Niall Ó Donnghaile (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I agree. That aspect of the Good Friday Agreement has to prevail in any post-unity scenario, that is, respecting people's right to identify, be accepted and give expression to that identity and that national identity, whatever it might be. In the same way that it has to be more than giving people of a British tradition passports, surely in the context of the Good Friday Agreement provision and Article 2, it also has to be more than just giving people like Mr. Durkan and I passports and sin é - that is it. That is not really being part of the Irish nation as such. While I agree that we need to have those more nuanced conversations and get into the entrails of what it would mean post a unification outcome, we also have to look at it in the context of the here and now. This is more the technical side of things but I know Mr. Durkan is into the technical side. According to the GFA provision, people have the right to identify and be accepted as Irish. Then there is Article 2 of the Constitution, which says people have a right to be part of the Irish nation. How do we give greater effect to that than just giving people a passport so they can go and travel? That is very important and I am not diminishing the important symbolism of that. None of us derives our Irishness from the Good Friday Agreement or Article 2 of the Constitution. It goes much deeper than that. There has to be an expectation there, in the same way we would expect the British Government to implement the aspects around the bill of rights and everything else. Surely there has to be an onus on the Irish Government to lean into giving effect, in a greater way, to what it has said, particularly in the context of increasing numbers of people from the unionist tradition wanting to avail of a passport. Many more of them are also considering issues of representation and engagement. I hope I am wording that right. I know it is a bit-----