Debate contribution: Towards a Shared Island
Debate contribution by Mr Declan Kearney on .
- MLA
- Mr Declan Kearney
- Party at the time
- Sinn Féin
- Date
- 3 February 2025
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Opposition Business
- Heading
- Towards a Shared Island
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4774695
Read the official Assembly record
Text
The effective operation of the North/South Ministerial Council is central to our peace settlement. Sinn Féin has consistently argued for the strengthening of the NSMC and expanded areas of all-Ireland cooperation. In the past, unionist boycotts and other attempts to disrupt effective all-island cooperation have, indeed, negatively impacted on the resilience of the NSMC. The reality is that no institutional strand of the Good Friday Agreement can be unpicked or set to the side without having negative consequences for the entire agreement framework. All-Ireland cooperation is an essential condition for good government in the North and maintaining stable institutions. Shared approaches across the island on issues such as health, education, agriculture, infrastructure, climate and tourism all make sense. It is the way forward. However, Brexit, demographics, political realignments and the outworking of our peace process have all reshaped the political landscape, so constitutional change is on the political horizon. That is a powerful incentive to develop increased areas of all-island cooperation. The Irish Government's new Programme for Government points to how increased cooperation can continue to be advanced. However, the new PFG does not address the need to systematically plan and prepare for Irish unity. The PFG, in fact, represents a failed opportunity to integrate current and future cooperation in key policy areas with a strategy for reunification as a political and policy objective. There is no explicit political recognition that a unity referendum under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement is, in fact, inevitable. The PFG could and should have embraced a step change by designing an approach to support constitutional transition, and that should extend to establishing a citizens' assembly on unity, publishing a Green Paper on constitutional change and, indeed, establishing a Department with a Minister who is dedicated to the reunification process. The Irish Government should also begin a conversation with the British Government on developing an intergovernmental road map to enable a unity referendum within this decade and to prepare for a smooth path to Irish unity. Members, change is happening. Increased cross-border cooperation carries huge transformative potential, but it is time for the Irish Government to frame that dynamic within the political objective of planning for Irish unity.
365 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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