Dr. Etain Tannam:

To respond to Mr. Eastwood, we have set out nearly the rules of the game and the choices to be made and have been very careful not to prescribe political choices that are contentious. As for his point as to whether the Irish Government should insist that it be involved - and, as I have explained, it is the case that our involvement is essential, as is robust co-operation - there are so many trade-offs and question marks, as he knows and as he has pointed to, around unification of territory versus people, which he said should happen together, that each decision that is made and each insistence causes another effect. This goes back to Senator Blaney's point, which I did not answer, on unionist engagement and the delicacy of all this. It is very difficult. I just found the language of "must insist" difficult. It is my personal opinion, which is not in the report as such, but that is what stood out when reference was made to the delicacy of this. Getting to that stage, according to the Hume framework, would be very gradual, although the 51% criterion is necessary. The language just rings a lot of alarm bells for me because of the diplomatic nature that is required, which has diminished so much.