Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this subject, I also welcome the Minister. I accept fully what he says about the requirement in current circumstances to remain at the level of generality for fear of compromising delicate negotiations which are in train.

Arising from the remarks of Senator Mark Daly, it seems that there are several issues of which we should be conscious. First, it is all very well to talk about a referendum and making preparations for one, but the precondition for holding a referendum under the Good Friday Agreement is that it appears to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland that there is a majority who wish to see a change in the status of Northern Ireland. It is not that people would like to have a referendum. In that respect, we can learn a little from what is happening in Catalonia. It is one thing for people to say they favour the holding of a referendum, it is another matter completely to say they want a change in the status of Northern Ireland.

I do not believe talk of a referendum at this point is justified or justifiable. In that respect, I differ from Senator Mark Daly because I believe that, although Northern Ireland is coming into balance demographically - the Catholic community is at somewhere between 43% and 47% or 48%, while the so-called Protestant community, if one can use that label, is of the same dimension; therefore, a balance between the two traditional major groups in Northern Ireland is coming into view - it does not follow that the majority would favour a united Ireland or that public opinion in Northern Ireland is at tipping point. All of the public opinion surveys that have been conducted indicate that, notwithstanding the huge demographic change that has taken place in Northern Ireland and that the old 2:1 hegemony of unionism, Protestantism and ascendancy versus Catholic nationalism and republicanism in Northern Ireland has disappeared, that does not mean that there is a will in Northern Ireland for either a referendum or a united Ireland.

I agree fully with Senator Mark Daly that we should consider the words of the late T. K. Whitaker, a former Member of this House, who counselled against opportunistic emotional approaches to Northern Ireland and that the policy of the State should and must be towards unity but that it should be persistent, patient and measured. That is not because I fear the reunification of the country. I earnestly hope and aspire for it. However, at the moment the major task confronting nationalists and republicans on the island is fostering the reconciliation process in Northern Ireland. I fully accept what Senator Mark Daly said about the calamitous effects on the North of Brexit and the pessimistic view one would have to have of the prospects for Northern Ireland if a hard Brexit takes place. I am very hopeful, however, that there will be a solution to the Brexit matter - a soft Brexit in which there will be an analogue to a customs union partnership between the European Union and the United Kingdom and that, therefore, it will not be necessary to have tariffs on the Border. That is something for which I earnestly hope. I believe it can be achieved and the Government should be working towards that end. There are people in the European Union who are not as keen on or as bothered about it. A small minority still have a tone of punishing the United Kingdom for leaving the European Union and making it difficult for it to do a sensible deal with it. Guy Verhofstadt who has a role in the European Parliament and Jean-Claude Juncker gravitated towards the proposition that even if the United Kingdom changed its mind, it could not come back on current terms into the European Union but would have to become an integrationist state in order to remain part of it. That is part of the same psychology that they really want to see the back of the United Kingdom in the European Union. That is a dangerous sentiment in some circles in Brussels.

Ireland must take a line in the European Union which is directed towards having the softest possible Brexit. We must be courageous in doing so and not be afraid of being seen to be under the influence of some people in the United Kingdom in seeking that way out. It is in our interests that there be a soft Brexit and a partnership between the United Kingdom and the European Union. We must very patiently but with determination seek that way out as our preferred option and make it clear that is where we are going because the damage caused by a hard Brexit on both parts of the island would be almost incalculable and its capacity to drive the island further and further apart, especially if the United Kingdom were, for instance, to engage in the provision of state aids to attract industry and commerce from this state into the North, would be very significant. The tragedy of the Brexit referendum is that it puts pressure on the political faultlines between the two parts of the island.

If we are in the business of reconciliation which I believe is the ultimate republican virtue, we should take a long hard look - I say this particularly to members of Sinn Féin - at how reconciliation would, in fact, be brought about.We had a civil war in this country. Something I discovered in Cathal Brugha Barracks one day was a piece of paper written by Garret FitzGerald's father directing the destruction of all files relating to military tribunals and such by fire on the day that it was anticipated that power would be handed over to Fianna Fáil in 1932. Some people might ask if it is not scandalous that our history was going into a bonfire but the symbolism was that he did not wish for this bitterness to continue. The generations on both sides which followed the Civil War, perhaps by their silence, effected reconciliation.

The constant drumbeat about commemorating people who lost their lives on one side in the Troubles is not designed to bring about reconciliation on the other side. One does not see all these parades or roadside monuments to remember Ulster Defence Regiment, UDR, men or women who lost their lives and there is a divisive effect on the minds of people who see one commemoration taking place in one county or district of a county and who know that there were other people who are being forgotten. I do not mind people showing solidarity with the political movement from which they come but every action has some kind of political reaction. I want to emphasise that if we are to reconcile the two communities in Northern Ireland, it is not going to be a see-saw 51% to 49% vote in some referendum held in the next ten to 15 years. That is not how a united Ireland is going to come about. It will come about with a confluence of economic interests, a history of working together on joint projects of joint concern, and a genuine defusing of those aspects of the political culture of Northern Ireland that divide people.

I want to address what Senator Mark Daly said. There has been an abstinence of political activity here relating to the nuts and bolts of Irish unity but part of that is explained by the need to put mutual collaboration between the two communities in Northern Ireland and the establishment of mutual trust and conciliation ahead of the relentless ambition towards the earliest possible establishment of Irish unity. There is nothing dishonourable in it. It is perfectly reasonable in the circumstances. It is a matter of what one's priorities are. My priority as an Irish republican is to see reconciliation in Northern Ireland. It is not to start planning or speaking constantly about the earliest opportunity to have a referendum because, at the moment, I am conscious of the fact that if a referendum were held in Northern Ireland in the next five years, the proposal for Irish unity would be beaten two to one. People here who forget that fact endanger the other, much more important point, which is to conciliate the two communities in Northern Ireland.