Peadar Tóibín
Meath West · Aontú · Ireland
“Lonely Planet. It did a review of Dublin and stated, "Once Dublin’s grand boulevard, O'Connell St has struggled with decline". It stated that vacant buildings, derelict upper floors and long-stalled redevelopments leave this part looking neglected while retail has shifted elsewhere and been replaced by fast food shops that dilute its char…”
“The Irish people are a generous and decent people and have been over the past number of years, with the provision of supports to people from Ukraine who are fleeing the war. This is right and just. The war unleashed on Ukraine is absolutely wrong. Aontú will support the reduction in the rate of payment under the scheme.”
“I am very disappointed to see that the Government, the Social Democrats, the Labour Party, the Green Party and People Before Profit will vote against an amendment that wants to means test the payment, as an amendment also did on the previous occasion, and put it on a level footing with other housing assistance payments.”
“Landlords are rational and they will make economic decisions to best suit themselves. Landlords have been more inclined to take on Ukrainian tenants over Irish tenants in recent years. This system is discriminatory. It gives an advantage to guests in the country over the people who have lived here for most of their lives.”
“Anyone who sat the leaving certificate economics paper just a few weeks ago will know that demand also has a role. It determines what rents are, the price of houses, etc. It is physics and maths and not ideology. We need to get to a situation where we equalise supply with demand.”
“A global study by TomTom indicated that it is the 38th most congested city globally, behind cities such as London, Toronto and Rome. The task force indicated that the Cork Luas system would be built. That Luas system is in planning and that planning is taking a long while.”
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“Iarnród Éireann cannot organise a cup of tea to be sold on its commuter trains from Galway or Sligo but it can incinerate €50 million on a failed IT system. This is another disgusting waste of money in our country. You might as well have loaded that €50 million onto a bonfire and set it alight. Does the Taoiseach understand the time it took for those workers to earn the income to pay the tax that has been frittered away? This would not be tolerated in any other walk of life. Will the Taoiseach make sure that the individual responsible for this is removed from their job?”
“In the name of cleaning up the country, the Government has incentivised people to dump the contents of bins onto the streets. This is costing Dublin City Council €500,000 per year.”
“The Government introduced the Re-Turn scheme. Since 2024, that scheme has made €103 million on unredeemed deposits. That is €103 million of citizens' money resting in the scheme's account, most of it permanently. The operator of the Re-Turn scheme also made money through the sale of aluminium cans that we collected for it. It also gets money from the producers of the drinks, but still refuses to pay the shops that handle those cans in the first instance. This is like a tax, except that it does not go towards paying for hospitals, education and housing. Instead, the money goes to the company involved and to its CEO's salary, details of which that company refuses to publish. The Government's scheme has given rise to another mess and a new phenomenon, namely bin-raiding or bin-scavenging.”
“The Office of the Inspector of Prisons has warned that the chronic overcrowding and deteriorating infrastructure is escalating risks for vulnerable prisoners and staff. How can we have prisoners in this overcrowding with acute psychiatric needs? When will the three investigations into the death of Mr. Connolly be complete?”
“I want to address a tragic event that underscores the crisis in our prison system. On 1 April, 45-year-old Colm Connolly died in a padded close observation cell in Midlands Prison. Mr. Connolly was a vulnerable prisoner, diagnosed with severe psychiatric conditions, including bipolar disorder. His family, who were denied the opportunity to formally identify his body prior to a post mortem, are seeking transparency regarding his care and subsequent restraint. They received little help other than from Wexford Aontú Councillor Jim Codd. There are currently three separate investigations under way by the Garda, Prison Service and Inspector of Prisons. This fatal incident occurred against the backdrop of a prison system operating severely over capacity. The prison population reached 5,747, a thousand prisoners over capacity.”
“Will the Government reduce tax on homes and increase connections? Will it reform the planning system? Will it invest properly in infrastructure? Will it decrease the number of people coming to Ireland during this crisis?”
