Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

Irish unity stands as the greatest aspiration and opportunity for the future of Ireland. It is incumbent on each of us to play a constructive role. Right across the island and beyond, people are doing that and having conversations at dinner tables and social gatherings as to when it will happen and what it might look like. Across communities and traditions and among the diaspora, they are eager and willing to play their part. Civic society groups are organising exciting and engaging events of a scale, and it is gathering pace. Undeniably, momentum is building. What is needed now is for the Irish Government to play its part in full. My appeal to my colleagues across Government and Opposition benches is this: let us establish a citizens' assembly to facilitate the conversations that need to happen, let us have a joint Oireachtas committee to enable careful planning, and let us engage with civic societies, with school children as the Minister of State, and with Catholic and unionist communities about the future of our island. We need to start to plan.

It is deeply regrettable that this week, yet another presidential election will come to pass that excludes Irish citizens in the North. It is a retrograde step that this Government chose to abandon the commitment to hold a referendum on the extension of voting rights to the North and outside of the State. At a time when the Government is advertising and calling on our young people to return home, it is a sad indictment of how we value those abroad. When we are on the final leg of the journey to reunification, the Minister of State can prepare, plan and make the change.

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