Ireland and Britain agree plan for new customs approach on NI border
Customs posts will not be set up on the Northern Irish border, after the Irish and British governments agreed that they would look at technology to facilitate trade following Brexit.
After Theresa May confirmed in a speech last week that Britain would leave the single market, questions were raised about how the border between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom would uphold new EU tariffs on trade.
The relationship between the two countries will come under the spotlight in the coming months due to the high levels of trade that run between the two regions, as well as the breakdown of power-sharing in Northern Ireland.
Talk of of a hard border being reintroduced between the northern and southern parts of the island have been rebuffed by both sides, but some believe that Ireland could become a "back door" for businesses looking for trade loopholes.
At the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos last week, Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny said that "we've agreed that there will not be a return to borders of the past".
Tensions have been fraught in recent weeks in NI following preparations for Britain's departure from the bloc, as well as the fallout from the Renewable Heat Incentive Scheme, which led to the collapse of the Stormont coalition government.
Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams has claimed that Brexit will jeopardise the Good Friday Agreement, which provided the basis for peace in the region following decades of political turmoil.
"The British government's intention to take the north out of the EU, despite the wish of the people there to remain, is a hostile action," Adams said during a conference in Dublin.
"Along with her (Theresa May) commitment to remove Britain from the European convention on human rights, this stand threatens to undermine the fundamental human rights elements of the Good Friday agreement."