Shane Cassells (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

-----on what he has done, not only in private, but in putting together a significant body of work on what the economies would look like and framing that information in a real and tangible way. Many in this country want to start the debate from the wrong place. That will lead to a car crash along the lines of the example I gave at the outset of people flying flags in fields among cows. We do not need that. We need to have an honest debate among ourselves. Having debates in this Chamber is a major step, but as Mr. Dougherty mentioned, this debate has been happening for years. The small baby steps we are taking now are the ones that will forge a better conversation between us all.

If we have a constitutional referendum on our island and we continue on the tangent along which many are framing it, it will not be pleasant. Mr. Pollak is correct, in that we will then retreat to the bad places that I remember as a kid in the 1980s, which is not where we want to be. There are many in the South who need to show leadership in that respect. Equally, though, there are many in the North who need to understand that we are not the same place we were for the past 100 years. This needs to be respected as well.

That is perhaps why we have a growth in a section of the community in the North who do not identify with any of the polarisation because they realise that just rearing a family and taking care of each other is the most important thing on the face of this earth.