Mr. Mark Durkan:

I thank the Senator. I know why people said responsibly and reasonably that an opportunity for a reset exists. Recent events mean that opportunity is somewhat polluted, in circumstances where you have a British Government in disarray and distracted. However, the Irish Government and the Irish national democratic interest will have to be the adult in the room in trying to stabilise matters and move forward. We saw that with Brexit. Only the Irish Government planned and commissioned impact appraisals about what would flow from a vote to leave. Whatever the British Government said at the time, it was not doing any of that work. Whitehall was vetoed from doing it whereas the Departments in Dublin had desks stacked with papers they hoped could be disposed of on 24 June 2016. Unfortunately, that was not the case. In the aftermath of the Brexit vote, the Irish Government, and parties in this House and more widely on the island, through things like the all-Island civic dialogue, paid due attention to the broad interests of the island, including the operation of the Good Friday Agreement with regard to the island economy and other dimensions.

The Irish Government will have to be the pace leader when it comes to these things and that applies in the context of the review when it comes to the anniversary of the agreement next year, which I would like to approach in a spirit of renew and review. I know some people have concerns that if you do that, you are creating a run on the agreement, but it has already been sliced and diced in many different ways and subject to false interpretation. We should come at it constructively and fairly. There are things at the institutional level, which can be looked at and which do not preclude a healthy and reasonable conversation about constitutional change and how that could be managed in the background. There are other issues around reconciliation and legacy that also need to be faced up to. Irish Governments of all hues have been more responsible in relation to those issues than British Governments.