I move:
That Seanad Éireann notes with approval the views expressed by the Taoiseach in the course of an RTE radio interview on 27 September, 1981, on the desirability of creating within this island conditions favourable to unity through a reconciliation of its people and towards this end of undertaking in this State a Constitutional and legislative review.
The Taoiseach, in waiving his right to introduce this motion to the Seanad, has indicated his wish to hear the contributions from all sides of the House before making his own intervention. I am sure that all Senators will welcome this compliment to the House.
It is indeed a privilege and personal pleasure for me in my first speech as Leader of the Seanad to ask this House to approve of the views expressed by the Taoiseach in his interview of 27 September. It is certainly appropriate that the Seanad should be chosen as the forum to inaugurate a debate, which I hope will have the greatest possible benefits for all the Irish people. The present membership of the Seanad is, as it has been in the past, representative of a wide section of Irish society. It contains men and women who are often free from obligations to constituents in small geographical areas, it has a tradition of independence of outlook and openness of views, which I hope will be fully maintained in this debate. It contains members of the major political parties and also those who owe allegiance to no party. I hope that, in this debate, we may all be regarded as "independent" in the best sense of the word.
Because of the very nature of the Taoiseach's appeal it must transcend all narrow boundaries of party allegiance, religious conviction and sectional interest. We are speaking today as Irish men and women. If there were ever any doubts about the need for the Taoiseach to have spoken as he did, they must have been dispelled by the strong and varied responses to his remarks.
He has been accused by political opponents in the Republic of being in some way anti-Irish. But look at the reactions of those Irishmen who have no political capital to make out of criticising another Irish politician. The SDLP and Alliance Parties have welcomed his words: leaders of the minority Churches in the Republic and the majority Churches in Northern Ireland have welcomed them too. Even a staunch Unicnist like Mr. William Craig castigates some of his colleagues for the lukewarm response they made to what he saw as a generous and courageous lead by the Taoiseach. The widow of Brian Faulkner, a man who tried in his way to break old sectarian moulds in the North, has welcomed them too. Before him, Éamon de Valera led the people in the way he thought we ought to go.
However, I am happy to pay tribute to Mr. Jack Lynch's intentions when he said, in the context of constitutional change and Northern Ireland, at a Fianna Fáil Ard-Fheis in, I think, 1972:
If there are nettles to be grasped, we will grasp them.
The subsequent decade of terrible violence is, of course, the reason why he did not proceed. In 1967 a Parliamentary Committee on the Constitution recommended changes in Article 3 — changes which would have profoundly altered its tone and meaning. It is enormously to his credit that the present leader of the Opposition party in this House was a signatory to that decision, along with five other prominent members of his party.
It is a measure of the failure of violence and the bitterness it engendered on both sides that the report of that Committee has progressed no further in the 14 years since its completion.
Times change. They have changed more in Ireland during the sixties and seventies than any time since the foundation of the State. It is not only desirable but necessary that we examine the relevance and value for the 1980's of parts of our Constitution and sections of our laws.
If the main public response in Ireland to the Taoiseach's appeal has come from the Protestant and Unionist communities, that is because among them exists the greatest fear and suspicion of the type of society we have in the Republic. Their fears and suspicions may not, we feel, be entirely reasonable, but they are nonetheless real, as anyone who has taken the trouble to talk to them will know. W.B. Yeats articulated this fear of sectarianism when he said in this House in 1925, referring to the prohibition on divorce:
I think it is tragic that within three years of this country gaining its independence, we should be discussing a measure which a minority of this nation considers to be grossly offensive... we against whom you have done this thing are no petty people... we are the people of Burke, of Grattan, of Swift, of Emmett, of Parnell.
The tone is strident, the complaint exaggerated, but the fear was there. Twelve years after he spoke those words, the "grossly offensive" measure which he referred to was enshrined in Article 41 of the Constitution, where it remains.
