Niall Ó Donnghaile (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

At this stage seeing so many questions have been asked, this might be an opportunity to just reflect on some of the points raised.

I disagree with what the Chairman said and Senator Blaney regularly says around unionism not being engaged on this issue. We should not mistake the DUP as being the monolith of all unionism. The DUP might not be engaged on this issue at this point in time. It must be remembered, however, that it said many things would not happen. It would never be in government with Sinn Féin. There would never be a devolution of police and justice powers. We have heard never, never for a long time. That is not to say the DUP will not be saying it in the future.

We have seen civic unionism engage on platforms provided by organisations such as Ireland's Future and Féile an Phobail. We have seen energetic and enthusiastic discussions about this issue. We have seen even articles from people like Peter Robinson about the issue where he has referred to people not being referendum deniers.

The other issue we need to be careful with and conscious of is that, while this committee is important with a key role to play and at which I want unionist representation, we are not the forum for which we are advocating. We need to understand when that forum is created and that space is provided, of course, unionists and people from a civic unionist background will gravitate towards it because they have a key stake and role to play.

I wish our colleagues in the DUP were on this committee. We should not misunderstand their abstentionism from this committee as unionism's abstention from this debate. That is not an accurate reflection of what is happening. Going forward on this issue, we need to engage more with civic unionism and the people who are advocating around this issue. We need to help provide a platform for those who want to be part of the debate. We should not say that, because the DUP will not engage with this committee, therefore unionism will not engage with whatever mechanism or forum is established for this issue going forward.