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Tánaiste (Irish deputy PM) Leo Varadkar did not need British permission to talk about Irish unity, a senior Irish minister has said.

The Republic's Minister for Higher and Further Education Simon Harris made the comments in a radio interview.

Mr Varadkar, his party's leader, was speaking at Fine Gael's online ard fheis (annual conference) on Tuesday.

He told delegates he believed there could be a united Ireland in his lifetime.

The UK's Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis said he was surprised by those remarks and urged politicians "to dial down the rhetoric, particularly at this time of year".

"It has been a hell of a long time since any Irish minister needed permission from the British government to make a comment at a political ard fheis," said Simon Harris, speaking to RTÉ.

"I don't comment on Boris Johnson's constant rhetoric about preserving the union in his sincerely held view in relation to that."

Mary Lou McDonald, the leader of Sinn Féin, the main opposition party in the Dáil (lower house of parliament), welcomed Mr Varadkar's comments.

Speaking in Belfast, Ms McDonald, who has been campaigning for a border poll on Irish unity, said the tánaiste was "absolutely right" to make his remarks and said Irish unity would happen "well within" his lifetime.

Some of Mr Varadkar's domestic critics have accused him of raising the issue of Irish unity because of a pending bye-election in the generally well-to-do Dublin Bay South constituency.

But he denied electioneering and said that nobody had raised the issue with him.