Debate contribution: Summit of Devolved Administration Leaders
Debate contribution by Ms Michelle O'Neill on .
- MLA
- Ms Michelle O'Neill
- Party at the time
- Sinn Féin
- Date
- 21 September 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution (made as a minister)
- Business
- Oral Answers to Questions
- Heading
- Summit of Devolved Administration Leaders
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5742215
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Yes, I absolutely do. We have the Good Friday Agreement. My generation's gift was the Good Friday Agreement, and I believe in working it to the nth degree. I believe in it, and I believe in being here every day despite the challenging arrangement that we have. I believe in trying to make politics work despite the challenges that we have. I believe in the fundamental right of the principle of consent. It will be the people here who get to decide the constitutional future, but that means that we should not wait. We need to have the conversations and do the preparation now. We need to do the hard yards and not rinse and repeat the mistakes of Brexit, when people were asked a question but did not have all the information. I do not want that for anybody here. I want us to build a better and more prosperous future in which our young people get to live in a place where they have every opportunity and hope. That is the thing that everybody needs to get their head around. What could this be for all of us together? What could it be for a kid who lives on the Shankill Road and a kid who lives on the Falls Road? What is the better? There is definitely something better, because, when this state was designed, it was designed in such a way that we would live back to back and in such a way that we would fight one another.
I do not want that, and nor does anyone on our Benches. We want to build for our collective future. This should be about hope. It should be about ensuring that our children grow up in a future where they are nourished and given every opportunity to survive, where we grow the strongest economy, where children have access to first-class education and where we have one national health service. That is the future that I want to build, and I know that it is the future that you want to build.
344 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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