Richard Boyd Barrett
Ceist:5. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach the status of the activities of the shared island unit in his Department. [23668/20]
Amharc ar fhreagraWednesday, 16 September 2020
Ceisteanna (5)
Freagraí ó Béal (23 píosaí cainte)
The programme for Government sets out the Government's commitment to working with all communities and traditions on the island to build consensus on a shared future. This work will be underpinned by the Good Friday Agreement and respect for the principle of consent. I wish to see a renewed push to use the potential of the Good Friday Agreement to deliver sustained progress for all communities on the island.
The Government committed to establishing a shared island unit in the Department of the Taoiseach to work towards a consensus on a shared island. This unit has now been established. The unit will examine the political, social, economic and cultural considerations underpinning a future in which all traditions are mutually respected. Strengthening social, economic and political links on the island and the promotion of all-island approaches to the strategic challenges facing Ireland, North and South, will be key objectives for the unit.
The unit is led by an assistant secretary with two staff appointed and further assignments in train. The work programme for the unit is currently being further developed. The unit will work collaboratively across the Government and with research, civil society and sectoral, business and community organisations on the island, and seek broad-based engagement with political and civil society representatives.
People Before Profit is an all-Ireland party. We believe we must move to a united Ireland and end partition. A number of groups and parties in the House would say they subscribe to that view in one way or another. This is a very opportune time in view of the Covid-19 pandemic and how it has highlighted the irrationality of partition when we need an all-Ireland approach to health and dealing with the virus.
I am from the James Connolly school of fighting for a different republic. Connolly understood that if one was going to win people over to the idea of a united Ireland, it had to be a better and different island. It should not just be the pushing together of two states which have been dysfunctional in many ways for most of their history. It has to be a better place.
One of the key areas the Taoiseach's unit should be looking at is an all-Ireland health service. Why would anybody in his or her right mind wish to be part of this State when he or she sees a two-tier, dysfunctional, under-resourced health system with massive waiting lists, where nobody is really in charge because half of it is privatised and another bit of it is run by this or that religious organisation? I wish to give a shout out to the all-Ireland national health service campaign that has been established. I ask the Taoiseach and his unit to examine this. Looking seriously at establishing an all-Ireland national health service that works would take us a considerable way towards convincing people of the argument for a united Ireland.
James Connolly also accurately predicted the carnival of reaction that partition would give rise to. Tragically, we have seen that play out over generations. We are very fortunate to live in these times as we have a democratic pathway and international agreements that provide a framework for the kinds of things that the Taoiseach has described, such as creating that sense of participation, inclusion and sharing right across our island. We also have a democratic and peaceful pathway to constitutional change. We have seen in recent days the real danger posed by Boris Johnson's Government and the impulse to simply shred international agreements and walk away from them. It is very important that we do not go down that road. Therefore, I ask the Taoiseach to clarify his position on a referendum on Irish unity. We will have our views on the timing of it but I think we are all agreed that it needs to be prepared for. It is part and parcel of the Good Friday Agreement infrastructure - a central part. It is the mechanism by which self-determination is realised and the constitutional question and contested Border issue are resolved. In a recent interview in The Irish Times, the Taoiseach gave the impression that the referendum was an optional extra. I know the Taoiseach has a view on the timing of a referendum and so on but this is very important for people across the island. Like Deputy Boyd Barrett's party, my party represents people in the North and they are very clear that the referendum is part and parcel of the Good Friday Agreement settlement. It is very important that the Taoiseach makes that clear too because when it comes to adhering to and respecting our international agreements, it has to be all. It cannot be selective.
It has to be all but that applies to Sinn Féin as well. Sinn Féin needs to adhere to international agreements, the Good Friday Agreement being one of them. I do not believe Sinn Féin should have collapsed the Executive over a heating initiative but it did. We were without an Assembly and an Executive for three years. This cuts all ways.
I do not believe in or agree with what Boris Johnson or the British Government did. I have made that very clear to him. It is wrong. One should not breach agreements, which were signed up to internationally, in the withdrawal treaty or the Northern Ireland protocol. One should not do that. It is wrong. It undermines credibility and erodes trust. I am working with the European Union leadership in our response to this, which is firm and is carefully calibrated not to play into any particular initiative or ploy that the British Government may be pursuing. We believe the joint committee is where the British Government needs to resolve any issues it may have with the working of the protocol and those issues were being worked out fairly amicably prior to the sudden publication of the Bill and its offending clauses.
I take exception to Deputy McDonald playing politics with this all the time, though that is the nature of her party. For example, she said that I gave the impression that the Good Friday Agreement was optional extra. I did not give that impression at all. The Deputy threw in the line about me saying a referendum was an optional extra but I never said that.
Then the Taoiseach should clarify his remarks.
I do not have to, because the Deputy is creating all these straw people.
I ask the Taoiseach to clarify what he said. If I am wrong, put me right.
The Deputy is wrong, but worse-----
Taoiseach, can we-----
I am trying to give my political views on this and respond to the question. I am simply saying that these things are deliberately misleading, and are deliberately said in order to be misleading and misrepresent people's positions for the electoral base and electoral advantage. We have had too much of that in the politics of the island, particularly insofar as they relate to a fundamental issue that I have worked hard on all my life, as a public representative, a Deputy and a Minister. I have sought to work with people with different views from mine and assist them to progress. That has always been my commitment and it is regrettable that, week after week, the Deputy's approach is to be divisive, undermine and make suggestions that are not true.
I ask the Taoiseach to clarify his position.
I am an enthusiastic supporter of the Good Friday Agreement.
Is that in all its parts?
I only wish Deputy McDonald and Sinn Féin were consistent on the agreement since it was signed. There is provision in the Good Friday Agreement for a referendum. Of course there is. Equally, I have made the point that I believe it would be very divisive to have one in the next number of years because we need to bring people together.
I agree with Deputy Boyd Barrett's points on the health service. That is precisely what the shared unit can do. In the first instance, let us commission research on the respective strengths and weaknesses of both health services, because there is a significant gap between the health services in Northern Ireland and the Republic, in both ways. Both have their challenges and they need to be worked out and thought through. We also need to think about what we can share. On the Northern Executive side, one paediatric centre for cardiac surgery is agreed. An island-based approach to tertiary services in key areas where children require services, such as cancer, trauma, cardiac care and a range of other services is being looked at in the new children's hospital and in Crumlin at the moment. That is very important.
We need to repair and deepen relationships on the island. That is part of what the shared unit will be about as well. It will engage with people of different perspectives, politics and views with a view to getting and developing a consensus on this matter. We are never going to develop a consensus if there is constant sniping, undermining and saying one person is not as pure as someone else on the national question, which is what I am getting repeatedly.
The Taoiseach was asked a question. He is the Head of Government.
It is no longer about whether one is the purest on the national question.
For Christ's sake. Talk about touchy.
It is about doing something pragmatic and significant on issues such as health, education and work.
Unbelievable.
The North needs an economic transformation. I have said consistently that the disadvantaged areas in the North, both loyalist and nationalist, need a Marshall plan for school completion and access to third level education. The levels are too low in some communities in the North and have been so for too long. I want the shared unit to delve into those areas because that is ultimately how we build peace and reconciliation on the island and bring together different communities, not through divisive politics.
The Taoiseach is the one being utterly divisive and rude.
Is there time left?
There is very little time left so we cannot go on as the next questions are grouped.
Written Answers are published on the Oireachtas website.