Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Earlier this month, the civic nationalist group known as Ireland's Future wrote yet another open letter calling on the Government to establish a citizens' assembly to look at building broad support for a united Ireland. I have raised this issue since I became leader of the Labour Party because I believe it is important that we have a mechanism akin to the New Ireland Forum that does not set an end location for the journey but opens up a journey of discussion. To put that in the context of yet another topic, important and all as the other topics are, in a queue for a citizens' assembly is to fundamentally miss the point. If there is a variety of lessons to be learned from the Brexit debate, one is the lack of preparedness for a decision put to the UK electorate. Nobody really knew what the actual outcome was and they have spent more than three years trying to make up what the outcome of that journey in the UK is to be. It is incumbent on democratic nationalist parties and others to be invited to reimagine what the constitutional future of this island would be and for all of us, and I say this with a real open mind to all the democratic parties in this House, to approach this with an open agenda and mind - not to see that there is to be an end destination that is presumed because we will not have the broad participation in that dialogue.

When I last asked about this, the Taoiseach's response was that the time is not right. The problem with that is that if we wait and wait until somebody determines the time is right, it will be too late. We will be in a Brexit-style situation where there will be pressure to make a decision without knowing the context and outcome of that decision. I ask the Taoiseach to sit down with the leaders of the parties in this House to see if we can create the possibility of a forum, be it a New Ireland Forum mark two or a citizens' assembly, to see how we can reach out to the broadest possible strands of opinion across the island of Ireland to contemplate what the future constitutional arrangement might look like in a changing Ireland. I ask the Taoiseach not to dismiss that but to give some consideration to it, possibly come back to it after Christmas and invite a quiet discussion with all the party leaders to see if we can work together on that.

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