“There is another aspect to this debate that is completely missing from the Chamber and that is the issue of demand. Leaving certificate economics will tell us demand is also a large aspect of this crisis. The population of the country has increased by 382,000 in the past five years. This is the same as the population of Galway, Mayo and Leitrim. These counties have seven hospitals, three universities, 400 schools and 170,000 homes. The Government is simply not building this level of infrastructure at the moment. One of the most basic rules of economics is that if demand increases without increasing supply, rents and house prices will rise and availability will reduce. There is a lot of talk in the Chamber about sustainability. It is unsustainable to allow demand for housing to exceed supply every year and that is what is happening.”
“Uisce Éireann said to us in the committee that it will take until 2050 before all the gaps in the water infrastructure, which are blocking the building of homes, will be filled. Planning, permitting, licensing, procurement, tendering and judicial reviews, all the tools the Government has in the sector, are all glacial in this country. Will the Government reverse this rent policy? Will it reform the dysfunction in planning and infrastructure? Will it ease the tax pressure on the building of new homes?”
“The Taoiseach admitted it in his answer to the Social Democrats that this is actually a market activation tool. The Taoiseach believes that if rents go up, viability will increase, more builders will come into the market and house supply will increase. The Government could have achieved that viability without hitting hard-pressed renters. It could have cut VAT on house building. It could have cut connection fees on house building. VAT and connection fees work up about €50,000 in each housing unit. That would have reduced the price on families and increased viability, bringing more builders into the market and increasing supply. Viability is not the only problem in this. Planning and infrastructure are so dysfunctional that even if we get more builders in, it is not going to make a difference.”
“Their daughter has now got leukaemia. Ciaran has had to leave his job to look after his daughter and help in her treatment. Jessie works and the family income is just above the threshold for supports. They are now facing eviction and going into emergency accommodation because of the Government's policies. I have listened to the Taoiseach. His Government has been in power in one form or another for the past ten years. In that time, rents have increased by 80%. Rents have increased in 13 of the past 14 years. Each year, we hear him declare that we have turned a corner and each year those rents keep coming up. It is not by accident. We in Aontú warned that his policies would actively push up rents but he knew this. This was actually meant to happen.”
“The average rent of a two-bedroom flat is now €2,176 a month. That is the highest on record. It is equal to €26,000 a year. Incredibly, a PAYE worker has to earn €32,000 just to be able to pay for that rent currently. The average rent in Dublin city is now heading towards €3,000 a month. That is eye-watering. It is incredible that now Dublin is the highest in the whole of the EU for one- and two-bedroom apartments. Rent in Dublin is now for the rich. The number of evictions increased by 50% in the first three months last year. The Government's policies have led to 7,062 evictions in just one quarter. It is incredible. The equivalent to the population of a full Irish town was evicted just in the first quarter of this year. It has enormous human consequences. Ciaran and Jessie Redmond are from County Wicklow. They worked all their lives.”
“Why can we not get planning right in this country? The Meath on Track campaign has done a terrific job in pushing this project forward and there will be a public consultation tomorrow in relation to the routes, and it will be announced.”
“County Meath is the fastest-growing county in the country and Navan is the largest town in the country without a rail line. Some 90,000 people are commuting from Meath daily and 60,000 of those are commuting by car because of the lack of a public transport option. It is taking between three and four hours to get back and forth to work every day. People are living in commuter hell. It is costing them in terms of family time and in their pocket, and it is also impacting the environment. The rail line was first proposed by Fianna Fáil in 1994. Its earliest delivery date is 2036. People who started working when it was announced will be on the pension by the time it is completed. It is glacially slow. The proposed railway order for that rail line has been delayed from 2026 to 2027 and now to 2028.”
“The Springhill massacre saw the killing by the British army of three children, a father of six and a priest. The inquests concluded three weeks ago and there has been silence from the British since. There has been not a dicky bird and no apology at all from the British for these killings. Does the Taoiseach think there should be an apology from the British Government for these killings? On the legacy Bill, the British Secretary of State will still hold the power to determine whether there will be an investigation. He will be advised by the security forces, often the very people who are the subject of those investigations, about whether there should be an investigation. Is it not wrong that a politician, especially a British politician, is being advised by the security forces that there should not be an investigation into themselves?”
