Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

Aontú is an all-Ireland political party and we have elected representatives, North and South. The word "Aontú" means "unity". It is our primary goal as a political movement.

One of the interesting issues that came from the debate last night on RTÉ was the fact that most people now accept there will be a referendum. Even Gregory Campbell accepts that there will be a referendum. One of the fascinating elements of last night's debate was the fact that the penny has not dropped with the southern Government. A referendum will be called independently of what the southern Government thinks and the southern Government has no actual role in whether a referendum is called. It will be called on the basis of whether there is likely to be a majority in favour of unity.

We see a reluctance of preparation among some of the southern political establishment. We could see a referendum being called for five years' time. Yet, the southern Government has actually carried out no practical work in preparation whatsoever for that referendum. That would create a political crisis if it were the case. It would be similar to the British finding themselves having a Brexit referendum with absolutely no political preparation in advance.

The type of preparation we should be looking at is convergence. I always look at the Border as a wall with 100 bricks. Each brick is a point of economic or social divergence. Each brick is a significant economic or social cost to the people. It is a difference in cancer treatment or income taxes. It is a difference in ambulance services or policing. It is a difference in drug treatment, third level education or road and rail infrastructure.

Some years ago I carried out a report for the then Joint Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation on the all-Ireland economy. Believe it or not, it was the first report carried out in the Oireachtas on the all-Ireland economy since the foundation of the State. I interviewed approximately 100 people from all different backgrounds in the North, including unionists, nationalists and those in between. Everyone agreed to the logic that if we plan, fund and deliver services together, they would be, by definition, better services and more efficient. Regardless of whether we look at it through the unity prism, it will make a major difference in the lives of people. This type of convergence means that on the sunny day when there is unity, there will not be a shock transition since there would have been a gradual convergence on both sides of the island in terms of the economy and society.

Senator Blaney spoke about how we should not coerce people from a unionist background into a united Ireland, and I agree. We need to attract, convince and persuade people about the benefits of unity. The Senator's view was echoed by the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste last night. However, they are forgetting that a minority veto is a form of coercion. If a minority of unionists decide nationalists cannot be part of a united Ireland, that is a form of coercion. The mechanism we have in a democracy to prevent that type of coercion is one whereby citizens sign up to the democratic will and signing up to the democratic will is at the heart of the Good Friday Agreement. I am amazed that some within Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael seem to be rowing back on that democratic principle. There is a danger in this, because it suggests there is one rule for the democratic will of nationalists and a separate rule for the democratic will of unionists. It changes the goalposts mid-flow and guts the majoritarian cornerstone of the Good Friday Agreement. I would caution the establishment parties against going down that road. We all need to agree to sign up to the democratic will of the people, North and South. There should be no ifs, buts or other caveats in that regard.

I have a question for our two esteemed guests regarding the issue of a civic forum or new Ireland forum. My instinct on this is that those of us in Aontú would like to see a new Ireland forum. We would like to see a situation whereby all in civic and political society across Ireland are invited to participate in a forum. The purpose of the forum would be to look at possible areas of convergence that are beneficial mutually to both sides of the community, North and South, and to the rest of the island. We could then work out what such an all-Ireland would look like. My concern is that in a citizens' forum many of the stakeholders who exist, especially those on the unionist side in the North of Ireland, would not believe they have a say in exactly the direction we are going. That is my question. Should we not look for a new Ireland forum based on the model used by Garret FitzGerald around the Anglo-Irish Agreement? Under that framework, all those from political and civic society across the island could be invited to discuss how we deal with the worst aspects of Brexit, how we converge, how we create unity of purpose and how we build towards Irish unity.