Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Independent)

Ar an gcéad dul síos, ba mhaith liom a rá gur poblachtánach mé, cosúil le gach duine eile anseo. Ach deir roinnt daoine gur féidir linn a bheith réalaíoch freisin. Mar sin, ba mhaith liom Éire aontaithe a fheiceáil a luaithe agus is féidir linn ach ní féidir é seo a dhéanamh gan cúpla rud - toil na gceardchumann, mar shampla.

We only have four minutes each to speak on this and we cannot say a lot. First, I thank Sinn Féin for putting this motion down. I agree that we need to plan for a united Ireland if we are to ever get there. As others have said, it cannot be a perfect unity but, at the same time, it has to be a united unity. By that, we mean not having a zero-sum game so that when we get to 50% plus one, all of a sudden it is said, "You have the majority lads, come on in and join us and we will throw you a few scraps, lads". We are talking about Éire nua i ndáiríre. It has to be a new island, a new Ireland. When we are planning, we may as well ask the unionists, a very significant future minority - not to mention those who would consider themselves Northern Irish without considering themselves fully southern Irish - what it would take for them to consider being part of an all-Ireland decision-making body. Is it going to be a federal system? As others have said, are we going to have to change our flag? We love our flag. We talk about how it unites the unionists and republicans, how it is Catholics, Protestants and Dissenters, and sure, can you not understand why the flag is a flag for everyone. They do not see it that way. We are not going back to the zero-sum politics of saying that anyone who came here 400 years ago should be sent back to Scotland or England. They are there. They are Irish in their own way, they are also British in their own way and that has to be respected. In any type of discussion about a united Ireland, we have to become a little bit more British ourselves, unfortunately.

There are arguments from the South where I have heard some people say that they would not want to increase the cost of living to bring those Nordies with us. There is that mentality you have to bring forward. For me, my love of my country is such, just like others here, that I will gladly fork out whatever it takes to have a united Ireland. It is worth it and there are economic benefits down the line as we have seen in study after study. However, you will not get anywhere near those economic benefits unless you bring people together. That means that we in the South who will have the majority, whether we call ourselves a Catholic or a secular country or something in between - a lot of people are cultural Catholics - will have to be bigger, for want of a better term, and even that might seem patronising.

We have to say the flag is up there, the anthem is up there, the type of island is up there and the closer links with Britain are up there. Maybe then the unionists will come along. We have to bring them with us.

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