Denise Mitchell (Dublin Bay North, Sinn Fein)

Irish people living in the North can stand for the Presidency and serve as President, as Mary McAleese did, but cannot vote for the President if they live in the Six Counties. That unfairness is at the heart of this motion.

We recently saw the Assembly support the call to extend voting rights to all of Ireland. The President is the representative of the Irish nation, and that nation does not just stop at an imaginary line that was dreamt up by the British and imposed on us over 100 years ago.

On the Border issue, I, like everybody else here, would like to see a united Ireland. It cannot just remain an aspiration in the far-off future. The Taoiseach said about a united Ireland that the structures will evolve in the fullness of time. I am sorry, but that is not good enough. We need to start to see actual work and planning to put the very clear proposals on the table for what a new, united Ireland would look like, so that the people North and South will know what they are voting on. I am sick of hearing some politicians and commentators in the media endlessly telling us that 50% plus one is not good enough when it comes to a referendum on Irish unity. These folks do not get to rewrite the Good Friday Agreement. This motion is practicable, it is workable and it should be supported and implemented.

See this speech in context