Mr. Ian Marshall:

Turning to what Senator Black said is interesting because I do keep going on about listening, but there is an important thing that needs to be recognised, which is that if a message is being sent out, people need to have the receivers switched on. One can keep putting messages out but unless people's receivers are switched on, they are not going to hear it.

Senator Black touched on “welcoming” unionism, which is interesting because there was a Deputy in this building one day and I was in a panel debate with him, and he said that in a new Ireland, unionists would be welcomed. I will go home this evening to my house, and my family and wife will not welcome me because it is my house. It seems a bit odd to welcome me into my own home. One needs to be very careful about this fact of welcoming unionists.

Senator Currie made the point about the silent majority. I believe there is an irony here that people sometimes forget about that silent majority. That silent majority comes from all communities. From a unionist, Protestant, loyalist background who wants to support the continuation of the union, we need Northern Ireland to be working, be successful and to be the jewel in the crown in the UK so that people on the mainland in London say that that is a good place and that we want them with us. For people who are from a Catholic, nationalist, republican background who want unity, they need Northern Ireland to be working and to be the jewel in the crown so that the people in the Twenty-six Counties will say that we want these people to be part of us. There is a shared objective here, therefore, to make Northern Ireland work for us all.

Senator Ó Donnghaile made reference to the Good Friday Agreement, which I believe is very important because that is our default setting and we keep going back to it. I believe we have also fallen into this trap of spinning this conversation about North-South versus east-west. I have always been a big supporter of the view that we have three centres, Belfast, Dublin, and London, and let us look at circularity. Let us look at the North-South and east-west as opposed to one or the other, because if one goes back to the Good Friday Agreement, there are three strands, all equal in importance, and the Senator made his point well.

Senator Clonan’s point about academic rigour is interesting because when I was in the Seanad, I brought two Oxford academics to Queen's University Belfast and to this Chamber to talk about evidence-based policymaking. The disappointing thing was that nobody was interested. That was disappointing because, as I see it, in the world of politics, if one is going to make policy decisions, one needs to have the evidence because when something goes pear-shaped, at least one can point to the evidence to say that we made a decision based upon that, which gives one cover. This conversation, therefore, needs to be based on evidence and information. I work in a university and it states that it is about evidence, information, measure, measure and measure again and getting the numbers, which are very important.

Finally, touching on what Senator Cassells said, it is interesting that he mentioned Mr. Pollak’s point about stomach, and people stomaching changes. We are on this journey but a very interesting thing came home to me during my time in the Seanad, which was that when foreign parliamentary groupings came visit the Chamber, there were always these lovely wee metal pins produced. When the Bundestag came over, these had the German and Irish flags. I see this right across Europe; when one is in Paris in respect of the French and Germans, one can get a lovely wee pin with the two flags on it. I have listened to very many conversations about a shared future and identity and one of the things I said in this House to an individual one day was to ask would it not be great if we got those wee metal pins with the union flag and the Tricolour on them. The response I received from the individual was that this would never happen and that this person could never take that. I then said that until that person could accept that flag, which was seen as anathema to everything the individual stood for, and that people from our community can accept the Irish flag, one then does not need a new flag but just respect for the symbols and identities we have. Sometimes it is said that this idea of a new flag, or something, would in some way paper over the difference, but this is not necessarily the case as it could present more problems than it would solve. I thank the Cathaoirleach for allowing me to make those comments.