Later this morning, I will head for Derry. They’re having an Ireland’s Future event there, to which I’m looking forward, as well as meeting up with podcast partner, Editor Pat McArt.
These events by Ireland’s Future are very important. They give heart to those who already believe in the benefits of a united Ireland and they may well convince those wobbling. on the margin to see clearly what they had suspected – that duplication of everything on a tiny island is stupid.
So as I head back across the Glenshane Pass, I expect that I’ll feel encouraged that so many people feel as I do about our country’s future.The Ireland’s Future people are very good at what they do. It’s what they don’t do that worries me.
So while it is heartening to hear speeches explaining why they believe Ireland’s future lies in unity, they won’t do what every speaker and all of us know is essential: they won’t present carefully thought-through plans for what a future Ireland could entail. There have been books – good books- written by people like Paul Gosling and Ben Collins, about reuniting Ireland, but they don’t present a blue-print model that looks at all the engines of a future state. How will public health work? How will education? Taxation? Policing?And all the rest.
I’m confident that none of this will be presented in thought-through detail – yet it must,if we’re to avoid making a Brexit bollocks of a unity referendem.Sinn Féin recently urged the Dublin government to produce a green paper and to set up citizens’ assemblies,so that thought could be given- and debate engaged in by all parties; Micheál Martin, predictably, binned both proposals.Simon Harris,leader of Fine Gael, promises detailed plans about a united Ireland next November.
Simon Harris is no Leo Varadkar.He’s not going to produce plans that’d destroy the cosy duopoly that has ruled the South for one hundred years.
We’ve been telling each other how important planning is so that people know what’s on offer whena border referendum comes.Isn’t it time that general thinking was replaced by specific detail and planning,so the centuries-old dream can be built on a sold,thought-through foundation.
Enough with the talk. Let’s get down to some serious planning. Now.
Short of promising every loyalist/unionist fifty million pounds each I don’t see anything persuading our democratic loving neighbours that Irish unity is a good thing. What is needed is guarantees the British will not interfere and fill their ex citizens heads with white mice, you know, arming them or some such nefarious activity. The history of the British state shows us they are not to be taken at their word. They will also have to foot the bill for the new free Irish state. You can’t mess up a country for hundreds of years then walk away. Those are the types of things that have to be talked about.