Leo Varadkar even hinted that Britain's fishing industry could find itself frozen out of EU markets if no deal is struck.

UK Environment Secretary Michael Gove last week ruled out the prospect of doing a deal on access to UK fishing waters, possibly in exchange for an agreement on financial services.

Any deal on fishing would provoke an angry backlash from the fishing leaders in Scotland after Mr Johnson and Mr Gove, along with other leading

Fishing leaders in Scotland have been told Brexit will boost the industry

Brexiteers pledged during the 2016 referendum campaign that leaving the EU would allow UK to take back control of its waters.

But Mr Varadkar today warned. "I think we will need an agreement on fishing.

"We do share seas - the Irish Sea, the Channel, the North Sea. Fish don't know where the boundary is, so we'll need to have an agreement on access to fishing waters, to rights."

And he told the BBC's Andrew Marr show: "Bear in mind from point of view of the United Kingdom, 70% of the fish you land in the UK actually gets sold to European markets, so you're going to need access to our markets to be able to sell the fish that you land.

"If you don't have that you'll have to find alternative markets and probably end up getting a lower price for your product

"So it makes sense that we have an agreement that gives us access to each others water."

UK will need to 'do a deal' on access to fishing waters, Irish PM warns