“In terms of what Deputy Cathal Crowe was saying about Ardnacrusha, the Navan to Dublin rail line was built in the 1860s in three years with picks and shovels. As I said, it has already been waiting 40 years from announcement to completion on it. I was in Deputy Crowe's constituency of Clare on Monday meeting people in Broadford, Ennis and Kilrush. The N68 is the main road between Ennis and Kilrush. It is a dangerous road. It is a very narrow road that is a 45-minute drive. It is the main access route to the west of County Clare. It is wide open for accidents and difficulties and, again, it is one of those projects that have been crying out for investment for a long period of time.”
“After listening to Deputy Boyd Barrett, I might misquote St. Augustine: "Lord, make me an ecosocialist, but not if the turbines are in my constituency". I think it is a good quote for that. I have a question for the Minister. I do not think this is in the Bill, but he might be able to clear it up. Can this particular Bill affect any project that has already gone through planning in terms of any conditions that have been assigned to the planning application of an existing project? The Minister might be able to think about that and answer it, if he can, on the record. That is important because if there are existing projects that have gone through existing planning and have conditions attached to them, they should not be reopened. The conditions should be applied properly, etc., on that.”
“I know it came up in the committee. Will the Bill cover private projects such as data centres, etc.? Will the Minister go on record and answer that query? I would appreciate it. This amendment does look for some level of oversight and engagement with this Chamber and it is a good amendment.”
“This has led to tens of thousands of people being stuck in traffic for long periods of time, with all the damage that it does. In the North of Ireland, we have a similar Act that has actually put a stop to the development of the Derry to Dublin road, which, in itself, is leading to significant deaths among people. We need a rebalancing in terms of this. There needs to be a realisation that this Bill only goes some direction in terms of what is needed. It prioritises some of these infrastructural projects and it does so on the basis of what the Government thinks should be prioritised. This means that there is a natural deprioritisation of other projects. We need the whole system to be made far more functional, far more efficient and far faster. I have a question for the Minister, Deputy Chambers, and he may have answered it before.”
“We have a massive crisis in terms of infrastructure builds in this country. Regulation is important. There is no doubt that we need regulation to make sure that we have environmental, safety and working standards, but regulation can often be like a pendulum. We can have times when there is too much regulation, and we have times when there is not enough regulation. At this moment in time, we have times when we have too much regulation happening, especially in terms of the climate action Act. The climate action Act is preventing lifesaving projects from going ahead in this country because the balance in terms of people's needs is simply not there any more. We see projects like the Galway ring road being stopped, in large part because of the climate action Act.”
“The background to this Bill is this country is grinding to a halt in so many ways. Right across the country, critical infrastructure that is necessary for all our lives is grinding to a halt and it is having disastrous effects on people's lives. It is water infrastructure currently. Uisce Éireann came into the infrastructure committee and stated that it will take until 2050 before the gaps in the water infrastructure that are currently blocking the building of homes will be filled. In a housing crisis, that is a startling admission. The Navan to Dublin rail line was promised in 1994. The earliest possible chance currently is 2036. People who started work in 1994 will have retired by the time the rail line is built. The Midleton flood defences were promised in 2015 after Storm Frank and no planning application has been put in yet.”
“They are not safe to drive through and they are being allowed to exist in that state by councils and the Government. Until the Government means business in fixing those junctions, narrow roads or bridges we are going to see more deaths happening in the future. The last point here is that we can have all the rules we want in terms of road safety but if we do not have the gardaí to implement them we are on a hiding to nothing. In 2009, there were well over 1,000 road traffic gardaí in this country. Now, there are just over 600. That is a measure of how seriously this Government takes it. The Government needs to increase those numbers if it wants to protect life.”
