Former taoiseach Bertie Ahern has dismissed the idea that border checks could be beefed up in Ireland to control immigration into Britain.

Mr Ahern said it was illogical to think that Irish ports and airports would become proxy points of entry into the UK to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland.

The suggestion was mooted in recent weeks, with Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire adding that governments in London and Dublin would work to strengthen the Republic of Ireland’s external borders after Brexit.

Mr Ahern said the Government should not facilitate it.

“I can’t imagine it happening,” the former taoiseach said.

Mr Ahern said Ireland should not have any right to interrogate a plane load of passengers coming into Dublin from another European Union country.

“Imagine if the same was to happen to Irish people going to EU countries,” he told Newstalk radio.

“Say if you and I today were going over to a conference or a football game or rugby match or whatever and we were to get that interrogation with our EU passport. We don’t mind being checked. We don’t mind producing it. But to start being questioned is not logical.”

Mr Ahern said he believed immigration was voters’ primary concern in the referendum but he warned that it was not thought through in the context of Brexit.

He said: “That’s just not going to happen. There’s no possibility that we’re going to be manning that.