Professor Christopher McCrudden:

I am in Northern Ireland but the idea I can speak for unionism is laughable. I cannot. Members should not in any way think of me as a substitute for actually talking with unionists.

The point made by Senator Blaney is absolutely critical. Indeed, it has been made by several other speakers today. Of course there needs to be unionist engagement. The question he is putting is how to ensure it will happen. We had a little bit of a taste of it when we were genuinely and extensively engaging with unionist opinion in preparing this report. There was engagement with what might loosely be called civic unionism. It was an uphill struggle, however. We need to be clear about that.

From a unionist point of view, there is a sensible and strategic decision being made not to engage because there is nothing from the unionist point of view to be gained from it. One may like it or not but it is a strategic decision which is not unreasonable from the unionist point of view. It seems to me unlikely that unionists, certainly as a political group, are going to engage if there is going to be a referendum that will succeed in establishing unity. I am not sure why it might be in their interests to do that at the moment.

Theoretically, I see and agree with the point being made that any sensible community will want to anticipate potential development and try to structure it in a way that would be beneficial for it.

A sensible community is going to want to anticipate a potential development and try to structure it in a way that is going to be beneficial for them. At the moment, that does not seem a likely thing to happen so we come back to the question about planning and who is going to plan. One of the other themes of today's discussion is the need for engagement beyond governments as well as by governments. We know, in the run up to the Good Friday Agreement that there was a lot of proxy discussions going on in various different forums, discussions that took place that could not have happened between governments, at least formally. So there is an opportunity, it seems to me, for a much more expansive civic engagement where the discussions actually take place in communities, organisations and institutions right across the island, and, indeed, to be honest, between east and west as well because the absence of discussion in the rest of the United Kingdom is as worrying as the absence of unionist discussion. I say that because the opinion formers in the rest of the United Kingdom are going to be critical to this as well.

Coming back to a point made earlier by a Senator about the role of parliamentary institutions, yes, of course, but parliamentary institutions as well as every other institution that has an interest in this should be engaging at the moment. It seems to me that governments do not have to lead on this. The point that we made quite firmly in the report is that a lot of discussion has to take place well before governments are going to be formally involved or formally planning. That can happen today and does not need a government lead.