The Taoiseach struck a responsive chord in the minds of more than politicians and religious leaders. Ordinary citizens of this country have been heartened and pleased that at last we have a leader who will lead. Not since the time of Seán Lemass have we had a Taoiseach who will replace pious aspiration with real action.
If the 1922 Constitution was replaced because Mr. de Valera thought another one more suitable for the uncertain thirties, why should there be any howls of outrage when, nearly 50 years later, we propose to examine the 1937 document? The tradition of self-examination and self-criticism is a praise-worthy Irish characteristic. None of us likes criticism from a foreigner, but have we become so complacent in our independent State, that we cannot tolerate constructive criticism from within? Our greatest writers of this century — Joyce, Stephens, O'Casey, Yeats and Shaw — have all been critical of the limitations of Irish society, as they saw them. Have they abased us in the eyes of the world, have they made us ashamed of our people?
The attitude that says "We are fine and society is fine, we hear no evil, nor do we see it", is the attitude of those scornfully termed "the Castle Catholics" in the early years of this century, those who wished to maintain the status quo. It was in defiance of such stultifying complacency that Parnell, Griffith, Pearse, de Valera and Collins acted, inspired by the ideal of a New Ireland, each in the way he saw best.
That state which does not grow declines. We must not fear finding faults. We must throw off the blinkered vision, the backward glance, the blind adherence to old forms. Shaw said in 1928:
We can recover our nerve only by forcing ourselves to face new ideas, proving all things and standing by that which is good.
One point must be made clear. We do not seek change merely to cajole or seduce in some way the Northern Unionists into a United Ireland. As the Taoiseach said in his radio interview, he has observed this State grow into the sort of State of which Tone and Davis, fathers of true Irish Republicanism, would have been ashamed; a State imbued by the ethos of one church, the church of the majority who live in this part of Ireland. Remember Tone's words about what he wanted:
"To unite the whole people of Ireland, to abolish the memory of all past dissensions and to substitute the common name of Irishman in place of the denomination of Protestant, Catholic and dissenter".
Have we, in this part of Ireland, abolished the memory of past dissensions? Have we not rather compounded the political partition that the British established, with an attitude of further partition, separating ourselves even further from fellow Irishmen by institutions and laws that were repugnant to many of them?
All of us, no matter what our political convictions, are guilty. W.T. Cosgrave's public morality laws of the twenties were as blatantly sectarian as parts of Mr. de Valera's 1937 Constitution. If the Civil War split us, we have been united ever since in perpetuating a blinkered opposition to necessary reform either out of fear of the episcopal crozier, or latterly, by making the excuse that reform would have validity only in the context of a united Ireland.
If reform and change would be good for us Irish men and women in the context of a united Ireland, then it is good for us here at present. Conversely, reform, as Unionist reaction to the Taoiseach's speech has shown, can only help to break down the psychological border of suspicion, ignorance and misunderstanding that exists between the two parts of Ireland and our different traditions.
What areas of sectarianism or denominationalism spring to mind? What reforms can be brought about? The difficulty here is that the fragmentation of our society is often based on the intangible. A person's name, the school he went to, where he works, where he lives, can often bracket him as different. He is a Protestant; he is a Catholic; he is a Jew. Barriers go up.
Why are there hospitals of different religious denominations in this country, and has this led to a reaction so that some hospitals will employ nurses of a particular religion only? Is there any sectarianism in our adoption practices? Has the Irish language been used as a lever against Protestants unwilling to study it? Is the present Family Planning Act couched in language of one denomination? How much have the Department of Education over-facilitated the religious orders in the setting up of new community and comprehensive schools? Why are the community's national schools still divided along religious lines? Why has there not been a proliferation of Dalkey and Bray-type school projects? Has the Gaelic Athletic Association, that powerful, noble and historic body, fallen into the trap — so easy and so widespread — of confusing Irishness with membership of one church?
