Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I do not think we can have a united Ireland through the courts, through litigation or through judicial review. Ultimately, politicians will have to work out the future of this island. If we go back over the 20 years since the Good Friday Agreement, for half its lifetime the institutions have been down for one reason or another. This is problematic and illustrates the need for people to work the institutions in the first instance and to try to get normal politics applied within the institutions. They have never really been given a chance for any long period to do things the people want done on bread and butter issues such as housing and health. I remember George Mitchell talking about what he expected to see when he brought his son to the assembly. He said he expected to see the normal toing and froing of politics. This has not quite happened with the Good Friday Agreement, and this needs to be reflected upon.

There have been various polls and surveys. My view is that of Wolfe Tone, namely, that there is not a reconciled people. We have a lot of work to do on this. I said that an immediate border poll at the time of Brexit would have been counterproductive. We can see what is happening, in my view unfairly, with regard to the protocol and its impact. I believe the protocol is advantageous for the entire island, including Northern Ireland. We can see how certain people have elevated it to a constitutional level to which it should never have been elevated.

That would be my response to that.