TAOISEACH LEO VARADKAR has said that Brexit is not a “passing squall”, but a “political equivalent of climate change”, according to RTÉ Europe Editor Tony Connolly.

“It will permanently change the relationship between Ireland the UK and the UK and Europe,” Varadkar told reporters in Brussels.

EU leaders gave their closing statements at the Brexit conference, which ended in disappointment and little progress made. It had been expected that leaders would debate and discuss the final deal, but we’re no closer to seeing an agreement that would ensure no border appears on the island of Ireland.

Last night UK Prime Minister Theresa May gave a 15-minute speech to leaders where no new proposals or ideas were put forward, according to EU sources.

On the eve before the summit started, it emerged that EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier was open to the suggestion that the transition will be extended in order to cement a Northern Irish backstop.

A longer Brexit transition “probably will happen,” Jean-Claude Juncker said in a joint statement with European Council President Donald Tusk.

Tusk said that the EU is in a “much better mood” than after they met in Salzburg. 

“I feel today that we are closer to final solutions and the deal but it’s maybe more emotional than a rational one, but as you know emotions matter in politics.”

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The Minister of State for European Affairs Helen McEntee told Politico that she and  Leo Varadkar had an assurance from May that the backstop “can’t have a time limit”.

When asked about this at the press conference this afternoon, UK Prime Minister Theresa May didn’t deny it and gave this rather wordy reply:

“If I take a step back, if there is a gap between the end of the implementation period (December 2020), and the introduction of the future relationship – if there is a period of months… when there is that gap, it’s ensuring that there is no return to a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland during that time because we believe that the future relationship will resolve the issue of the border… 

Nobody actually wants the backstop to have to be used. What we want is to ensure that the future relationship dealing with the issue of the Northern Irish border comes into place at the end of the implementation period.

Responding to reports of an extension to the transition period, Nigel Dodds said:

“An extension of the transition period offers does nothing significant on the key issue of the unacceptable EU backstop proposals.

An extended transition period means the United Kingdom continues to ‘pay but have no say’ in Brussels. Such an extension would cost United Kingdom billions of pounds, yet our fundamental problem with the EU proposal remains.