Ned O'Sullivan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I would like to ask the Leader to arrange, possibly in the new year now, a debate on the shared island movement. The shared island initiative was one of the Taoiseach and a sum of €500 million was set aside in the programme for Government for a number of projects that were aimed at benefiting communities North and South and improving relationships North, South, east and west, particularly relationships between the two traditions on this island. From a slow start, the shared island initiative has become a movement and it is time the Seanad got behind it more fully. At a forum in Dublin Castle at the weekend, the Taoiseach outlined the further €50 million that will be spent in the near future, on top of the €140 million that has already been spent on a number of projects. It was announced that €10 million will be provided for a cross-Border peatland restoration programme led by the National Parks and Wildlife Service, that €7 million will be provided to tourism agencies to progress a collaboration between the Wild Atlantic Way and the Causeway Coastal Route and that €12 million will be set aside for development of a new innovation hub in the north west. There are a load more projects that Members can read about themselves; they are easy to access.

This is a practical way of trying to unite people on this island. The shared island initiative threatens nobody and it is not, as has been suggested, a Trojan horse towards luring unionists into a united Ireland by stealth. It is anything other than that and unionists appreciate that. We are having an awful lot of conversations about constitutional change and a united Ireland.The Irish Times has published a definitive poll. To be honest, any reasonable person can see there will not be major constitutional change on this island for the coming decades, and certainly not in my lifetime. I regret to say that but it is a fact. All of us, including me, aspire to a united Ireland that unites people in friendship, understanding and partnership. No other kind of united Ireland is of interest to me or to the vast majority of people. It is time for the Opposition in particular to get behind the shared island initiative. They are behind other talking groups that are having conversations left, right and centre, while spending what appears to be a shocking amount of money. In reality, it is time to get behind something that is practical. We are putting our money where are mouths are for the first time in years. The incoming Taoiseach will take on this project and give it the same full support that the current Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin, has given it. He deserves full credit as the man who has initiated a new way of looking at the problem for the first time in a long time. We are sick of the old rhetoric and methods. We are sick of green versus orange and the tribalism and sectarianism involved. We are sick of it. We want peace and harmony on our island. Let us make a start.