Taoiseach says Irish people need to reflect more on how we would accommodate those with a British identity in a united Ireland

The success of a united Ireland would be judged on how it treats its minorities and that means recognising and acknowledging the British identity of around one million unionists currently living in Northern Ireland who would be brought into such an entity, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said.

He said people in the Republic need to start thinking more about how unionists would be accommodated in the event of unity coming about.

“It’s really important that those people in a united Ireland should feel wanted, should be respected, would want to stay here and would want to throw their weight behind a newly united state in the way southern unionists did, in fact, get behind the Free State and made sure it survived,” he said.

“And I think that’s the kind of stuff we need to think about a bit more here in the South, here in the Republic, more so than we have in the past,” he added in response to a question about what more the Government could do to prepare for the united Ireland that Mr Varadkar believes he will see in his lifetime.

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Speaking to reporters at Fota Wildlife Park in Cork on Friday, the Fine Gael leader said the Shared Island project was doing very important work in examining issues such as how the healthcare and policing systems could be integrated on an all-island basis in advance of a united Ireland.

Asked about Government concerns over the decision by the British government to proceed with its Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill, Mr Varadkar said that the Coalition was still awaiting legal advice on the possibility of taking an international legal challenge to the controversial legislation.

“We don’t have the legal advice yet and we can’t make a decision without the legal advice. The Bill is not yet law. We’re still appealing to the British government to pause it. They don’t have to enact this legislation, so we continue with that appeal to the UK government not to enact this legislation,” he said.

“If it is [enacted], we will then have to make a decision as to whether or not we take an inter-state case. And there’s legal questions as to whether we have a strong case or not and what that case will be and then of course, there’s the wider political question, so we’ll consider all that.”

Mr Varadkar said he expected Attorney General Rossa Fanning to provide legal advice on the feasibility of an interstate challenge within the next few weeks and the Government would then weigh that up before making any decision.

He said “it’s not a small thing” for one state to take such a case against another but that “this is a serious situation”.

The Taoiseach noted that there is widespread opposition to the proposed British legislation throughout Northern Ireland and the Republic as well as among British opposition parties, with Labour saying it will repeal the law should it form the next government in the UK.

“It’s clear that the five parties in Northern Ireland are all united on this. They don’t think it’s a good idea and it’s not a victim-centred approach or a human rights-centred approach, and the opposition parties in Britain don’t think that it is a good idea and have said that they will repeal it,” he added.

He refused to be drawn on whether he thought the Conservative government was pushing ahead the legislation to satisfy its supporters among the British military establishment.