Statement by TUV leader Jim Allister:
“The comments of Rory Montgomery, a key person in the Republic’s approach to Brexit, expose as an utter sham Dublin’s professed concern for the Belfast Agreement. Repeatedly it was claimed that the Republic was merely interested in protecting the Belfast Agreement but here we have an admission that it deviated from that agreement in “pretty brutal” fashion.
“Unionists of course have already recognised this but to hear it spelt out in such blunt terms by Mr Montgomery is nonetheless significant. There is now no pretence that the protections Unionists were told they had secured in the Belfast Agreement were respected when it came to the Protocol. Their concerns were cast aside and treated with contempt by Dublin, London and the EU.
“It is crystal clear that while Dublin was big on rhetoric about the Belfast Agreement they never really had any interest in respecting either its letter or its famous “spirit”.