Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I think the Deputy has adopted a certain partisan approach to this issue. We have deliberately said we are setting up a shared island unit within the Department of An Taoiseach. As for why we use the term "shared island", in his autobiography the late Seamus Mallon talked about a shared home place. The agenda for the future on this island is how we engineer and develop an accommodation where we can all live in peace, harmony and reconciliation on the island and not to, at the outset, try to dictate to one tradition or one group what the solution is going to be, which seems to be the agenda the Deputy is pursuing.

My view, as I said earlier, is that the Good Friday Agreement is the defining document and the defining agreement because it was based on three relationships, namely, the British-Irish relationship, the North-South relationship and the relationship between the two different traditions within Northern Ireland. Irrespective of what may emerge in the future or how the island develops in the future, it is my view that those three relationships will have to underpin any future dispensation or arrangements. The idea of the shared island unit is to work, develop a process and seek to understand how we can develop a shared future on the island, politically, administratively, departmentally, socially, culturally and so forth. We want the unit to develop some research, to get some work done and to engage with other parties as a forerunner to other initiatives that could be taken. What is essential, however, is that we reach out to and try to persuade those who are not of the same view as us in terms of what we might see as the desired eventual outcome.

I do not believe that precipitating or organising a referendum immediately is the way to go. That was the Sinn Féin position since Brexit happened, although it has come back a bit from that. The over-focus on the Border poll was too divisive and too partisan and ran counter to what Sinn Féin wanted to achieve. That is my view. I favour a different approach. For example, I favour a stronger North-South dimension now. Aspects of that dimension of the Good Friday Agreement need greater development than it currently enjoys and some of the bodies need to be given greater support in terms of their respective agenda. This is a positive initiative we are taking in good faith involving all parties, traditions and communities and we want to try to move ahead with it on as non-partisan a basis as possible.

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