IRISH UNITY:UNIONISM HAS been forced by Sinn Féin to accept that partnership government meant the end of unionist majority rule, Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness told the debate on Irish unity.
He said “let me say that unionist majority rule is gone, and gone forever”.
Northern Ireland was no longer just an Orange state, he claimed. “It is now an Orange Green state.”
Referring to unionists who reject powersharing with republicans, he added: “That section within their [the DUP] party who do not agree with the Good Friday institutions, preserved by the St Andrews Agreement, need to hear it loud and clear from their leaders that the old days and old ways are gone and gone forever.”
Until that happens there would always be a tension “when this level of denial meets the reality of confident and able republicans leading departments and providing the leadership at the Executive and All-Ireland Ministerial Council”.
Referring to last year’s five-month hiatus in Executive meetings at Stormont, he said: “It is now important that the outworking of the agreement between Sinn Féin and the DUP is speedily implemented.”
Turning to the devolution of policing and justice powers to develop his point, Mr McGuinness dismissed as bogus claims that there was insufficient confidence among unionists for such devolution.
“Policing was just one battleground to our struggle to promote equality and powersharing.
“These issues run across policing and justice but they are crucial in creating and sharing wealth.”
On the economy, he said the economic partition of Ireland was “a nonsense” which acted as a disincentive to inward investment and a political failure which had ill-served the Irish people.
“The current economic crisis does not recognise manufactured artificial boundaries or borders, and we should not let a provincial or partitionist mindset of groups North or South to stall our project for reunification.
“Partitionism is the past, it was a failure and it has held back all our people.
“For those who supported and promoted national division for sectoral interest the message is simple. We can simply no longer afford partition. Its continued existence inhibits our economy, encourages sectarian divisions, discrimination and inequality.”
He said there was a peaceful and democratic path available to a united Ireland. However, he warned that the British government “will only leave Ireland when the Irish people – together – demand that they leave Ireland”.
He said: “In my lifetime I have been a republican on the streets of Derry, a republican peace negotiator in Dublin, Downing Street and Washington. Now I am a republican Minister.”
Throughout this time he remained convinced that unity was in the best interests of all. “We are going to get there. And in our lifetime.”
Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, Sinn Féin’s leader in the Dáil, called for practical planning for a united Ireland to begin immediately.
Claiming that Sinn Féin had initiated such a process, putting the development of all-Ireland structures at the top of its political agenda, he added that this process was being accelerated by the Irish unity taskforce established by last year’s ardfheis.
Turning to a popular theme in a range of speeches, Mr Ó Caoláin said: “Two separate currencies, two separate tax regimes, two separate administrations, two separate sets of public services on an island of just under six million people makes no sense.
“It leads to duplication, distortion and dysfunction.” Unity was a political imperative and made economic sense.