Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Covid pandemic has shown up weaknesses in our society in respect of the housing crisis, workers' rights, ICU bed ratios and so on. In case anybody thought Irish history had stopped in 1998, Boris Johnson's handling of Brexit has shown why his country was sometimes called "perfidious Albion". We know that the provisions of the UK Internal Market Bill and the circumventing of the Irish protocol would serve to cut out part of the Good Friday Agreement. I do not accept that the agreement is the final answer to the question as regards sovereignty. Rather, it was a stop in the road which enabled us to create a scenario in the North where people could work with each other, we could have cross-Border co-operation and we could deal with the east-west relationship. As republicans, we never stood back from our belief that Irish unity is the long-term solution for a better Ireland. We have been proved correct in that.

At this point in time, we can only wonder why Boris Johnson is doing what he is doing. Is it a diversionary tactic? Is it about what he says it is about, namely, the difficulties in regard to the connection between Britain and the North? Is it a diversion from his less than perfect handling of the Covid pandemic? Is it a diversion from the serious discussions that must happen in regard to the level playing field on state aid and fisheries? We do not know. All we know is that he has taken a risk with Irish lives, Irish business and Irish society, North and South, and we cannot accept it. We need the EU and Michel Barnier's team to stand firm. The things Nancy Pelosi, Richard Neal and others have said are very welcome but the Government must maintain whatever pressure it can on all our international contacts to ensure we get the best mitigations.

We must be clear about the situation as it stands. We need to take Boris Johnson and some other members of the Conservative Party at their word and assume they will do exactly as they say they will do and that there are no internal checks within Westminster or anywhere else to stop them. I have yet to see a situation where any such checks have curtailed what I can only describe as British madness on certain issues over many years. The reality is that we are going to be left in a situation where there is only one mitigation that can make a significant difference to the lives of a huge number of people on this island, including those living in my part of the country, and that is Irish unity. This is not the way anyone expected the conversation to happen. It is not what we wanted to happen. Farmers and hauliers in places like Dromiskin, Knockbridge, Dundalk, Cullyhanna and Cullybackey are not being benefitted by these particular moves of Boris Johnson and his colleagues. The latter do not particularly care about that and we need to recognise this reality. We need to make preparations in regard to Irish unity, accepting that we may get a deal and there may be a free trade agreement between Britain and the EU. We may have the protections of the Irish protocol but we cannot be sure of it. In the long term, we cannot, for want of a better phrase, be under the cosh of what a British Government might decide to do.

We call for preparations for Irish unity and what it would look like. I have no difficulty with the previous speaker's comments. We need to have an holistic conversation, and it is not necessarily the united Ireland that I would have seen when I was 16 or 17. We have to make room for unionists and all the people who live on the island. Ireland has a far more diverse population than was the case back then. We need the Citizens' Assembly to be convened, we need governmental plans, we need discussions and we need to make sure. The reality is that people will be left in a situation where they decide to either stay in an absolutely dysfunctional, so-called United Kingdom or go with the option of the European Union and Irish unity. This could be the end of what has been a not necessarily beneficial history involving Britain and Ireland, especially for the people of Ireland.

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