Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)

Táimid uilig sásta go bhfuilimid ag iarraidh Éire aontaithe ach caithfimid an obair a dhéanamh ionas go dtarlóidh sé. We in the Social Democrats welcome this motion because the work needs to be done. We need to prepare for and implement the suggestions to build that road towards a united Ireland. They are not new suggestions. They have been knocking around for a long time now. This is a position and a policy that we support wholeheartedly. We have a very young support base and a young voter base and it is such an exciting time to be a politician on this island where we find ourselves in the conditions that are leading us towards reunification. It is an exciting time to see the groundswell of support we have in our younger generations for exactly that across our population. I commend the work that has been done by the Government. I share the same concerns as have been expressed by many others and I will speak to them throughout my contribution.

There is this mentality that we have to be ready fully before we take certain steps. I will try to explain why this is. I commend the work that has been done, particularly by the shared island unit. Obviously, the infrastructural pieces that are under way and the bridge building in different ways are really important to making sure we connect the two jurisdictions. However, I want to talk about the specific cultural bridges we need to build. I will talk about my own experience and journey in terms of the North. I went to college up north in Ulster University in Coleraine in the mid-nineties during the truce period and as a result have a huge fondness for the North. I continue to visit there, I have a lot of friends there and I am really passionate about the really special culture, people and life we have up there in that part of our island. If we fast-forward 15 years, I had to undertake work in my roles in the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, which was established by the Good Friday Agreement. Both of our human rights bodies on both sides of the Border were founded by the Good Friday Agreement and I chaired the joint committee of both of those human rights commissions. In my experience in that more official capacity, I learned, for example, to say "Northern Ireland" in certain settings rather than "the North" because I started to understand how language jarred for certain people, just as for other people saying "Northern Ireland" instead of "the North" is just as problematic. It was a huge privilege to have that experience and change in my understanding and to recognise the huge sensitivities and the really complex nature of the debate in the North. It has been amazing to bring that into my political work. As Deputy Bacik mentioned, we have had a lot of engagements recently at the SDLP conference. I am now committee chair on the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly for growth, trade and investment, which will focus a lot on that cross-Border potential. What I am trying to describe here is my deep connection with the North, with our whole island and with the prospect of Irish unity but I follow that immediately by pointing out that I am the outlier. Where I am from in south county Dublin, I do not see that same level of connection with my peers. I have seen that the whole way up. My friends there when I was in college up North used to joke with me that I would have to dodge the bullets. This was during the truce. That is just the kind of mentality. There is an unfamiliarity with the actual situation in the North and what culture and daily life is like. It is not mirrored because a lot of people I know in the North consume RTÉ and can name Irish politicians in a way Irish people cannot name politicians in Belfast. There is a massive job of work to do for us to build that cultural connection. We, as politicians and policymakers and as leaders in our communities, have that job of work to do. I look towards Germany and think we really need to learn from their lessons. I do a lot of travelling around Germany and people are heard referring to Ossis and Wessies. These are those who came from either west or east Germany before reunification. To my eyes, I cannot see an Ossie versus a Wessie but they can. That is what we do not want. We do not want to find ourselves at the point of a potential for Irish unity not having done the groundwork of connecting our populations from every corner of this island, respecting their communities and their difference and maintaining it within that dialogue. Otherwise, it will be like how the Germans talk about themselves. The east Germans will say it was assimilation, not reunification. We do not want that. We have to protect all of the identities of all of the different communities on the island. We have to respect that some people who have, up to now, been from a majority population or community are now facing into being a very small minority in a much larger population and we have to figure out how we deal with that. One of the things we really need to think about within this is that cultural divide. It would be amazing to send a copy of the Good Friday Agreement to every single household on this island to really help people start thinking about that. Those who have contributed already this evening are correct that these conversations are happening. They are happening at kitchen tables and in pubs. If we do not have better dialogue and better mechanisms to advance the implementation piece, it is going to be a huge problem.

That brings me back to what I said earlier. Although I acknowledge the good work of the Government with the shared island unit and in other initiatives that deal with this, there is a problematic mentality that says we have to be fully ready before we talk about a border poll. It reminds me of the same attitude that the Government takes towards the signing of international conventions. I dealt with this in my human rights work. Minister after Minister would tell me that they did not have everything in place yet so we could not sign the UNCRPD or ratify OPCAT. We will never be fully ready for this. I compare it to a young couple who are planning to have a family who are waiting until they can afford it. They would never be able to technically afford it if they sat down and thought it out. Similarly, this is never going to be absolutely perfect. What we do is we push the dialogue forward, we bring through these very sensible measures that are set out in this motion, we implement them and parallel to that we advance the efforts this Government has already committed to. I do not see that we have to sit and wait until we are there.

As others have said, there are a few other items that I really hope the Government continues to prioritise. One is dealing with the legacy Act and implementing the framework that has emerged this year. We also have to deal with the responsibilities we have down here in the South for our own issues around legacy and bringing access to justice for everybody in this State. We need to play our part as a State and a remaining member of the European Union to ensure there is no diminution of rights in the North as a result of Brexit and that we do not have a divergence of rights on this island.

I will finish by quoting John Hume because, as I say, what is really important to me and what I will be bringing to this discussion is a respect for different communities and different identities within this discussion.

Difference is of the essence of humanity. Difference is an accident of birth and it should therefore never be the source of hatred or conflict. The answer to difference is to respect it. Therein lies a most fundamental principle of peace – respect for diversity.

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