Vincent P Martin (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I commend Mr. Carlile, Senator Black and all concerned on organising the event that took place last weekend. I am intrigued by the papers that have been presented to the committee. Due to time pressure, I will comment only on the submission from Dr. Liston and Professor Maguire. As we all know, under Article 4 of Bunreacht na hÉireann, the official name of the State is Éire or, in the English language, Ireland. A long time ago, in 1948, when division stalked the land, the designated descriptive name of the State was given as the Republic of Ireland. I attended a prestigious boxing match in Belfast two weeks ago at which Eric Donovan, a gentleman from Kildare, was introduced to the audience as being from the Republic of Ireland. In my view, if he had been introduced as being from Ireland, in accordance with constitutional fact, the audience in attendance and the live broadcast television audience would have had more of an affinity with the occasion and with each other.

Have the witnesses assessed from a sociological perspective the power of that name change, which would require a statutory amendment to address? I believe the descriptive name change, which took place in a different Ireland, reinforces the sense of there being two Irelands, with a them and an us. We are living in a different time now. Would the witnesses take that suggestion on board and assess it from a sociological perspective? I would like to talk to them about it at some later stage.