Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)

I welcome the Minister of State. I grew up in County Cavan, which is a Border county. I grew up long enough ago to know and remember what a hard border was like. It was a Border imposed over 100 years ago without any consultation, purely for political reasons, by a British Government. It created two conservative states, one on each side of the Border. It did not just partition our country. This Border partitioned our people as well. It divided people and created a partitionist outlook. I know while things have moved on and the hard border is long gone, the impact of that still remains. The north west is one of the poorest regions in the EU for infrastructure, and that really affects investment. We need to see the end of a border in Ireland. By doing so we have the opportunity to create a new republic, a country that will embrace all of our citizens, Irish, British or other. The issues that affect people on the ground, whether they live in Fermanagh or Cavan, Dublin or Belfast, are ordinary issues like housing, health, disability and childcare. We have an opportunity to oversee the establishment of new all-Ireland departments that will deal with those issues. We already see where we have co-operation on issues such as health. We need to see more of that. It makes sense in a country this size. I was a member of the Good Friday Agreement committee in the previous term and some good work cross-party work was done on constitutional issues. An in-depth look was taken at the economic impact of a united Ireland, of an all-Ireland health system and the role of women in that. We can build on that, but we need the Government to lead on the preparation for Irish unity. I do not want to see a referendum happen without the preparation, but I do not want to see it pushed onto the long finger.

We need to engage with all sectors of society. We need to engage not just with other political groupings but marginalised groups like women and people from other countries. In order to do that, we need a forum of some sort. Whether that is a citizens' assembly or it is called something else, we need the engagement to start. Engagement is happening on the ground, but it needs to happen at formal level led by the Government to ensure we create an Ireland of equals for all our people.