“Most road safety projects protect people from normal driving behaviour. They do not protect people from abnormal or dangerous driving behaviour. If the Minister of State goes to most countries on the Continent, in small towns and villages every single entry point will have some kind of road traffic measure. It will have a chicane, it will have ramps or it will have some staggered-type lanes which will slow traffic right down. In both cases of normal behaviour and dangerous driving behaviour, people are protected. That is not happening in Ireland and, truth be told, until that happens a lot of the talk that happens in here will be hot air because we are still going to see people being killed on a regular basis. There are many parts of my county where the junctions, roads and bridges are simply not safe to drive through.”
“Mia Lily Keogh O'Keeffe was a 16-year-old girl. She was struck by a red Mercedes when she was walking her dog across a pedestrian crossing in Navan this February. The driver fled the scene and it was a horrific accident. Seven other people were killed that same weekend. Mia Lily was a wonderful, well-liked young girl and she had her whole life in front of her. Her life has been stolen from her. The family is suffering profound grief. The mother has said she will never be whole again. This was no accident. The reality is that this was a killing that was caused as a result of a number of different factors. For sure there was the driver involved but the road itself is not up to scratch in terms of protections. This is a really important point that the Minister of State and the Government are missing.”
“His life was terminated at 16-weeks gestation. His parents were wrongly told that he had a fatal foetal abnormality, and it was not an accident. This was not a mistaken diagnosis in this situation. Their child was taken from them. There have been no efforts, by the law or this Government, to follow up in any way in relation to that. Baby Christopher is not unique. Many other women and mothers have lost their children in similar situations. Eighty-five percent of mothers have abortions for socioeconomic reasons. There is nothing in this Bill to provide economic supports to mothers so that they can raise their children to their full potential. There are dozens of women giving birth in this country homeless.”
“I asked her, before she recommended getting rid of the three-day wait, whether she had spoken to one woman who had decided to keep her child and take those three days to reflect and she admitted that she had not spoken to one woman who had taken that time. That is an incredible admission and it completely undermines the evidential nature of the review itself. One in six mothers who attended their first abortion appointments did not attend the second one and I have no evidence that the Social Democrats or any other political party here has spoken to those women to ask them what their views are on the three-day wait. I also want to talk about the so-called "chilling effect" in terms of criminal penalties. That is a fiction in this country. The opposite is actually the case. Baby Christopher was a fully healthy unborn child.”
“In the case of any big decision, reflection is key. There are very few elective procedures that can be done in one day. People cannot get a mole removed or cosmetic surgery or be sterilised without a wait to reflect. We also know that three-day wait period is actually working for families. We know that 10,000 mothers attend the first abortion meeting and they did not attend the second one. There are thousands of children alive in their homes today as a result of that three-day wait period. When the abortion review was being discussed in the health committee in the previous Dáil, I asked the chair of that review a direct and important question.”
“Last year, there were 10,852 abortions in Ireland. That is the lives of 10,852 individual living human beings that were ended last year, and that is the highest figure on record. It is equivalent to 400 classrooms of children, and it is absolutely heartbreaking. In 2018, there were 2,879 abortions and since that law was deregulated, the number of abortions in this country has surged. It is incredible. So high now is the rate of abortion in this State that is affecting the birth rate. For sure, the housing crisis and cost-of-living living crisis are also affecting the birth rate but the birth rate is collapsing in part because of the high abortion rate in this country. Abortion is a massive decision. It is irreversible. A child cannot be brought back. It can also lead to a lifetime of regret for the mother.”
“Will he make sure that the workers have their pay rise implemented? Will he sit down with the workers to negotiate the implementation of that pay rise?”
“Ambulance response times are getting longer in this country. Handover times for ambulances in hospitals are getting longer. Six months ago, 12 ambulances were stuck at Drogheda hospital for hours. At the same time, no ambulance was available in Cavan, Monaghan, Meath and Louth at all. In 2016, there were 657 deaths before ambulances arrived. In 2023, that increased to 1,108 deaths. This February, I asked the National Ambulance Service the same question. It refused to answer the question. It is an accountability-free zone, refusing to answer TDs' questions on the number of people who have died waiting for an ambulance to come. We know that there is an intense strain on ambulance services at the moment and that it is leading to death and injury. Will the Taoiseach resource these services properly?”
