I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward this Bill. I commend the Bill and am happy to say that the Social Democrats will support it. We are happy to support it because we support a united Ireland and we support the constitutional change needed to facilitate bringing about that united Ireland. What this Bill does is provide for the work and dialogue that need to happen for constitutional change. Before I speak to the Bill itself, I will pick up on the comments by both the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste in their contributions on the timeline. For me, that is really problematic. The Taoiseach went into quite a lot of detail about why an 18-month timeline is not appropriate for the work that is set out, but this is just another example that shows he is not willing to work with us. If 18 months is not appropriate, it can be dealt with in committee or extended further. It is about dialogue because that is what this does and that is what we are not getting from the Taoiseach. Fine Gael recently announced a blueprint. That is not what this is about. This is a discussion that has to come from all directions, and it is coming from all directions. It is already happening, so the fact that it is not happening in the appropriate way in this Chamber is an issue. That is what this legislation puts forward. As far as I am concerned, it does so in a way that is completely in keeping with the Good Friday Agreement and is very respectful of some of the really important features that we need to consider in this debate. Those are some of the things that I would like to speak to now. The first point is that language is important in this. This is something that I have learned over the course of my life. I have lived in the North and worked in a formal structure, a part of the Good Friday Agreement that set up the joint committee of the human rights commissions, of which I was chair along with my counterpart from Belfast. I have had that understanding of how some people like it to be referred to as the North but when you are in certain other settings, you have to refer to Northern Ireland. You have to respect the different ways in which people assert their own identity in this discussion. For me, language is hugely important. It is something that has to be respected. It comes through crystal clear for me in this legislation and is something that we have to acknowledge. Another thing I have noticed in the discussions we have had is there is a huge imbalance on both sides of the Border between understanding of these issues and an appetite to discuss them. I have peers, who are friends of mine I have grown up alongside who have barely been to Northern Ireland at all, or who have maybe gone to see the Titanic museum. Unless people have friends or contacts, or have reasons to go to the North, there are many in our jurisdiction who do not have an understanding of the cultural differences we have on either side of the Border, or of the history and the issues. That is something we need to address. It is something that the Government and we, as a state, need to address. We need to foster that dialogue, we need to have these conversations at dinner tables around this country, and we need to do it here in this Chamber as well. Self-determination is a core principle of international law. It is one that we must observe and practise on our own island. We talk about it in many other contexts in the debates in this Chamber. That is ultimately what this constitutional discussion is about. It is about self-determination. It is about saying that rooted in the Good Friday Agreement is the opportunity and the potential for these constitutional discussions and dialogue to happen and, ultimately, for us to go to the ballot at a certain point and vote about a united Ireland in a border poll. That is what we are working towards. The dialogue and the work around it need to be done. While I recognise the good work of the shared island initiative and the work that is done by this Government, I do not think it is yet facilitating the kind of dialogue, the kind of debate and the kind of very clear, prescient work that is described in this legislation. As Social Democrats, what we see in this whole debate about constitutional change is the opportunity. In a lot of the discussions I have been a part of recently - Deputy Mac Lochlainn mentioned the recent SDLP conference which I attended and spoke at - there is so much excitement around that opportunity. There is a democratic opportunity for us to look at how we govern this country and see the improvements that we can make through the opportunities we are going to get through this constitutional dialogue. If we want people to get behind this discussion and be a part of the dialogue, we have to translate it into what it is going to mean for their lives. Where we do have North-South co-operation, it is always of benefit to the communities that it serves. We see this in the formal ways in which those in the medical profession on both sides of the Border work together to provide critical care when people need it. We need to formalise more and more of that. We also need to help people understand that we will be so much better off if we can have these conversations, as an island. As I said at the outset, we need to do this from the bottom up. We need to make sure that we are not just coming at the population with a blueprint, but instead facilitating that dialogue from the outset. That is why the Green Paper facilitates the dialogue here. The citizens’ assembly, and the very heavy emphasis on consultation within this, is also a huge part of it. One of the groups that comes up a lot within those recent discussions is the unionist community in Northern Ireland. Again, I think that is done in a respectful way in this legislation, but it is absolutely central to the conversations that we are going to have. What does a united Ireland look like? What does constitutional discussion look like for people within the unionist community? All of that, to my mind, is facilitated by this legislation, which is why we will be supporting it.

Sentiment score: 0.27