Of course, the respective churches must be assisted to provide education for their members. Where would we be today without education by religious orders? It is not the job of the State, nor her legislators, to enshrine in the Constitution or laws of this country the ethos of any one church or denomination.
The review of the Constitution ordered by the Taoiseach and the laws that will be reviewed in the coming months and years should be approached in a constructive spirit. Whatever our views are of individual reforms, to oppose even an investigation into possible areas of reform is unworthy of any state which has confidently managed its own affairs for 60 years.
I have said that the Taoiseach's proposal to review our laws and Constitution is necessary for the well-being of our own State. It is doubly urgent because of the Northern Ireland problem. It is not only a tragic dilemma for the people of Northern Ireland. We feel the very serious effects to our whole economy; to our tourism, which suffers repeated blows year after year; to the investment of foreign industry in this country — we will never know the extent to which that has been deflected; to the massive security bill which this violent undercurrent in our society faces us with. All of these are direct and heavy burdens on the progress of this State, caused by the present political impasse. It is time that every new avenue was explored because so many have failed. It is too easy to ignore the problem or describe it as a "diversion".
Most important of all, the Nationalist community and the Unionists in the North are Irishmen and Irishwomen. The Preamble to the Constitution states that we, the people of Ireland, "take unto ourselves this Constitution". For whom did that Constitution speak? Were one million Irish people of the Unionist tradition in the North consulted in its drafting? Are we speaking for them in the Constitution when we speak vauntingly of the "re-integration of the national territory"?
Most of us in this part of Ireland would welcome an Ireland united in allegiance and ideals. But what have we done to help move towards that day? Have we not unwittingly, perhaps, helped to confirm the worst suspicions of those who shouted "No surrender"? The fact that we, speaking in the Upper House of the Oireachtas, ask these questions, may help to allay these suspicions. By giving a lead it may also help a new generation of Northerners to move away from the extreme sectarianism which was such a feature of their society.
Our common links with Northern Ireland do not need to be enumerated. Let me just mention one thing that has united Irishmen, North and South, for many centuries; our love of the catch-cry, the emotive phrase, the ringing denunciation. How does an alternative sound? A common purpose, united aspirations, a new Ireland? It sounds very good to me.
While we try to build a new Ireland in the Republic we should, where possible, encourage many links, formal and informal, between the people of our country. If we are serious in our desire for unity, we can all do something about it. Seán Lemass went to Stormont and opened and era in Northern Ireland relations. It is just as important that links be formed between the ordinary people of both traditions, those whose minds and hearts must accept change before they can live together. The Taoiseach's proposals point us in this direction.
We can hardly fail to be aware that we are living in a young country. We have a new generation of Senators and Deputies whose duty it is to reflect and to lead the idealism and lack of prejudice of the young people of Ireland, qualities which are, I know, shared by many of us who perhaps are not quite so young. There is a need for the Constitution and the laws of this State to reflect the changes that all of us can see around us.
Those who live outside the Republic, perhaps especially our fellow Irishmen in Northern Ireland, may not, through culpable or forgiveable ignorance, realise just how much we have changed in our attitude during the past ten years or so. A new spirit of tolerance, the realisation that the legislators must legislate in the interests of all our people, must now be put into practice.
In the medieval context a crusade has been defined as "an aggressive movement against public evil". This is not the spirit of the Irish crusade the Taoiseach wishes to lead in the eighties. Our crusade is a long-awaited movement towards Irish unity, a movement whose momentum cannot be sustained merely by the approving nods of Irish citizens, or an occasional letter in the morning papers. Unity in Ireland, to which all of us aspire, must be, first and foremost, a unity of minds and ideals enshrined in a Constitution and in laws for all the people of Ireland.
I hope that we in this House are magnanimous enough to follow the lead the Taoiseach has given. If we do then, "we the people of Ireland" in the words of the Constitution, may be proud to live in a country which really does cherish in our institutions, as well as in our aspirations, all the children of the Irish nation equally.