Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I agree the first meeting of the convention was an important day and contributions were informative and educational. The citizen delegates, along with the rest of us, were buoyed by the great privilege of being able to fulfil the patriotic role they were asked to complete. That is all to the good. However, the Government has put the convention on a very tight leash. Voting age and the length of the presidential term are important issues but we do not need a convention to tell us what to do about it. There are more contentious and difficult issues such as marriage equality, which Sinn Féin believes is a civil rights issue for same-sex couples, and the role of the diaspora.

We were talking earlier about the diaspora. The importance of President Obama coming to Ireland, whatever part of the island, is not just because he is the President of the United States of America, although that is a huge thing because the US is such a powerful nation, but because of the connections we have with the USA. Despite this, we have no place for the diaspora in the convention. Next year we will ask them to come for The Gathering and we ask them all the time to assist us in our economic regeneration. We know of all the nascanna idir an oileán seo agus an Oileán Úr. The Government must repair that.

The issue of our ethnic minority is not raised very often. Our ethnic minority, the Traveller community, are treated dreadfully. They are discriminated against dreadfully and yet they are part of what we are and, rightfully, demand to be treated as an ethnic minority. Could that not be looked at by the convention?

Similarly, there are new folk who have come to live on this island. Some people refer to them as the new Irish. They bring great colour, history and culture to mesh with our won history and culture. Do we not do outreach with them? Why can we not go into the North, into Gaeltacht areas or the Border corridor? Why can we not make this a living example of what a constitutional convention can be?

On a previous occasion I commended the approach of the conference put in place in South Africa as it moved into democracy. A wonderful job was done there. We, obviously, have to do it within our own lights.

I throw these ideas forward. I commend and congratulate Mr. Tom Arnold and I wish him well in his role as chairman of the convention. I still think the Government is missing a great opportunity to re-imagine Ireland and to re-imagine a real constitution for a real republic.

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