Tánaiste and Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney on RTÉ radio this morning. Image: Twitter/rtenews Tánaiste and Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney on RTÉ radio this morning. Image: Twitter/rtenews TÁNAISTE SIMON COVENEY has said Ireland cannot and will not agree a “side deal” with the UK to avoid a hard border, following suggestions in the UK media that a bilateral agreement could break the Brexit impasse.
The minister told the paper that this would be in the form of “a bilateral agreement to agree a common rule book for Britain and Ireland”. We are not going to do a side deal with the UK on a managed no-deal, we can’t because the Irish border between Northern Ireland and the Republic is also the EU border and many things in our economy function on the basis of EU rules and regulations. “Much of the commentary in London simply doesn’t seem to understand that,” Coveney added.
“I think it’s important that you don’t paint something that’s not true, I have spoken about border infrastructure repeatedly,” he said.