—or the people of this State giving something away. The people of this State made a positive choice to re-articulate their stance on the national question in a manner which would underpin and strengthen the emergence and persistence of democratic values in Northern Ireland. One must see it in context. One of the implications of the pre-Good Friday Agreement situation was that as a matter of international law, the United Kingdom was also being asked to say that in certain circumstances it would give effect to the wishes of a majority of the people in Northern Ireland as to the status of that part of this island. If one looks at these matters in the round, one will see a balance and there is no betrayal of the ideal of Irish unity or of the quest for Irish unity in the newly rephrased Articles 2 and 3. On the contrary, they best represent what most people on this island regard that ideal as being in substance.
There are people who are not in this House who have always rejected the 1937 Constitution and always decried it and said it was of no binding moral or legal significance. The alternative view was that the people of this part of the island were saying to the people of Northern Ireland that if there was to be Irish unity, it would be on our terms, under our Constitution. It was not a question of take it or leave it, they could simply lump it. That was the original implication of Articles 2 and 3. There was a reference to the right of the Government established under that Constitution to exercise jurisdiction over the whole of the territory. The only basis on which the southern Government can exercise jurisdiction is in accordance with the 1937 Constitution, so in effect it was a claim to impose the 1937 Constitution on the whole of the island, regardless of the wishes of a majority of people in Northern Ireland.
Those, including Senator Mansergh, who worked on the Good Friday Agreement put in place a delicate architecture which was balanced. It is not delicate in the sense of being a china ornament which can be easily smashed when the bulls enter the china shop. It is a robust statement of the realities between the peoples of these islands which is that the status of Northern Ireland is now to be decided by the people of Northern Ireland, by their solemn choice. Both peoples on these islands, if I may use that round phrase about them, have solemnly agreed as between themselves that such is the way forward. This is not a sterile, antiseptic proposition of international law but part of an organic agreement, the rest of which is set out in the Belfast Agreement. It is a carefully balanced international agreement which gives rise to partnership and equality in Northern Ireland and which is designed to give both communities in Northern Ireland the dignity of expressing their communal values and loyalties in circumstances where the other community cannot take that away from them. There are North-South balancing institutions and east-west balancing institutions which are all part of a complex political arrangement.
I do not agree with Senator White's view that we have given it away or that it has been given away for nothing. I do not believe we have given anything away. If it was wished to submit the claim to international arbitration in The Hague, there was nothing to stop us signing up to that provision and seeing how far that claim would have availed us. We must be realistic. I would prefer to take a positive view of these issues. The ending of the sterile claim to impose the 1937 Constitution without consent has been replaced by something much more challenging, viable, attractive and consistent with what in my view impels Irish republicans, among whom I count myself, to strive for over time. It is not a question of giving something of value away; it is a question of putting something much more valuable in its place. I do not know how I got distracted from discussing the amendment.
