Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)

To conclude this debate, I thank everybody who has contributed tonight, including Government Members. It is important. What is obvious from it is, exactly as it says in the motion, is that we need a Green Paper on Irish unity, a White Paper, an Oireachtas joint committee dedicated to reunification and citizens' assemblies. Were we to do that, even in itself, we would make much progress in this space. We all agree that we need to prepare. Let us not go over the old ground. Let us agree here and now that we need to prepare, but we need to do it urgently. We also need to include our diaspora, including the thousands of people living in Britain and America. These are Irish people who really want to be part of this debate.

The Government has a particular role to play as coguarantor of the Good Friday Agreement, as does the Taoiseach. I ask each member of the Government to have that discussion and conversation in their parliamentary party groups. Let it unite us. This is much bigger than party politics. We need to do this. We owe it to people to do this. We owe it to people who are currently living on this island, right across the board, and we owe it to the future to do this preparatory work now. I welcome the shared island unit and the work that it does but it has to be expanded and there has to be urgency about answering the questions that we need to have answered. We cannot hope to tackle issues such as climate change, public health, energy security and food security with a separated island. We can only do it together. Let us go forward from here and do what needs to be done. We know what that is.

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