TAOISEACH LEO Varadkar has described Boris Johnson’s landslide UK election victory as a “positive thing” for Ireland.
Speaking ahead of the second day of the EU leaders' summit in Brussels offered Mr Johnson his congratulations after the Conservative Party secured its biggest general election victory since 1987.
“First of all, I want to congratulate Mr Johnson. It's an enormous victory for him on a personal level, and also very clear result for his party,” he said.
“I think it's a positive thing that we have the decisive outcome in Britain in their elections,” the Taoiseach added.
“We had for a few years of Parliament stuff wasn't able to form a majority around anything. We now clearly have a majority in the House of Commons to ratify the Withdrawal Agreement,” Mr Varadkar added.
The Irish leader called on Mr Johnson to begin the steps to ratify the Withdrawal Agreement, in a move ensuring no hard border between the North and South of Ireland.
The Taoisearch stressed the importance of the ratification in securing the protection of the common travel area and the rights of British and Irish citizens.
Mr Varadkar added he was eager to get Northern Ireland’s executive assembly up and running with the help of the new Prime Minister.
“I think that's absolutely crucial now,” he said.
“That has to be a key priority for the next couple of weeks. And then we go on to the next phase of Brexit which is negotiating a mighty new future economic partnership between the EU and the UK, and I think that can be done.”