“If we break it down to those people in arrears, the ESB levied €96 million worth of profits on the third of a million people who are in energy arrears in this country. How is that acceptable?”
“Ireland is the most expensive country in Europe for electricity. A total of 320,000 families are currently in energy arrears. Energy is not a luxury good; it is a staple. People have no alternative but to use energy, and reports have shown today that already, the increases in energy costs have taken about €2,000 out of people's pockets so far this year and that is going to get worse because it is forecast that electricity prices are going to increase. Last year, ESB made €636 million in profits. It is a semi-State organisation that operates under the policy guidance of the Government. How is it acceptable that the ESB would make supranormal profits at a time of energy crisis for people? The ESB is making €300 in profit per family in this country.”
“This is a Bill of significance, up there with the extension of the franchise to women and the extension of the franchise to people in 1918. This is a Bill of significant magnitude and I urge the Government to take it from us and run with it. Please do not let it get blocked by intransigence on Committee Stage and allow citizens in the North to use the next election in six and a half years' time to be the first election since 1918 where they can participate in their democratic franchise as equal Irish citizens.”
“I am thinking of all the hard work they do on a daily basis to build positive relationships with their communities but also to further the objective of having a society that allows for equality among Irish citizens. The status quo makes one Irish citizen more equal than the others. I urge the Government to see this as a legacy issue. The Minister of State could go through governance for the next few years and in 100 years' time, what does she think the people will think about her Government? In 100 years' time, if Government passes a Bill such as this, that will be the issue it will be remembered for. This is a legacy-type Bill. This is a Bill that transforms a country's ability to include everybody on the island of Ireland.”
“I interviewed about 100 people from all different backgrounds in the North of Ireland from different communities including Catholics, Protestants, trade unionists, business people, farmers, people in the public sector, etc., and one common thing in all those discussions was that if we plan together, fund together and deliver services together, they simply will be better services and will be more efficient and cheaper to deliver. There is so much opportunity at the heart of the proposals we have for this particular Bill and for Irish unity. I am thinking of many of the Aontú representatives in the North of Ireland such as Gemma Brolly, a representative for us in East Derry, Liam Reichenberg in south Armagh, Roisín Mulgrew in Newry and all the people who represent Aontú in the North of Ireland.”
“The Northern state, because it has been so wrong and unfair in how nationalists have been treated, has actually maintained the issues at the heart of the conflict and reconciliation is far more difficult in the North of Ireland. If you want to turbo-boost reconciliation, the way to do that is on an all-island basis. If you want to stop reconciliation happening, maintain the status quo . When Micheál Martin states reconciliation must happen before we enter upon this journey, his policy is to maintain the seeds of conflict in place and all the negativity that comes from that. In another aspect to this issue, back in 2018 I was the rapporteur for the enterprise committee and I was given the task of carrying out the first report in Leinster House on the all-Ireland economy since partition.”
“It is nothing new and has been happening for well over 100 years in many different places and there is an opportunity there. The Government also mentioned that reconciliation should happen before these decisions are taken and this is the mad thing. If I can have her attention for just a second, this is important. Reconciliation has happened pretty much 100% since partition in the South of Ireland. Most people who come from families who were unionists or loyalists in the South of Ireland are fully reconciled with the southern State. I do not know of anybody in the South who is from that original community and is not reconciled with their brothers and sisters, their neighbours or the State. In the North, it is the opposite. The Northern state has fossilised and petrified conflict.”
“The Constitution and the Good Friday Agreement state that a person, as in the Good Friday Agreement, has a right to be an Irish citizen. All I am saying is that because of that inherent right, it should be fulfilled in their rights to have a democratic franchise. That is what we are looking for with this. I accept and agree with the Minister of State on a point and I do not want to be totally negative on this. I agree there is a challenge in the functionality of whatever election is held in the future in terms of making sure we register people in the North of Ireland properly and that we have a facility whereby people are able to cast their votes properly. However, that is a challenge that is surmounted by 140 countries around the world in facilitating voting in an election outside of the specific jurisdiction.”
