Bertie Ahern Has Spoken Out On The Possibility Of An ‘Irexit’

Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has commented on the Northern Ireland border issue, Brexit, and the possibility of Ireland leaving the EU in an interview with Sky News today.

“Pigs will fly”, he said, if Brexit negotiations are finalised before Britain is due to leave the EU, and he has stated again that Ireland is not “mad enough” to actually leave the European Union.

Ahern also said that he agrees with UK Chancellor Philip Hammond in trying to aim for a seamless border that has been between Northern Ireland and the Republic for the last decade, hoping that Brexit negotiations will see this remain.

“We want it like its been now for the last decade or so where there’s free movement, where there’s no security checks, there’s no watch towers, there’s no technology, examinations of what’s going back and forward and that’s the way everybody on the island of Ireland wants it," he said. “The difficulty is that as I’ve said time out of number, the experts in this area say that’s impossible.”

Ahern also stated that the border issue should be fast-tracked during the summer.