Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Certainly, everyone in government is keen to facilitate and assist the parties in re-establishing the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Executive. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Julian Smith and the Tánaiste have been working on that for weeks and months. Indeed, as recently as last night, the Tánaiste was in Stormont and he briefed me on the state of play this morning.

We are very much of the same thinking as Deputy Eamon Ryan in that restoration of the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Executive should not be restoration of business as usual. We have seen the Good Friday Agreement evolve previously with, for example, the advent of St. Andrews Agreement and the Stormont House Agreement. It can evolve again because we want to ensure that the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Executive and the North-South bodies work better. We also want to ensure that if restoration occurs, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Executive will be sustainable and will not break down again after three months or six months if the big parties fall out with each other. Among the changes that need to be part of our consideration are those relating to the petition of concern, which had been used in a way that was never anticipated when the Good Friday Agreement was signed, for example, to block marriage equality even though the vast majority of those in the assembly and of the people in Northern Ireland want that to be legal, just as it is in the rest of the UK and in the rest of Ireland.

Deputy Eamon Ryan put his finger on a significant issue, which is that fact that the Good Friday Agreement requires assembly members to designate themselves as unionist, nationalist or other. People even find the term "other" pejorative because it certainly does not describe that growing identity or centre ground of people in Northern Ireland who see themselves as being both British and Irish and who often vote for parties such as the Green Party and the Alliance Party. One of the real flaws in double majorities in the system of cross-community consent is not only that it allows one community or even one party within that community to have a veto but that it discounts and reduces to nothing the votes of those who are designated as others. Again, that growing number of people who vote Alliance or Green and who consider themselves to be British and Irish, perhaps Northern Irish. That is something that has developed as a flaw. It is something of which I am very aware. My thinking in that regard would be similar to that of Deputy Eamon Ryan. As is always the case, however, any reforms or changes must be agreed by the big parties as well as the small parties in Northern Ireland.

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