I note Deputy Gould's emotive and emotional remarks and his tour of recent Irish history, but the focus of this debate and this society need to be on the present and on preparing for the future. I mean it most sincerely that there is an onus on us and a responsibility on all of us who believe that uniting Ireland is the best way in which we can serve the material interests of our people to ditch the sloganeering, be less reliant on the four green fieldisms and to have less of a focus on what I might describe as the Kneecapification of Irish history and to focus on a future in which we can all believe. We should also focus on the ways in which we can persuade those who do not agree with us to join us on that journey, because accommodations will need to be reached. Processes will need to be put in place by those of us who are serious about uniting this country, outside of the romantic vision of what our forefathers fought for and all of the rest of it. That work has to happen now. We have to prepare for it and we have to do it. Not only will it have to be led by Government, it will have to be supported by the Opposition as well, because if we cannot agree in this House on the way forward in a consensual fashion, how are we going to persuade those who disagree with us and have a right to disagree with us? That right to disagree with us is enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement, which was agreed with the consent of all of the people, North and South, so we know the structure that is in place. In recent years, I have detected a timidity at government level about how we advance the objectives that I want to see emerge and which are facilitated and catered for in the Good Friday Agreement on how we approach that challenge, ambition and aspiration that I validly have and on which, of course, many on this island disagree with us. Accommodations will have to be reached with those who disagree with us, and we need to be honest and upfront about that. We also need to be prepared to say what those accommodations look like and how we can make them if it really is our objective to arrive at what I, Deputy Currie and others describe as a new Ireland, a different Ireland. It is not going to be the same and there will be accommodations that may be uncomfortable for some of us, but they will have to be arrived at. There will be fiscal and financial implications for this State in that transition. There is an obligation on us, insofar as we can, to properly interrogate and consider those implications and to be upfront about them. While I do not want to reach too far back in Irish history, it is important that we have a considered look at the experience of Ireland in the past 30 years. The story has been one of significant economic and social divergence. It is an unpopular thing to say, and it is a contested space, but I hear lots of people, especially from Fianna Fáil, talking about how the transformation of the economy in the Republic of Ireland was down to the Good Friday Agreement in some way. That is a contested space. The transformation of the Irish economy was under way from the early 1990s. Did the Good Friday Agreement do it any harm? No, it did not, but let us not exaggerate its impact on the Irish economy. It is good and it had an impact, but was there a causal relationship? I am not so sure. The jury is out on that. However, is the Good Friday Agreement a good thing and good for our economy? Of course, it is. Did the guns fall silent in the North? Yes, they did, and that is a good thing and it allowed the economy in the North to develop, albeit at a different rate to our own. There are features of the economy in the North that need to be addressed and need our support and the support of the UK to be addressed. With the notable exception of the crash years and the great recession, the story of the economy in the Republic of Ireland has been one of consistent growth, economic development and more or less full employment for a considerable period. However, it is a rich country that has a problem understanding that it is now sustainably rich. Those of us in opposition will, of course, say that this country needs to do better, and it can. Those problems are not problems of money and resources any more; they are problems to do with ideology, philosophy and different interpretations on how our economy should be run and how public services should be invested in. They are not challenges that cannot be overcome. They can be overcome, and, of course, I will say that they can be overcome if different political decisions are taken, but politics is capable of fixing this country. I am often kind of alarmed, and I say this with the greatest of respect to my friends and colleagues in Sinn Féin, that there is a degree of partitionism in the way in which that party approaches this question. On the one hand, it is legitimate for an Opposition party to critique the economic model day in, day out. I do it myself all of the time, and we all know that Ireland can do better. However, at the same time, is that kind of critique helping to persuade those whom we need to persuade into a new Ireland? I am not so sure that it is. The arguments are different on both sides of the Border, and I make that point with the greatest of respect. That is perhaps a challenge for a party that is organised on both sides of the Border, and I understand that. As we know, the North has deep, systemic problems. It is still a deeply divided region and polity and, while we have peace, we do not have reconciliation. There are those who are far too invested in fighting the war by other means, politically, and that is continuing to divide that society. Call me old-fashioned, but I cling to the idea that every parent wants what is best for their children. Every grandparent wants what is best for their grandchildren. That includes continuing the development of the economy, providing good jobs and educational opportunities and so on. The more we develop this State and resolve its problems, and the problems are manifold, the better chance we have of persuading those who do not agree with us at the moment to join us on this journey and persuading them of the merits of it. As I say, most people want what is best for their children, regardless of what their political affiliations might be, and those affiliations, by the way, need to be accommodated in