Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I remember the Good Friday Agreement well. I was 18 or 19 years old at the time. It was the first time I was entitled to vote. I remember the enormous optimism of the time. I recall the result coming in. It was over 70%, which indicated that it had a majority of both communities supporting it, and that was crucial. Unfortunately, while the Good Friday Agreement is genius and is the way forward, and in my view remains the way forward, it did not live up to the hopes, optimism and promise of the time. It has been a cold piece, essentially, since then with institutions throughout Northern Ireland. There has not been the level of integration we would have hoped for, but it is still the way forward in my view. It is still the basis for the future of Northern Ireland and this island.

On the idea of a citizens' assembly, I am not sure it is the best mechanism to explore constitutional issues. There are potential other models. The Deputy is younger than me but I am sure she will have read about the New Ireland Forum, which was established in the early 1980s. There are different mechanisms we could use to explore these issues. When the Northern Ireland Assembly is up and running, the Executive is functioning and things are a bit more stable, that is probably the time to do it. At the moment, it would be seen as provocative. We need to be careful about that. If we did have a citizens' assembly, however, there are a couple of things we would have to figure out. Would people from Protestant, unionist and loyalist backgrounds participate in it? It would not be worth a penny candle if they did not.