Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will make one point. It is always good to have a Prime Minister who will listen to their civil servants but make their own way forward. Some very serious civil servants seem to have been lost recently in Britain. They resigned at that time. They were probably some top-class administrators in Britain who were very much behind what Tony Blair and Mr. Powell were doing at that time. I feel the absence of that moderate or middle ground opinion on all these issues, especially under Boris Johnson. He is a bit like Trump in that whatever is in his head on the day is what he does regardless. I note his comments on a new Roman empire in Europe. He is living in the 18th century, if not the 17th, as far as his view of Britain in the world is concerned.

On a positive note, what we must do, and our roles as politicians who are members of this committee, is build our relationships with the parties in the UK, including the Tory Party, the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats too. One thing that is absent is our presence over there and their presence here, because of Covid and so on. One of our tasks is to do that. The second one is to engage with unionism. The most important point Mr. Powell made was there are one million people in Northern Ireland for whom, if we are to bring them into a united Ireland, we must ensure first that the Good Friday Agreement works and that we have consensus and change, North-South bodies that work and an Executive that works. Senator Currie and I were talking about this earlier. I am just commenting here rather than putting a question to Mr. Powell, but this has to be our priority as well. That is the committee's job. Our biggest problem is engaging with unionism. I do not know if anybody else feels that here. Senator Currie may wish to comment on it.