the new Ireland. We are not good at describing what those accommodations will be or what that relationship with the UK will be, whether economically, socially, politically, culturally or otherwise. It is a relationship that will have to be maintained. It will look very different as we approach a new Ireland. When looking at our preparedness, or lack thereof, Brexit is the single biggest warning from our recent history. We could very well end up with Nigel Farage having the keys of No. 10 and the prospect of a united Ireland by some kind of default coming down the tracks much quicker than we thought. We are not prepared. Nigel Farage and Reform UK could not give a monkey’s toss about what some would describe as the Celtic fringe of these islands, and that is the reality. They do not understand history. They have not thought about it. They have not thought about the implications of their little Englander mentality. Brexit shows us the vulnerability and the risks of not being prepared, of not considering the impact of referendums, not considering what the question is, not considering transitional arrangements and costs and so on. That needs to be properly thought out but, to date, it has not been. Of course, as others have said, this is a very contested space. We have had research carried out by the IIEA that says one thing, research carried out by Professor Doyle that says another thing, and the ESRI saying something entirely different. We have solid, important work being carried out on an ongoing basis by, for example, ARINS, and that work is socialised by The Irish Times, which gives it a platform to try to disseminate that really important information to be popularly consumed and interrogated. That is very important. I disagree with the leader of Sinn Féin, Deputy Mary Lou McDonald - I think Michelle O'Neill also said it some years ago - that this is something that is being discussed at kitchen tables across the country. I do not believe it is. However, it should be, and I hope it will be. We need more detail because people will naturally ask what the implications are for them. Deputy Malcolm Byrne referred to the experience of uniting Germany. That was a very different prospect when the vast majority, if not all, of East German citizens wanted to become part of a united German polity. As we know, that is not the case on this island. We need to be careful about how we approach that. The economic argument that we can make on this part of the island is a strong one, and should continue to be a strong one. In his opening contribution, the Tánaiste said that we need to look at both sides of the ledger when it comes to the financial and fiscal implications of a united Ireland. He is absolutely right. Those of us who represent constituencies like Louth see this every day, and my colleague, Deputy Ó Murchú, will undoubtedly speak about this as well. The impact of partition on places like Louth has been profound, but the impact of peace has been profound as well. We see this in practical terms, day in, day out, in the relationships developing between businesses on both sides of what is now, thankfully, a permeable and invisible border. These are relationships that were always there, but they were damaged by partition. Chambers of commerce are working together closely in Drogheda, Dundalk and Newry. Local authorities are working closely in Louth, Newry, Mourne and so on. We have seen the development of the Narrow Water Bridge, which will open shortly - I walked by it only two or three weeks ago. That is a manifestation of what is possible. There is the development of the Enterprise network linking Dublin, Drogheda and Dundalk with Newry, Portadown, Belfast and so on. The frequency of those services is making a real impact. We know, for example, that the Dundalk Institute of Technology will transition to university status thanks to its relationship with Queen’s University. In real life, in everyday terms, these relationships are forming anyway because they make sense, and they are continuing to form. At the invitation of SDLP colleagues, I spoke at a meeting in Warrenpoint recently about the ways in which we can better develop cross-border health services. There are huge opportunities in the context of heart and stroke services, cancer services and so on, but those opportunities are not being developed in the way we or our constituents would like. There are barriers still, for a host of different reasons. There are obvious opportunities in a united Ireland on that side of the ledger. Yes, there will be costs, but there are opportunities in a remodelled economy. For example, a new Ireland would obtain a very different culture in the manufacturing space than we have had traditionally in some parts of this country, given the experience in Belfast and the concentration of some important industries in Belfast, Derry and elsewhere. There are economies of scale that we could develop for significant infrastructure development and, for example, we hope that the A5 would materialise in a way that we would like. We have a major problem in this country with scaling up indigenous enterprises and ensuring that Irish companies can go global from here. I will share with the House one anecdote. During my spell from 2014 to 2016 as Minister of State with responsibility for enterprise, we tried to host a joint Enterprise Ireland-InterTradeIreland trade mission in the United Arab Emirates for a very significant health med-tech initiative. InterTradeIreland was on board and Enterprise Ireland was on board, but that exercise was being resisted by my counterpart at the time in the northern Executive, Arlene Foster. These are the challenges that we have. That is why I circle back to this point. I cling to the idea that, surely, because of our economic performance, because of the potential of this part of the island and what we have done at a top line over the last few years, we can persuade people that unionist, loyalist and dissenter can do better in a new Ireland - that jobs will be better, that businesses can do better and that there will be a material difference to the lives of everybody. It is on that basis that we have to proceed. We need to be serious about that, and we need to be serious about the fiscal implications. While we are looking at the finances, we need to look at the costs but also the opportunities.

Sentiment score: 0.21