On Wednesday 8 November, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar startled the Dáil by saying a breakthrough at the EU summit in December was "likely", allowing the Brexit negotiations to move to the future trading arrangements between the UK and the EU.

His comments were picked up far and wide, not least because of the importance of Ireland in the first phase of the negotiations.

Yet they went against the grain of the prevailing belief that a breakthrough was very much in the balance, at best, or at worst, looking increasingly unlikely.