Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach will be aware that throughout her campaign to become Tory party leader and since she was appointed as Prime Minister, Theresa May has repeated that "Brexit means Brexit". Not content with that, she coined a new phrase last week when she referred to a "red, white and blue Brexit". That is her new mantra. The British Government has made it clear where it stands. It is standing up for what it perceives to be Britain's national rights. The people of this island, North and South, are not a priority for it. That is entirely understandable from its perspective. The people of this island have to be a priority for the Taoiseach, however.

As I have said previously, the vision of the Taoiseach and the leaders of Fianna Fáil and the Labour Party is limited, restricted and blinkered by the parameters of this State. We need to be thinking about the entire island all the time. The Taoiseach's reply to the questions before the House referred to the need for consent if there is to be a united Ireland. I accept that proposition. I am working with others in Sinn Féin to get that consent. We recently published a discussion document on Irish unity. I sent a copy of it to the Taoiseach. I am not sure if he has had a chance to read it but I would commend it to him. I sent copies of it to all Deputies.

The Government does not have a strategy for Irish unity. It is only mentioning it now in the context of Brexit. Over the entire existence of this State, no Government has had a strategy for Irish unity. Sinn Féin is prepared and willing to work with the Government and all the parties in here to develop such a strategy. I commend that position to the Taoiseach. Short of ending partition and achieving Irish unity, the main objectives of any Government should be to end poverty and to bring inequality to an end. Ending partition and ending poverty are linked in many ways. We have consistently urged that there should be an all-island vision when it comes to negotiations. We have argued that the result of the Brexit referendum in Northern Ireland has to be respected as part of the principle of consent, about which the Taoiseach spoke earlier. We have argued that a special designated status should be created to allow the whole island to remain within the EU.

Again, we published a document on the case for the North to achieve designated special status within the Union, which seeks to address many of the issues that we have touched on and which the British House of Lords EU committee deals with to some extent in the report it published yesterday. The Taoiseach is arguing that such a status is implicit in the different propositions that have been put forward, but Northern Ireland will be outside the Union. There is a qualitative difference between what we are arguing for, not least because it is based on the democratic decision of the people in that part of the island. They have not given their consent to be moved out of the EU. Will the Taoiseach continue to focus on this? Is he prepared, in terms of the united Ireland proposition, to work with our party and the leaders of Fianna Fáil, the Labour Party, the Independent groupings and the other smaller parties to bring forward such a proposition?

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