The Scottish First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has raised the possibility of future referendums on both Brexit and Scottish indepedence after meeting with the Taoiseach in Dublin.
Speaking after a lengthy meeting with Leo Varadkar at Farmleigh, Ms Sturgeon said there is a growing possibility of a second Brexit referendum despite the big risk that Britain could crash out of the EU without a deal.
Nigel Farage's anti-EU Brexit party topped European Parliament polls in Britain, a result which many analysts said raised the possibility of a no-deal Brexit.
However, in a sign of the divisions still gripping Britain three years after the referendum vote for Brexit, the pro-European Liberal Democrats and Greens also made significant gains.
The SNP leader said that people in the UK who want to remain in the EU can take great heart from the results of the European Parliament elections there.
Both the ruling Conservatives and the main opposition Labour Party were routed, the former losing 15 seats and winding up with four and the latter seeing their seat tally halved from 20 to 10 seats.
The First Minister predicted that the leader of the British Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, would come under major pressure to back a second referendum.
Second independence referendum
Ms Sturgeon also spoke about the prospect of another Scottish indepedence referendum, indicating that "the latter half" of 2020 would be the "right time" for a new poll.
The SNP leader predicted victory in a second vote, with Scotland becoming "an independent country just like Ireland".
She said: "There will be another Scottish independence referendum and I will make a prediction today that Scotland will vote for independence and we will become an independent country just like Ireland, and the strong relationship between our two countries now will become even stronger soon.
"I want to see Scotland having the choice of independence within this term of the Scottish Parliament, which ends in May 2021, so towards the latter half of next year would be when I think is the right time for that choice."
"The proposition that my party is putting forward now is that we should follow the same path that Ireland followed when it became independent, we use the pound which is our currency until such times as the economic conditions are right to move to an independent Scottish currency, it's a perfectly well-trodden path," she said.
Ms Sturgeon will stress the importance of the Irish export market to Scotland, worth £1.5 billion in 2017.
She criticised the UK Government for treating Scotland with "utter contempt" over Brexit during the visit.
In contrast, she said Ireland had been shown "solidarity and support" by the EU.
The support the EU had given to Ireland on the issue of Brexit was something that has inspired people in Scotland, she said.
