Ms Emma DeSouza:

I will just pick up on that point about compromise and the changes that would have to be made. Constitutional change cannot just be about the South subsuming the North. It will require significant and substantive changes to the State. It will require a new education system, a new healthcare system and hopefully more infrastructure in Border counties like Fermanagh. It will require completely changing the State. There are lots of positive cases for why that is a good thing, for a more inclusive State.

To pick up on Senator Black's point about the unionist panel, that is about ensuring inclusivity and that the voices of the unionist community are heard. This House can be an excellent Chamber for communities that are marginalised. The pitfall of expanding the concept of a unionist panel out to something more, like a Cabinet position, for example, is that it risks placing unionism above other marginalised communities. It is important to remember in this conversation that there are other minorities that are not being heard and need to be accounted for as well.

We are talking about identity a lot in here today. I would caution against a binary British-and-Irish or unionist-and-nationalist narrative or thinking around the North. I am known for being an Irish citizen who took the British Government to court over my right to be accepted as Irish but within my own family there are those who have a British identity, an Irish identity, and both. My father is a British army sergeant and my mother is Irish. I was raised in British army camps when I was younger and I have been raised to have my own viewpoints on being an Irish citizen. I have never described myself as a nationalist. I am a humanist, an internationalist and a social democrat. I did not always aspire to a united Ireland but I do now. Increasingly, there are more and more people coming to that thinking too.