Ms Frederique Offereins:

What does the constitutional future of the island of Ireland hold? It holds a reflection on the decisions we make today. It holds the lives of my generation and of all those to come. It houses the prosperity and the growth of this island, whether that be with or without a united Ireland, but really, it is as simple as that. The future is a matter of us growing older and of us living our lives, a simple human process which is made easier by the support we receive from one another. If we look on our lives with such a simple viewing glass, I invite the committee to look at the matter at hand with the same lens. I ask it to envisage a society in which any political stance is removed and there is no backwards mindset, where we look forward into the sun and leave the shadows behind us.

We educate people from all around the country on what a peaceful unity between the North and the South can and should look like. The only way to do this is by taking a step back and realising what is truly important in our lives. An article from the Human Givens Institute outlines that each human being must fulfil a certain nine emotional needs. When we strip back all the man-made problems in the world, we are left with these nine basic needs. Energy is simply energy. We can use it well or we can use it badly. We can minimise the amount of energy that is wasted by elements of society by rebelling and fighting and instead guiding them towards more beneficial ways of spending this energy.

Catholic, Protestant, North or South, our focus should be on ensuring that our basic emotional needs are respected and are met. In order for society to benefit from living on this island, it is important to stay focused on these needs, as it gives us a different purpose to fulfil rather than fighting and constantly fearing a change that is ultimately to come.

Within Northern Ireland, there are conflicts rooted in Catholic and Protestant communities. How can these two religions live side by side peacefully on the rest of the island and in the rest of the world, yet a different religious belief divides Northern Ireland so severely? It is a division which many people might not even be aware of in this country. In a united Ireland people of these religions would be allowed to practice their beliefs freely. They would still keep their identities and ways of life but in the diversity of culture and beliefs would be a nation that could prosper. As a nation, we must include the communities within Northern Ireland, which are still victims of segregation and sectarianism, and whose basic needs are constantly being compromised. I feel that now is a better time than ever to strive for reuniting the people from the entire island after generations of political and religiously-driven segregation. The future of Ireland is important to everyone in this room, but particularly for this upcoming generation, which remains largely uneducated on the current status of our island, including the Troubles which continue on in Northern Ireland, Troubles we must start to involve ourselves in.

What is the first step? The first step is educating and you educate through simplicity. We must show those who are stuck in the past what is really important and what will allow us to move forward, which is focusing on our basic human needs and helping each other to achieve those. We must take this stripped-down version of our lives and we must encourage everybody to realise what is truly important: the safety of our lives and the well-being of the future generations. We must remind them that we all have the same unanimous goal, a goal which can be fulfilled when we work together and when we work on our needs.

Take a look at our national flag, for example. It stands for inclusivity. I, myself, was not born Irish, yet I have never felt like a foreigner in this country. Such is the acceptance within this country to live side by side harmoniously. Yet, we remain completely alienated from the Six Counties, which lie just across the Border. We cannot continue to turn a blind eye to these Troubles, because they are more the responsibility of the UK than of Ireland.

One of the biggest assets of my generation is our ability to accept change and adapt to modern ways of life. If you were to ask a teenager who was walking down the street the question, “Why is our island divided?”, I would say that they could not give you an answer. In my opinion, that is because the division is only caused by generation upon generation being ill-informed and being unwilling to change by staying stuck in their old ways, in the past. This is because much of the time, that is just what is done. Yes, this is a past that needs to be remembered but it is no longer relevant to the modern way of life and we must overcome it by putting our differences aside and embracing them.

In difficult times our responses have a purpose, but these are no longer difficult times so that response must be altered. I ask each member of the committee to picture himself or herself with only days left in his or her life. He or she can look back on each crossroad and each decision he or she has ever made and, more importantly, how these decisions directly affect an individual's life. He or she would hopefully look back on times like these with a positive outlook on how we attacked this issue at hand, which was through unity by diversity. I see a nation that can prosper from side-by-side living, where both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland can benefit from supporting each other while still allowing individuality. It is time that we heal as a team or we suffer as individuals. I thank the committee for its time.