Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We are having an important debate this afternoon. We were all glad to see restoration of the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Executive. I sincerely and heartily congratulate Michelle O'Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly on assuming their roles as First Minister and deputy First Minister, respectively. It is shameful it took this long to get everyone back around the table. It is particularly shameful how the DUP conducted itself in this period, holding Northern Ireland to ransom. I join others in praising the public sector workers who I think had a huge bearing on the eventual outcome. Politics is difficult on the best and worst of days, but certainly in Northern Ireland there was a stalemate on all sides. It took public servants and public sector workers taking to the streets with placards and shutting down Belfast city to get people to listen. That was a good outcome and I acknowledge their role in this because it has already largely been forgotten.

I will also comment on the notion of an all-island economy, which is espoused by the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Micheál Martin. From the get-go, when this Government took office in 2020, he felt, as the then Taoiseach, that there was a need for a shared island unit in the Department of the Taoiseach. Many of the problems we face as a nation do not just break down on the linear boundary of the Republic and the North of Ireland. We live in a 32-county Ireland and we face problems like climate change and economic challenges on an all-island basis. Few problems see a boundary, turn around and head back the other way. Most problems we face are certainly all Ireland. It is good that the dialogue engaged in by the shared island unit has deepened over the past three years.

I have yet to identify a Member of this House who is unionist or who believes that having six counties of our island belong to the United KIngdom is something good or positive. It is not. My bedrock political belief, going back to when I was a teenager, has been that we should have a united Ireland. That is still my fundamental belief and the day that my party, the Government or politicians collectively no longer hold it will be the day I give up coming to this House. I believe we are getting to that point slowly but surely. While I might disagree in this Chamber on many days and on many matters with our colleagues across the aisle in Sinn Féin, the one issue that unites us and them is that we want to see a united Ireland.

How we get to that point might be quite different.

I want to pick up on some of the points Sinn Féin Members have made. The notion espoused by its leader of having a unity referendum by 2030 might be desirable to some, but I think it is very high risk. I do not think we can be blind fundamentalists in our approach to this. I am a member of my party's Good Friday Agreement and Northern Ireland committee. I have been up and down to meet the DUP, the SDLP and many stakeholders in this process. It becomes abundantly obvious - it is not always understood by us here - that there is major fear in the unionist community that Brexit, which has been a total botch job, and everything that has followed since bring them very close to having their identity pulled apart altogether. Fast-tracking a unity referendum ASAP, to use the term mentioned here a while ago, would run contrary to the Good Friday Agreement where we need to bring people with us.

I would also like to see a unity referendum but at the right time. We do not need to look too far from these shores to see how a referendum held at the wrong time with the wrong result can be very detrimental. I am obviously referring to the Scottish referendum on independence which I think was pursued with too much haste. It was a once-in-a-generation ballot; they will not get the chance again. I very much want to see a unity referendum but we should not be making grandstand soapbox speeches saying it has to happen by 2030. I think that would lead to far greater problems. It is just the kind of unsettling language the institutions in Northern Ireland do not need as they all sit back to get down to the work they were elected to do.

Many people spoke about the contribution the British Government will make to the institutions in Northern Ireland. It has had to play a role over many years in supporting the functioning Government there. I have long been a historian. There are many artefacts from this island still held in cardboard archive boxes in the National Museum in London which is wrong. Our State needs to demand those artefacts back. This did not just start in the 12th century with Richard de Clare and the Normans. It continued through the 14th century and right up to the early 1920s. Some of our best and most important artefacts were plundered and taken away. The historian in me would not mind if they were on public display over in London. I would not care and would not be making this point if they were in a glass box now in London. If people could go in and see a torc, a tiara or something of significance to Irish history, that would add value to the public interest. However, at the moment most of these are held unopened in archive units in places like Kew south of London and they have been there since way back in the 1920s.

It is time the Irish State, as the Egyptian Government has done across many decades, demand that these artefacts be returned to Dublin and then hopefully those that belong in more regional centres can go to regional museums. However, we cannot just have this static position for thousands of artefacts. The National Library and National Museum records show that many artefacts are in London which is wrong. If they were on public display, it would be fine, but they are not. They are gathering dust in cardboard boxes. We need to bring them back to the museum across the street.

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