Leo Varadkar has again waded in to the internal issues of Northern Ireland by calling for same-sex marriage and widespread abortion to be legalised.

Speaking to a gathering of the Alliance Party in Belfast, he spoke of how the Republic had legalised divorce, abortion and same-sex marriage and then voiced his “regret” that Northern Ireland, which for so long was more liberal than the South, had not “kept up” with the pace of change.

“I believe the right to marry the person you love, the right of a woman to make choices about her own body, and the right to have your native language respected should not be about orange and green,” he said.

These were “universal rights” and personal freedoms should “apply everywhere”, he added.

He added that Northern Ireland should embody the “best” of what is British and the “best” of what is Irish. “So any right or freedom that a British citizen has in Britain or an Irish citizen has in Ireland should be had here in Northern Ireland as well,” he said.