The European Commission is reviewing how regulations are made and its communication with Irish officials in a bid to avoid a repeat of a blunder seen to have destabilised Northern Ireland's delicate post-Brexit settlement.

It follows the use of the sensitive Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol in an initial version of a regulation last month, a move that was hastily reversed after urgent calls from Dublin.

Irish officials were only informed that the article had been used after the regulation had already been published, which immediately caused a furore in Dublin, Belfast and London and questions about how communications had broken down.

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Anything to do with Northern Ireland is to receive additional scrutiny, with the team of Ireland's Commissioner Mairead McGuinness brought in to be consulted where needed.

"It's a widening of consultation, to make sure Irish eyes and ears are brought in to make sure there's no repeat of the mistake," a senior official said.