Varadkar pledges to intensify engagement with Sunak over Northern Ireland

Leo Varadkar has said he plans to “intensify” engagement with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak over the Windsor Framework and powersharing in Northern Ireland.

The Taoiseach said history showed that political stability in the region depended on the Irish and British governments working “hand in hand”.

Mr Varadkar made the comments on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.

The 1998 peace deal, brokered by the US, paved the way for power-sharing between nationalists and unionists.

Despite the peace accord serving as a blueprint for other conflicts globally, there has been a power-sharing stalemate at Stormont for almost as long as it as been functioning.

The latest hiatus is over the DUP’s opposition to the implementation of the post-Brexit trading arrangement known as the Northern Ireland Protocol.

In a push to revive the executive and assembly, a new agreement was struck between the EU and UK that sought to amend the protocol and resolve the concerns raised by businesses and unionists.

Although the British parliament and EU have formally signed off on the Windsor Framework, the DUP and former prime ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss have voted against a key element and the Democratic Unionists are yet to commit to returning to Stormont.

Speaking on Sunday, Mr Varadkar said part of the reason the framework was struck was to encourage the DUP to return to the powersharing institutions.

“We’ve put a huge amount of effort in the last few months into getting an agreement on revisions and reforms to the protocol,” he told RTE’s This Week programme.

“And that culminated in the Windsor Framework, which was agreed only in the past few weeks. That took a lot of engagement with the different political parties in Northern Ireland, with the British Government, with the European Commission.

“And one of the reasons why we did that, aside from making sure we avoid a return to a hard border, was that the agreement could potentially reopen the possibility of the DUP coming back into the executive.

“So we’ve done that piece now, and the next piece now is deep engagement with the British Government and also with the five parties in Northern Ireland to try and get the institutions up and running again.

“Certainly over the next few weeks, I’ll be intensifying my contacts with Prime Minster Sunak and the British Government in particular, because what we know from history is that Northern Ireland only really works when the two governments work hand in hand.”

On Tuesday, Mr Sunak will travel to Northern Ireland as part of US President Joe Biden’s much-anticipated visit to the island of Ireland for the Good Friday Agreement milestone.

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