Professor Peter Shirlow:

I also recognise our colleague Professor Colin Coulter from Maynooth University, who was part of this submission. He did not have to come before everybody and explain what they were talking about. We will make some general points and then broaden the discussion. What Ms Sugden said was very interesting, namely, that she considers herself to be British and Irish. I cannot speak for my co-authors but I also have a shared identity culturally but a different perspective constitutionally. That is very important.

The way the debate has been conducted at times has been highly divisive. It ignores data, reality and material circumstances. One of my greatest fears is that this debate will lead to the divisions that have characterised this island over the past century. This has to be a proper, focused and inclusive debate. I am strongly of the opinion, as are my co-authors, that we want to build the shared island initiative. We want to build relationships across this island. What we want to do is deepen and broaden reconciliation. We want to deepen and broaden encounter between both parts of the island. If that means that constitutional change is easier, that is a good thing. If it means that constitutional change is not required, that is a good thing. Unionists tell that they engage in this debate and are told that facts do not matter. They are told that this is going in one direction and when they put forward arguments that suggest it is not going in one direction, they are told that they are wrong. That is not a conversation and that is not a debate.

It is a misnomer that sections of the unionist community - my two friends here Brian Dougherty and Derek Moore - have hosted Mary Lou McDonald and other Southern politicians. We are engaging and have hosted a digital platform at the University of Liverpool with nationalists and unionists taking part. We are engaging in this conversation but we are constantly told that we are not. It is the responsibility of all of us to start redirecting this conversation irrespective of our perspectives on the constitutional outcome. It is critically important.

The other thing we must recognise is the diversity of opinion and culture across this island. It is a misnomer that it is only unionists who have concerns about unification. If you look at the Red C polls and the Sunday Independentpoll that came out after the Ireland's Future event, you can see that people in the South want a united Ireland. When they are asked about the pounds, shillings and pence, namely, taxes, costs and sharing power, that support falls. We also know from the survey that among people in the North who support a united Ireland, that support declines in exactly the same way as support among people in the South when it comes to the nuts and bolts of unification and who would pay for what. It is critically important that we recognise that - that it is not simply the case that there are two communities on this island. There are different types of unionism and different types of nationalism. Increasingly among the younger generation, there are those who are very ambiguous about what this future should be. This is why we need a calm and rational debate and to do this in a very different way.

We must recognise that a debate is taking place and that this debate for our paper was based upon evidence. What does the evidence tell us? First, the census is not a game-changer. One issue about the census that is very interesting is the fact that 870,000 people in Northern Ireland identify as Catholic while 633,000 people in Northern Ireland - roughly a third lower - identify as Irish. Not every Catholic in Northern Ireland identifies as Irish or Irish and British. We must understand that when you look at the data, people who identify as nationalist or Catholic are not always supportive of a united Ireland. We must recognise another fact shown by the last election, which is the SDLP-Sinn Féin vote in the North in the last election was 39%. The Sinn Féin-SDLP vote in 1998 was 39%. We are not in a period of seismic change and we are not in a period where Brexit has been the game-changer we were told it would be.

At the heart of what we were trying to say is that we wanted to come here today and give our version of why we want this to be a non-divisive debate because we want to protect the Good Friday Agreement. Everyone in our group voted for the Good Friday Agreement and all of us have worked to support it. One quarter of the retail space in Belfast was bombed during the conflict. Belfast is now the seventh best performing economy out of 179 in the UK. If people tell me that nothing is changing in Northern Ireland and this is the reason they want a united Ireland, I cannot take that seriously. That is not what the data says. Sectarian crime has fallen by 62% over the past 15 years. Violence related to the conflict has fallen by 90% since 1998. Belfast is a world leader in fintech and cybersecurity, while Wrightbus in Ballymena is a world leader in hydrogen technology. If we are going to have a debate in which people say that Northern Ireland is a wasteland when it is not, we are not having a debate. There are lots of issues about the South that are in many ways attractive but there are many things about the South that are not attractive. These things are really important.

We came here today to make a very clear argument. The progress that has been made so far through the Good Friday Agreement must be recognised and endorsed. Building on and transforming outcomes of the Good Friday Agreement must be the basis of the conversation and the future and how it is developed.