vice president of the European Parliament Mairead McGuinness said there was no 'drive' to implement a hard border.

"What the finance minister said very clearly is that, at a technical level, the officials are looking at contingency planning because of the outcome of the referendum in the United Kingdom, but there is no policy decision or drive to implement any of these technical issues," she said.

"The taoiseach, and indeed the finance minister, is very well aware that we have said that there will be no return to a hard border on the island of Ireland because of the political, economic, psychological implications of that.

"To some extent, had the concerns about Northern Ireland, and indeed of the island of Ireland, been taken into account properly in the UK referendum, we might, perhaps, not be in this very difficult and stark situation."