Former taoiseach Leo Varadkar has expressed concern over what a second Donald Trump presidency would mean for Ukraine's future.
He told RTÉ's US Election podcast 'States of Mind' that he was worried about the effect Mr Trump would have over potential future peace talks.
"He's shown evidence in the past of having admiration for dictators like [Russian] president [Vladimir] Putin. I would have a real concern that not that there would be suddenly peace talks from a position of strength, but that he would reduce and weaken support for Ukraine and that would put them in a position where they would enter peace talks from a position of weakness," he said.
The former Fine Gael leader has met both US presidential candidates several times over the past decade, mostly during St Patrick's Day events.
When asked about his experiences with Mr Trump during his time as taoiseach, Mr Varadkar said his main objective was to make sure that Ireland was not on the then president's 'target list'.
"He was more well-disposed to the United Kingdom than he was to Ireland, didn't like the European Union, a lot of the administration would have been kind of pro-Brexit and of course then they are the issues around tax. My main objective was to make sure Ireland wasn't on his target list and he didn't try and do us any harm and he didn't," he told the podcast.
"I'm not saying that was down to my efforts. We managed to avoid getting caught in his crosshairs," he added.
Mr Varadkar said he believes his approach during the Trump administration would have to be replicated again.
"We particularly worked on the relationship with vice president [Mike] Pence who did have a strong connection to Ireland - that didn't result in much in terms of positive outcomes on issues like Brexit for example. But that was the approach that we adopted I think something similar would have to happen again to protect our interests," he said.
