Ireland must prepare for Northern Ireland reunification vote, foreign minister says

Ireland needs to be prepared for a vote on whether to reunify with the UK’s Ireland" class="entity-link entity-location" data-entity-id="1853" data-entity-type="location">Northern Ireland region, Irish Foreign Minister Helen McEntee has said.“I do believe that there will be a border poll at some stage,” McEntee told reporters in Wicklow, Ireland, ahead of a European Union foreign ministers meeting on Wednesday. “It is for the people of Ireland" class="entity-link entity-location" data-entity-id="1853" data-entity-type="location">Northern Ireland to decide this and it is only where there’s a view that there may be a majority that we should move forward on this.”Her comments came after UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham said any conversation about uniting the Republic with Ireland" class="entity-link entity-location" data-entity-id="1853" data-entity-type="location">Northern Ireland was “off the table”, comparing it to Britain’s divisive Brexit referendum. Burnham made the comments during a recent visit to Ireland" class="entity-link entity-location" data-entity-id="1853" data-entity-type="location">Northern Ireland, signalling he would stick with the position of past prime ministers.Britain’s Prime Minister Andy Burnham in Belfast, Ireland" class="entity-link entity-location" data-entity-id="1853" data-entity-type="location">Northern Ireland, on Thursday, as he tours the country to discuss the cost of living. Photo: APThe issue of a border poll, as the vote on unification is known, is contentious in both the UK and Ireland, which act as co-guarantors of the 1990s peace accord that largely ended sectarian violence between British unionists and Irish nationalists in Ireland" class="entity-link entity-location" data-entity-id="1853" data-entity-type="location">Northern Ireland.