The newly appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney said the Government is not only asking for but indeed demanding a “special status” for Northern Ireland after Brexit.
Mr Coveney met with EU chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier this week and said that there would be an unprecedented “political solution” to ensure no future hard border would be put in place.
“What we are insisting on achieving is a special status for Northern Ireland that allows the interaction on this island, as is currently the case, to be maintained,” he said.
“It is not so much about a soft or hard border, it is about an invisible border effectively, that you don’t notice as you cross it.
“To achieve that, we need to draw up a political solution here as well as technical and practical one, which doesn’t really have any precedent in the European Union.”
“This is not going to be a straightforward problem to solve,” he concluded.