Donohoe to stress need to avoid hard border in meeting with White House officials

Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe will stress the need to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland when he meets key White House officials.

Mr Donohoe is travelling to Washington today where he will update acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney on Brexit.

“America's influence in Northern Ireland has always been very important, and will continue to be really important,” he said at an event in Dublin this morning.

Stressing the fact that the US is a significant employer in Northern Ireland, and as a country that was “intimately involved” in the creation of the Good Friday Agreement , Mr Donohoe said the American influence will continue to be important in the context of Brexit.

“From the engagement that I've had with members of President Trump's administration, and from the engagement that I've had on Capitol Hill, it's clear to me that they take their responsibilities deeply seriously.

“So, the first matter that I be updating the chief of staff on will be the status of the Brexit negotiations, continuing to emphasise how important it is that we do not have any infrastructure on the border that we do not have to return to the hard border of the past and emphasise and how vital that is for Ireland, the European Union, and also for the United Kingdom, and ask you for a continued appreciation and understanding of this within the President Trump's administration.”

Mr Donohoe, who will attend a meeting of the World Bank and IMF in Washington added: “The next area that I'd be engaging with different members of the Treasury on will be the status with international tax reform, the changes that Ireland has made an outling in our agenda regarding the potential completion of the discussion on global tax reform, by the end of next year.”