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

There are a number of suggestions about other citizens' assemblies that also have merit. There is a suggestion to have one on education. There is a suggestion that we have one on disability. There are lots of suggestions that have merit for a future citizens' assembly and they should not be dismissed.

Regarding this particular proposal, I would only say that the timing is important. There are elections under way in the United Kingdom and north of the Border and we need to be sensitive about that. Brexit is also unresolved. I am keen that we do not constitutionalise the issue of Brexit. There are many unionists north of the Border who feel that the withdrawal agreement undermines the constitutional status of Northern Ireland as part of the UK. I reassure them that that is not the case and that Northern Ireland will remain an integral part of the UK unless and until such time as the majority of people there decide otherwise in accordance with the Good Friday Agreement, and I would not like to do anything that might cause people not to trust us on that. We need to be careful in our guardianship of the agreement. As somebody I admire immensely who Members will know, Ms Pat Hume, the wife of Mr. John Hume, always says, the Good Friday Agreement is the long-term solution. It is not an interim solution. We need to have regard to the fact that if people start to talk and consider and entertain the idea that the agreement might be replaced by something else, those who do not like it at all may misuse that opportunity to undermine the agreement.

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