Erin McGreehan (Louth, Fianna Fail)

For as long as I can remember, I have believed deeply and instinctively in the reunification of Ireland. It is not a passing campaign. Rather, it is a core value that has guided me from my earliest of memories. Growing up in north Louth, you lived the failure of partition. You saw how communities were split and people divided. Still today the Border holds us all back. Irish unity is not about erasing the difference or rewriting identity; it is about respect, reconciliation and building what we share to make this island stronger, fairer and more successful.

The Good Friday Agreement gave us a blueprint for the future. It set out how we move forward together peacefully and democratically. It also sets us a challenge, namely, to break old habits of mistrust and do the hard human work of reconciliation. That is why the shared Ireland initiative matters so profoundly. For the first time we are not talking about unity but are instead investing in it.

The €2 billion shared Ireland fund is turning aspirations into action. Bridges are being built, canals are being restored and research is being shared. Businesses are connected. Young people North and South are shaping a common future. These are not just gestures; they are the groundwork for reunification in practice. They must be built upon in this term of Government. We all must look at how we can work towards a border poll and how it can be achieved.

Fianna Fáil people hold dear our core aim of Irish unity. I hold it in my heart, but we must act respectfully, steadily and in a determined way because unity does not come from slogans. It will come from trust, progress and working with rather than against each other. It certainly will not come from one-upmanship in this Chamber.

I believe in an Ireland that is generous, modern and reconciled with itself, an island that faces outwards with confidence and inwards with compassion, accepting our failures and the things we have done wrong unto each other but which we can work on together. That is an Ireland I have always believed in and an Ireland for which I will never stop working.

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