TAOISEACH Leo Varadkar has said he was "relieved for my country", as Boris Johnson won an outright majority in the UK General Election.
Speaking in Brussels yesterday, Mr Varadkar said the results boded well for those who supported the `withdrawal agreement', as backing from the prime minister's own party should see the deal ratified by January 31, and facilitate an orderly exit for the UK from the EU.
Mr Varadkar congratulated Mr Johnson saying it was an enormous victory for him on a personal level and a very clear result for his party.
"It's a positive thing that we have a decisive outcome in Britain in their elections. We had for a few years a parliament that wasn't able to form a majority around anything," Mr Varadkar said.
"I'm relieved for my country and I'm also relieved for the UK. We've really had deadlock and gridlock for years now, now that's going to pass.
"Now we have a majority in the House of Commons to ratify the withdrawal agreement, and next steps will be to ratify that agreement which guarantees no hard border between north and south, the protection of the Common Travel Area and British and Irish citizens' rights will be protected.
"And then we go on to the next phase of Brexit which will be negotiating a mighty new partnership between the EU and UK and I think that can be done."
The Republic's government, along with 27 EU member states, have backed Mr Johnson's withdrawal agreement, which failed to pass the House of Commons.
Mr Johnson did not have the parliamentary arithmetic within his own party and his party's previous confidence and supply partners the DUP, who opposed the deal, to ratify the agreement.
Mr Varadkar added that he "deeply regrets" the UK's decision to leave the EU but said the people "have confirmed that now with this election".
"For us, it's a case now of getting Northern Ireland working again, getting the withdrawal agreement ratified, which gives us the guarantees we've always needed on the hard border and citizens' rights and the shared objective the Prime Minister and I have on negotiating a deep and economic future partnership, a trade deal-plus," he said.
Mr Varadkar said the next priority must be to get Northern Ireland's institutions up and running.
"That's absolutely crucial now and has to be a key priority the next few weeks," he said.
Earlier, Mr Varadkar said he will seek a €1 billion fund to support Northern Ireland and the border counties of the Republic after Brexit in the negotiations on the EU's next seven-year budget.
"I'm very much of the view that we should have a well-funded EU budget so that we can protect funding for CAP, Horizon, Erasmus, cohesion – all those long-standing programmes," he said.
"But also we'll be looking for additional funding for migration and security, for climate action, and as well for Peace Plus – one of our objectives is to have a new programme for Northern Ireland and the border counties worth up to a billion euro during that seven-year period."
