Debate contribution: Election of the President of Ireland: Voting Rights

Debate contribution by Mr Timothy Gaston on 6 May 2025.

MLA

Mr Timothy Gaston

Party at the time

Traditional Unionist Voice

Date

6 May 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Election of the President of Ireland: Voting Rights

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4929929

Read the official Assembly record

Text

In many ways, the motion in the Order Paper today sums up the problem with the wretched Belfast Agreement. The Belfast Agreement was sold to unionists as a settlement. We were told that, if you swallow the pill of murderers being released from prison, if you accept that the IRA's political wing will have a place at the heart of government forever in Northern Ireland, if you tolerate our getting rid of the RUC after it sacrificed more than 300 officers and if you give the Irish Republic a say in how Northern Ireland is run through powerful cross-border bodies, that will be all. After that, you unionists can have peace. We will have an agreed basis on which Northern Ireland can move forward. In case there be any doubt about the constitutional position, well, just look at paragraph 1 of annex A to the agreement. It is there in black and white, and it states:

"It is hereby declared that Northern Ireland in its entirety remains part of the United Kingdom and shall not cease to be so without the consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland".

Members, thankfully, unionism is starting to waken up in increasing numbers, having worked out that the constitutional guarantee in the wretched Belfast Agreement was a con. Before Christmas, the nationalist and republican Alliance Party joined forces with Sinn Féin and the SDLP to support the Union-dismantling protocol, and I see from the contributions today that —

— they are going to join forces again.

Thank you very much. I am just going back to the Belfast Agreement, as that is belt and braces —.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I have read the motion — I accept that it is different in other people's Order Paper — and it notes and talks about the Belfast Agreement and elections in the South. That is the basis of my take on the wretched Belfast Agreement. Just to reinforce the issue about the Belfast Agreement, what we had last week was, again, the protocol and the noose tightening with the commencement of the parcels regulations. I will move on, Mr Deputy Speaker. Today, we have a motion that calls for the people of this part of the United Kingdom to be given the right to elect a foreign head of state. If voting rights for election of the president of the Irish Republic were involved in the Belfast Agreement, I would like someone to spell that out to me this afternoon, but, of course, that is not the case.

I will indulge the Member.

Thank you very much. The Member usually comes in and gives something valid to the cut and thrust of the argument, but he has lost me with his intervention today. I see that he is smiling. He thinks that it was a good intervention. He has got it on the record in Hansard. I will move back to the thrust of my speech. The Belfast Agreement was never about a settlement. It was always about a process. Some sought to dress it up by calling it the peace process — hmm, hmm — but any process always has an end point. There is always an objective to a process, so what is it? Members, it is a united Ireland, and all the Belfast Agreement is about is getting unionists to the point where there is minimal fuss. The TUV has always recognised that. Some who once said the same sold their principles for the baubles of office. They jumped on the process train some years ago without any thought for the fact that it was a one-way trip to Dublin. However, on behalf of my party, I certainly will not be supporting the motion or the process that has led us to this place. No doubt we will hear more nationalist demands, aided and abetted by their friends in the Alliance Party, through these non-binding motions in the weeks and months ahead.

662 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Qualifying Constitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereignty

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:27 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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