Mr. Mark Durkan:

The rigorous impartiality obligation is meant to be constant and absolute. It is not conditional on a particular time. The only condition that changes it is a change of sovereignty, which would mean the duty of rigorous impartiality would be on a different government. That should be in force anyway. The obligation of rigorous impartiality in and of itself does not prevent a political party in a government from having a view. We must carefully distinguish between the outright machinery of government and the state and free political expression that is open to everybody. For instance, a future British Labour minister should not be precluded from indicating that he or she is comfortable with a united Ireland. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Other people should not be precluded on a party basis, if they belong to a conservative and unionist party, from expressing a particular preference.

I refer to the point raised about looking at things in the context of the British Government. When looking at the British political landscape, it is clear that we will probably see all sorts of people coming up with new visions for the union in the coming years. There could be a new shared union. Just as people may get confused about a new Ireland or shared island and get upset or worried about such terms, the fact is that such things will be canvassed in the context of the politics of Great Britain with respect to Scotland and the rest of it. We should not be apologising for allowing such language to circulate and build up in common understanding in Ireland. We should go ahead with that.

On the point about the Irish Government and speaking rights, that could be a fair enough proposal. In the past, in the context of a united Ireland, I have proposed that one of the ways of accommodating people's continuing British identity and affinity with Britain would be to allow some Northern Ireland representation to continue in a reformed second chamber in Westminster. I have never advocated that is should be in the primary chamber. I would not want a situation in a united Ireland where people felt they could abstain from the Irish national Parliament and take speaking rights in the British national Parliament. I want a united Ireland to be one in which unionists realise the benefits of taking up their full entitlement in an Irish national Parliament, while still giving them the right of access to a second chamber or whatever in Westminster.

You can take a long, rounded view on some of these things, which would mean the choices around speaking rights or whatever mean less. In the Good Friday Agreement, people agreed that Westminster would be the Parliament to legislate for certain things, including the bill of rights, the agreement itself and all the rest. That would terminate in the event of a vote for a united Ireland but I do not think it should end the relationship some people would still want to have with the British body politic. That is one of the challenges we have to recognise in our conversations around possible constitutional status, how it would be calibrated, what it would mean and what accommodating a British identity is. Accommodating a British identity has to mean more than just allowing people to have passports. It will have to run much deeper than that for people, in the same way that many of us value when the North has representation in the Seanad. We would just like that on a more structured, regular and deliberate basis.