Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Does the Taoiseach agree with the suggestion of People Before Profit representatives in the North that, in the light of the political paralysis, we need a new civil rights movement to break the logjam and from the failed paradigm of green and orange politics? Since the civil rights movement that it tried to quell in the late 1960s and early 1970s, that paradigm has paralysed Northern politics. The issues that could break through it include extending marriage equality and abortion rights into the North. These issues cut across sectarian divisions, as does that of the Irish language. It is not the case that support for the Irish Language Act is limited to nationalists and Catholics. Growing numbers of Protestants are learning the language and support having such an Act. Should we not start to discuss building a new civil rights culture in which these and other issues could break through the failed paradigm of green and orange politics that is locked into the North's political structures?

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