Mr. Gerry Adams:

The fact is they had not left Ireland, and the Chair has just made my point for me, if he does not mind me saying so. They are still in Ireland, in the part of Ireland that I come from. The notion that this State is Ireland and it masquerades sometimes as being Ireland when it is the island that is Ireland. All of that has its effects.

Liam Mellows prophesied this during the Treaty debate. He would say if you go ahead, there will be men who will get into power, and once in power, they will not want to give up that power. That is the reality of it. Change is scary for some people. The State favoured the big people. There have been huge advances made. This State is not recognisable from what was put in place. You could speculate about history and the British tactic of divide and conquer. What would have happened if the Treaty delegation had come home without signing and had thrashed it out with their comrades and brought it back to the Dáil? If they had united, we could be in an entirely different scenario and the Civil War may have been avoided, and so on. What is done is done. I have this view, which I think I can prove, but I do not have the time to do it here, that there is a comfort for those who are in power. They probably know that when we have a national democracy on the island, there will be a realignment. God knows, some people could end up in the same party as some of our unionist friends in the DUP. Some people could end up in the same party as Sinn Féin. We just do not know. There will certainly be a realignment of politics on the island. That is scary for some of those who have been used to, and who obviously have a loyalty to, this State. That does not mean they are against a united Ireland. It does not mean they are not good Irishmen and Irishwomen.

The 50% plus 1 is just the democratic norm. However, as I said, we need to get the very largest vote possible. We need to move seamlessly, slowly, strategically, peacefully and in a very therapeutic way from the current situation into a new one. For our part, Sinn Féin has a commission on the future of Ireland. We have had two hearings, one in Belfast and one in Derry. We have another one in Donegal, if God spares us, early next year. What was pleasantly surprising for me was the number of people who turned up at those events and said they were northern Protestants but they wanted a new Ireland. I did not think that would happen as quickly as it did. I thought it was too big a step for people to come from a unionist background to a Sinn Féin meeting in Belfast, or indeed in Derry. I am giving that as an example, that there are people from that section of our community who want to engage. They do not like Brexit. They do not like the Tories. They do not like the DUP and its dinosaur attitude to women's rights, to women's reproductive rights, Irish language rights and a whole range of necessary entitlements that people should have by virtue of birthright. All of that is happening. I am just giving that as an example of what we are doing. The SDLP also has a commission going. I know the Taoiseach has the shared island initiative and I think that is also good. However, part of the focus has to be not only by the Irish Government and the infrastructure here, but also by the parties. Why is the Labour Party not up talking to people in the North? Why is Fine Gael not doing that type of outreach? Why is Fianna Fáil not doing that type of outreach?