Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Today we saw the leaders of the pro-Remain parties in the North travel to Dublin to raise their concerns about the impact of the UK Internal Market Bill on the North. This Bill flies in the face of strands one, two and three of the Good Friday Agreement. It allows the British Government to remove powers that were devolved to the Executive in the North, which is in complete disregard to strand one of the agreement. We now see the Assembly has voted to oppose this UK Internal Market Bill.

The word "precedents" was used by Mr. Brandon Lewis, MP, when he advised Westminster that the British Government would be breaking an international agreement. He said there were precedents for the British Government needing to consider its international obligations. This should not be a shock to any of us and I am surprised by some of the contributions I listened to earlier. This should come as no surprise to us in Ireland as we are fully aware of Britain's attitude to international obligations. One stark example personal to me was when, in 1995, the European Court of Human Rights found that the British Government had violated Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to life, when it murdered three people in Gibraltar. We cannot allow any British Government to ever again disregard international laws or obligations in this way.

There is a solution provided in the Good Friday Agreement and we are obliged to consider it now. It is the holding of a referendum on Irish unity. I have heard some politicians saying today that such a suggestion is provocative but at a time when British politicians have admitted in their Parliament that they are willing to break an international agreement by publishing this Bill, with the people of the North simply collateral damage to the plan, the mind boggles that the suggestion of a referendum could be provocative.

I appeal especially to Deputies from the Government parties who consider themselves advocates for a united Ireland not to be part of another Government in a long history of Governments that stands idly by while the liberties of the people of the North are trampled. It is absolutely now time for Irish unity.

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