Labour leader Brendan Howlin has questioned whether the Irish government would be prepared in the event of a Brexit writes Political Reporter Elaine Loughlin.

Speaking in Liverpool this morning where he was supporting the remain campaign, Mr Howlin said he is not sure if robust enough preparation has been carried out by Ireland in the event of a no vote next week.

“I think most people have been working under the assumption that Britain will vote to stay, I still hope passionately that that will be the outcome and I believe it will be the outcome, but we certainly have to prepare for other eventualities and I am not sue we have done robust preparation in that regard,” he said.

It comes ahead of a visit by Taoiseach Enda Kenny who is due to travel to Liverpool this afternoon and then on to Manchester to meet with the Irish community in Britain in a bid to shore up support for the remain campaign.

Mr Howlin added: “There are a number of issues that we want to share with people who understand Ireland who have Irish connections, who value the progress that we have made in relations between the UK and Ireland in the past 40 years under the umbrella of the EU.

“It has facilitated enormous progress in breaking down barriers across these islands and we don’t want to risk that again, we certainly don’t want to put up new barriers, or a new hard barrier on the island of Ireland, that would be unthinkable.

“From every prospective, the building of peace, looking at trade, we trade €1.2billion a week between the UK and Ireland, all of that would certainly be in turmoil,” he said.