DUP leader and Taoiseach set for talks in Dublin
Edwin Poots is to meet the Taoiseach today (Thursday) in his first visit to Dublin since becoming DUP leader.
Mr Poots and Micheal Martin are expected to discuss the Northern Ireland protocol and North-South relations.
The talks come amid tensions between the Stormont parties over the non-attendance of DUP ministers at north-south political meetings.
Last month, Mr Poots described his relationship with the Dublin Government as "really, really bad''.
He said he has respect for Mr Martin but was critical of his predecessor, Leo Varadkar, and Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney.
Meanwhile, DUP MLA Paul Givan said the north-south relationship is a very important one'', and his party wants to be in a place where it has agood relationship with our closest neighbours''.
But, turning to east-west relations, he said the Northern Ireland Protocol has caused huge damage with no consent from the unionist people or its representatives''.
"That has had a very negative influence in terms of those relationships, and that's something that we all collectively need to address,'' he said.
Edwin Poots is going to be travelling to Dublin this evening. There is a meeting that is going to take place with Micheal Martin, and I know that Edwin wants to be able to address these issues with the Taoiseach, and I think he'll have more to say on the whole north-south dynamic later on today because it is vitally important that people understand, in the Republic of Ireland, the challenges and the difficulty that unionism faces, but we do need to identify and navigate ways through these difficulties, and that's what Edwin is about.
"We need to just dial down the rhetoric a little bit and have a little bit of calm and mature politics and work our way through this in a sensible manner.''