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

I thank the Deputies. To respond to Deputy Durkan, I absolutely agree there are things we can do to move things forward absent an Assembly and Executive, and the shared island fund is part of that. It is one of the few positive things that is happening North-South at the moment. It is making a difference in Northern Ireland and has been a very successful initiative by the Government, particularly led by the Tánaiste and former Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin. Another thing we are working on is PEACE PLUS, an EU-UK fund of about €1 billion to invest in Northern Ireland and enhance North-South co-operation. We hope to be able to come to an agreement on that in the first half of this year.

While I am talking about North-South matters, I restate the Government's support for the A5 project, the new road to be built between Aughnacloy and New Buildings, helping to connect Derry and Letterkenny as well to the rest of the State. It is a very dangerous road. A campaign was relaunched in Northern Ireland only in the past week of which the GAA and other bodies are a part and on which they are showing real leadership. We are keen to see that project through planning. We want to contribute to the cost of it and we are going to make sure we prepare for the tie-ins on our side of the Border, such as the project from Clontibret to the Border.

Turning to Deputy Ó Murchú’s questions, in fairness, a lot of the shared island research programme looks at the differences between North and South, such as how health services and primary care services are structured in Northern Ireland as compared with the Republic of Ireland. A lot of that kind of detail, painstaking work and analysis was never done previously. It is being done for the first time and it is important that it continue.

I agree with Deputy Boyd Barrett on one issue. I do not underestimate for a second the enormous pressure our healthcare staff are under, and he will know my family background in that regard. Healthcare staff, nurses among them but also doctors, ambulance staff and others, have had an exhausting three years. There has been the exhaustion and stress of the pandemic, and now that we are in at least a post-restrictions period, there is a huge snapback in demand for healthcare. They have had no respite or break. A lot of people are burned out. That is not at all unique to this jurisdiction, as he said, or to this island; it is a feature of health services across the world.

We are acting on it. We have a pay deal in place with our healthcare workers. We have a new consultant contract on offer, which I think is a very good one and a very generous one financially. Crucially, it begins to end private practice in public hospitals, something the Deputy agrees with. We are increasing the number of beds, with almost 1,000 additional beds in our acute hospitals in the past three years, and we are recruiting, with more than 6,000 more doctors and nurses working in our public hospitals than was the case three years ago, notwithstanding the challenges with recruitment.

In respect of a citizens’ assembly on unification or Irish unity, as Deputies described it, I have an open mind on that but I am not convinced it is the right approach. I have seen citizens' assemblies work well in this jurisdiction, and while I was initially a sceptic of them, I have become a fan, and I think they have allowed us to bring forward reforms we not have brought forward so fast had it not been for the fact the citizens' assemblies showed us that when the public hear the arguments, they are often ahead of politicians. Doing it on this issue, however, would require a lot of thought and sensitivity. One simple question is whether it would involve 50 people from the Republic and 50 from Northern Ireland or whether it would be done on the basis there would be a 5:2 split. I do not know. Any citizens' assembly that did not have the active and meaningful participation of people from the Protestant, unionist and loyalist backgrounds would not be worth having. It would not be worth a penny candle, quite frankly, if people from those backgrounds were not willing to participate. If 16, 17 or 20 of them agreed to do so, would they face intimidation, potentially, for being involved in an assembly of that nature? They might. As we know, citizens' assemblies have a lot of votes. Would the rules allow them to be outvoted or would they have a veto? Until we have satisfactory answers to those kind of practical questions, I do not think it is an idea we could proceed with.

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