Seanad debates

Tuesday, 9 December 2003

Independent Monitoring Commission Bill 2003: Committee and Remaining Stages.

 

10:45 am

Photo of Jim WalshJim Walsh (Fianna Fail)

The debate is interesting and has developed beyond the section. It probably goes to the heart of the Good Friday Agreement, from which many benefits have flowed. Equally, however, people have reservations, some of which I share. I never saw Britain as having a legal, moral or any other type of justification for being in Northern Ireland. Articles 2 and 3 provided a certain bulwark with regard to that and I fully accept what the Minister has said. In one of the briefing sessions we had in the lead up to the Good Friday Agreement I made the point that while both articles had been there for 60 years, they had not advanced the cause of Irish unity by one iota in the interim. Perhaps if they had been tested in the courts, as the Minister said, they may not have proved to be of any tremendous benefit. In recognising the constitutional position, we are legitimising what I, and I am sure most Irish people, would not have seen as being legitimate in the past. When one refers to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, our laws acknowledge, de facto, a legal status which I do not think they are entitled to have. I make that distinction because I think the British have no right to be in Northern Ireland. However, I fully subscribe to the notion that to achieve a united Ireland we must have a majority in Northern Ireland who will come that distance with us to unite the people, in the words of John Hume. That is what he aimed to do – it is a unification of the people rather than the land. I have had this discussion with Unionists, including some DUP people. I told them that the last thing I would like to see happening in a united Ireland was a large proportion of the majority community in the North not subscribing to it and perhaps emigrating. That would be a huge loss.

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