Mr. Pat Hynes:

There is, of course, the legal position. The Deputy is quite right. That is the legal position in that sovereign would transfer with change from London to Dublin if that so be the wish of the Irish people across the island on a future date. I suppose what we have to accept in terms of the work that we are trying to do, particularly with people within the unionist community, is this sense of what the future would look like and how we would accommodate their particular concerns and their own aspirations around their identity, etc.

In a sense, the Good Friday Agreement accepted that there was a majority in Northern Ireland who wished for the continuance of the union in 1998.

That could change in the future. Of course, it will not change the contested nature of the space that is Northern Ireland. Whatever new shape might emerge, from our work with them, there is quite a degree of concern that there would be a full and wholesome conversation around how broad that sense of the island would be made in the future and address their concerns around identity that they would espouse. Republicans and nationalists accepted that Northern Ireland would for the foreseeable future remain within the UK and, equally, the British Government contracted that it would guarantee the equality of nationalists and republicans inside Northern Ireland and never again allow a return to the situation that existed in the first 50 years of the state of Northern Ireland. It is in that context that we are being asked what the shape of a new Ireland would look like and how we would get agreement around those very complex and competing allegiances that will be manifest beyond the date of a referendum or a result whatever that might be.