Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

It is difficult to ask about the Brexit process because the matter is so complex and people are in the "tunnel" - the word of the moment. Lord knows what will come out of that tunnel but we wish those involved in the talks well. If, as those in the media seem to be indicating. it may return something similar to the deal which was originally envisaged almost two years ago and which has been discussed in this House and broadly supported, that would be welcome.

I have one specific question regarding the restoration of Stormont in this process and how that fits in with what, come what may, will be a complex period of weeks, months and, probably, years. The Green Party, An Chomhaontas Glas, and the Green Party in Northern Ireland constitute an all-island organisation. For many years, we have been arguing that the arrangements and institutions at Stormont are not fit for purpose. I refer, for example, to the arrangement whereby my colleague, Clare Bailey, MLA, when entering the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont, was forced to declare that whether she was a unionist, a nationalist or whatever. Ms Bailey grew up on the Lower Falls Road. She then moved to a mixed estate in County Antrim, attended an integrated school and later spent a lot of time in Holland and elsewhere. I cannot remember what exactly she put down when she was forced to answer that question. She probably referred to herself as internationalist, a feminist, an ecologist and an activist. The structures that obtain, including the declaration for Members of the Assembly, the mandatory coalition arrangements and the petition of concern, should be redesigned in the coming months if we can avoid a no-deal Brexit. I hope that Stormont will restored but it should not be only restored to what it always has been. We should look on this as an opportunity to evolve the institutions.

Deputy Adams, speaking at an event I attended in the audiovisual room last week, made a seminal point that the Good Friday Agreement, by its nature, provides for a range of different consents. One of the difficulties in the 1,000 days when the assembly at Stormont has not been sitting is that the people who vote for my colleague, Clare Bailey, MLA, have found no space to contribute to the debate. In the context of whatever deal is about to be done, we need a much broader sense of what the consent is rather than it being just a nationalist or a unionist consent. The Tánaiste was in Belfast talking to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland yesterday. I would imagine that it will be next to impossible to have Stormont restored in advance of next Monday. That will give rise to its own complications for politics in the North. In advance of whatever deal is done, we need to think of how we will contribute to the evolution of the Good Friday Agreement and the multiple consents that are needed to make that deal work.

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