Anglo-Irish relations are at an "all-time high", David Cameron and his Irish counterpart Enda Kenny insisted as they met for talks in Downing Street.
The Taoiseach told the Prime Minister that the Queen's historic visit to the Republic in 2011 had made an "extraordinary" impact on the dealings between the two nations.
Mr Kenny arrived at No 10 for talks focused on visa flexibility, trade and Northern Ireland at the end of a two-day visit to the United Kingdom. He heads to the US later in the week.
Mr Cameron said: "I think we meet at a time when Anglo-Irish relations are at an all time high.
"I think relations between our countries are very, very strong but I still think there is even more we can do to strengthen our ties and strengthen our relationship."
He added: "The economic ties between Britain and Ireland are strong and getting stronger.
"In terms of trade, we have realised that one of the goals of the last summit we had when we talked about a joint trade mission between Britain, Northern Ireland and the Republic and we achieved that in Singapore, which I welcome."
Mr Kenny echoed Mr Cameron's sentiments.
He added: "I do think that the visit of Her Majesty had an extraordinary impact on relations between the two countries.
"There's a building excitement in terms of the return visit from President Higgens."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article