Boris Johnson was accused of not doing enough to address Irish Sea trade disruption amid the continued fallout from the European Union’s botched move to invoke a mechanism to suspend elements of the new trading arrangements.
Arlene Foster, Northern Ireland’s first minister, said it was "patronising and offensive" to describe the problems encountered by Northern Ireland businesses and consumers in the wake of Brexit as "teething problems" and she called on the prime minister to act immediately to deploy Article 16.
It comes after the EU tried to unilaterally suspend part of the Northern Ireland Protocol to prevent the region being used as backdoor to move vaccines from the bloc into the UK.
Earlier, the prime minister said he was “very confident” in the security of the UK’s coronavirus vaccine supplies regardless of what happens in the European Union.
"You will have seen all this stuff in the papers about our friends across the Channel and disputes with them," the prime minister said.
"All I would say is whatever the toings and froings there, we're very confident in our security of supply.
"We will continue to take steps to protect the UK's security of supply and also to ensure that we ramp up our own manufacturing."
The prime minister’s first public comments since Brussels briefly overrode part of the Brexit deal on Northern Ireland to impose export controls on jabs came after ministers agreed to a “reset” in relations with the EU.
Meanwhile, the Irish government revealed that trade between the Republic and Great Britain has fallen by 50 per cent on this time last year, with the government saying some businesses were experiencing “severe difficulty” adapting to the new controls since the UK left the EU’s single market and customs union at the end of the transition period.