“Opinion polls have shown that there is support for this. Maybe there is reflection but maybe there is reflection in an effort to be in a position of paralysis and not actually do anything about this. Voting rights for the diaspora is a completely different project to voting rights in the North of Ireland. I am in favour of voting rights but with regard to saying that a person in Johannesburg should have the same right to vote as a person in Forkhill, that a person in Buenos Aires should have the same right to vote as a person in Belcoo or that a person in Shanghai should have the same right to vote as a person in Strabane, they are two completely different proposals and should not be lumped in together or even understood together. To understand them together completely changes what it is to be an Irish citizen.”
“That feeling of betrayal will be magnified in many ways by the words of the Minister of State on this. The Minister of State stated that she and her Government were reflecting on this issue. Reflection is good. I am a fan of reflection but reflection has to have some time limit for when it is complete. The programme for Government in 2020 stated that this Government would introduce a Bill that would give voting rights to the people of the North of Ireland. We are six years later. The Government had already given the commitment and has not fulfilled that particular commitment. The citizens' assembly also voted by a majority that voting rights should be given to the people of the North of Ireland. On foot of the Aontú Bill tabled initially, Sinn Féin tabled a non-binding Bill in Stormont that was supported by the majority of MLAs.”
“I have the hard copy here and 75% of the speech is either an insult to Northern nationalists or is a mistake, and that is very problematic. The context of me saying this is the fact that the people of the North of Ireland have gone through very difficult times in the past 100 years - heart-breaking, devastating challenges over the past 100 years - but at the heart of the annoyance felt by Northern nationalists is the strong feeling that they have long been betrayed by the political establishment in the South of Ireland. There is a very strong belief running through people in the North of Ireland that in their time of need, there has never been or has seldom been solidarity from the South. There have seldom been efforts to really stand up for their interests and rights.”
“I mean no disrespect but I am not sure if the Minister of State wrote this. It would be better for her if she did not write this, to be honest, because this is not about the topic at hand, and if it is about the topic at hand, it is deeply disrespectful to Northern nationalists. Imagine someone from the North of Ireland listening to this - as many people are likely to be doing because this is a big issue in the Six Counties - and a Minister of State of the Government talking about overseas Irish, global Irish, diaspora Irish, emigrants, etc.,-----”
“I listened to the Minister of State's speech and looked at the hard copy of it here. The vast bulk of this speech - up to 75% to 80% of it - is about a topic that is not included in the Bill at all. There are a couple of reasons there is a significant problem with this. In the speech, the Minister of State mentioned emigration, overseas, the Irish abroad and the diaspora. This Bill has nothing to do with any of those people at all. They are a completely separate issue. I am not sure if this is a mistake or if it is purposeful and I will tell the House why. If someone goes to the Fine Gael website and clicks on the North of Ireland or if someone from the North of Ireland wants to join Fine Gael, it actually terms it "overseas members", so someone from Newry who wants to join Fine Gael must join as an overseas member.”
“Universities are working in some cases with their backs to each other. Incredibly, we are still spatially developing this country with our backs to each other and at a cost to each other. People say there is an economic cost to all this. I say the people in Dundalk are just as hard-working as the people in Newry, the people in Dungannon are just as enterprising as the people in Monaghan and the people in Derry are just as hard-working as the people in Letterkenny. The key ingredient that is missing is self-determination: the ability of the Irish people to make decisions for ourselves for the betterment of this country.”
