Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is not often Senator McDowell usurps me.I agree wholeheartedly with what he said in the context of what James Nesbitt and Harold Good said over the weekend. What Senator McDowell outlined can be very simply done through this House. We have done some very good things. I want to see the House play a part in the consultations, just as my colleague, Senator Ó Donnghaile, and Senator McDowell said. It can be easily done if we have agreement from each of the party and group leaders. We need to shape our own destiny. If the Brexit debacle has shown us anything, it is that we cannot be left, and cannot leave our children, at the behest of the Tory public school boys. Together we must shape a new and agreed Ireland, and we may as well do so sooner rather than later. People say our party should not call for a Border poll, but were we not to do so we would not even be having this conversation now. That call is to instigate the conversation that is needed on this in order that nobody is left behind. I have often said that a new and agreed Ireland to me is not about me being somehow better than a loyalist in east Belfast. It is about us all being equal and having equality of opportunity. As I said yesterday when speaking in another context, a mother on the Shankill Road wants the same for her children as I want for my children in Mayo: equality of opportunity in respect of education, careers, health and many other things that will take them through their life cycles in order that they can reach their full potential. We therefore need to work on those things that unite us and to shape the type of island we want. This is what we have been trying to do for decades, and I very much welcome that other people are on board now. This does not belong to any one party. This is the collective responsibility of all of us as citizens. We will certainly play our part, but this does not belong to any one person. There is no room for egos here; the business we need to do is too serious for that. We will certainly play our part in that business.