Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank everybody for what has been very interesting up to this point. I hope I do not change it. A number of things struck me. Mr. Millar took an agnostic attitude to constitutional change. He has different priorities. Ms Clyde concentrated on the bread and butter of apprenticeships.

At the same time, we are having a discussion here about identity and constitutional change. There are a couple of things I think we need to face up to. Yes, there could be a poll in Northern Ireland in five or ten years on Irish unity but unless we actually have some idea of what Irish unity is about, it will be like the Brexit referendum in England. People will vote for a principle and then find out that they did not solve a lot of problems. If we look at what is happening in England at the moment, we can see all the results of that.

I take the view, and Eoin Forkan made this point, that we have much work to do to actually establish reconciliation on the ground before we simply start talking about an abstract united Ireland or non-united Ireland identity, or whether a person is British, Irish, Northern Irish, none of the above or whatever. One thing that struck me, and I am going to be controversial now-----