“When we talk about the North and presidential elections, many people say there are more important things at the moment, in terms of the cost-of-living crisis, housing and healthcare. I would say "No", actually. There are urgent things in life and there are important things in life. There is an urgency to the cost-of-living crisis, to housing and to healthcare, but over the 100 years development of this country, it is in our national interest to be able to organise on an island basis. It is in our national interest in terms of developing a bigger economy and a more efficient public service. The Border is like a wall with 1,000 blocks. Each of those blocks is impeding development North and South, whether it is spatial development, healthcare development, such as an all-Ireland ambulance service, or educational development.”
“It is in the long-term interest of the Government parties to contest future elections in the North of Ireland. This Bill is an historic opportunity. It is an opportunity to build a democratic country, North and South, and realise the objectives of many of the founding fathers of the Minister of State's political party. There are many debates around this issue. The key debate, however, is how it is just or moral that an Irish citizen one mile south of the Border can vote in a presidential election while an Irish citizen one mile north of the Border cannot vote in that same presidential election. This is a very simple Bill that does not remove any rights from any section or community in the North of Ireland. It is a Bill that adds. It is an additional human rights Bill. It is an additional democratic Bill for people in the North of Ireland.”
“Hopefully when Micheál Martin retires, Fianna Fáil too will open cumainn in the North and contest elections. That is the solution to this. Without any change in the law, all political parties could create an all-Ireland dynamic by simply standing for elections in the North. We have a moral responsibility to represent all Irish people in Ireland and not just a segment of people in the North. This is important for the Government's future development. A united Ireland is coming. There is a growing demographic change in the North of Ireland. There is a growing section of the Protestant, unionist and loyalist community in the North who have an interest in Irish unity. Due to Brexit, there are significant changes happening. In Stormont, Westminster and local elections, the number of nationalist votes is increasing year by year.”
“That situation could very easily develop if this Bill were enacted. If a small political party like Aontú can function in the North of Ireland, form cumainn and compete in elections, and if the Green Party and People Before Profit can do likewise, why can the Government parties not do it? Why can Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil not represent people in the North of Ireland? Fianna Fáil was very close to doing so once when it opened a cumann in Queen's University. It planned to open further cumainn in the North. Mark Daly and Éamon Ó Cuív were suspended from Fianna Fáil for landing in Omagh to officially declare a candidate in an election as a Fianna Fáil candidate in the North of Ireland. Unfortunately, under Micheál Martin, that move towards united Ireland politics has reversed significantly.”
“This Bill has the potential to create a dynamic in all-Ireland politics that we do not even understand. Through legislation like this, some people from a Protestant, unionist and loyalist background would be attracted to also vote in a presidential election. People from a unionist background might vote for Fine Gael. They might feel that Fine Gael is the logical party to vote for in such a situation. There is no guarantee that only nationalists would vote in a presidential election. There is a growing number of people from a Protestant, unionist and loyalist background in the North of Ireland who, because of Brexit, have become frustrated with the so-called United Kingdom and are now more interested in the opportunities that a united Ireland could provide, or at least an all-Ireland democracy could provide.”
“It is wrong for an individual political party to put party political interests ahead of the national interest. I urge the Government to make sure that is not the case. If that is the Government's fear, the democratic right to vote should not be dependent upon the outcome of an election. The right to vote, the franchise, should be independent of that outcome, whatever it should be. As a democrat, I think the Minister of State would agree with that premise. Right now, Sinn Féin in the North of Ireland is not doing so well politically. According to the opinion polls, its support is at its lowest in five years. Northern nationalists now have much more opportunity to vote for other political parties, such as Aontú, than they did before. It is not a given that 700,000 voters in the North of Ireland would plump for one political party.”
“If we are honest, there are those in Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil who see this Bill, if it were in place, as preventing them from having the opportunity to win a presidential election. Maybe 700,000 voters from the North of Ireland would plump for a Sinn Féin candidate and, therefore, make it more difficult for Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael to win a presidential election. It has always been Aontú's view that the reason Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are reticent about Irish unity is that they are regional political parties. They are not national political parties. They do not represent Irish people in the North of Ireland. Therefore, in a general election, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael's representation in an all-Ireland Dáil would shrink and they would be less likely to be able to form a Government. If that is the case, it is wrong.”