Sinn Fein? They have gone away, you know.

[Armagh18]

What were the actual deadlines on the SF?

Why not suggest amendments to something as simple as dates

[Snapchap]

If the SF Bill (or stunt) had been passed would that make Ireland united???

FFG were clear they aren't against the spirit of it, but were unsure about the strict timelines. It's common at national and local government level to be in favour of the spirit of something but oppose the substantive measures in a bill. That doesn't mean an opposition in principle.

SF and their fanboys will paint it that way, of course.

Is it also common for parties to find nitpicking excuses to oppose a bill which they would like to pretend they otherwise support?

That's called scrutiny. It's not "nitpicking".

So the idea that a party would come up with an excuse for not supporting a bill they'd otherwise like to say the'd support, is just fanciful? The sort of cynical thing that politicians wouldn't do?

Quite frankly, yes. Why would an administration tie itself to deadlines that may not be workable?

Like on housing, or building childrens hospitals for example?

Not a reason to continue setting unreasonable deadlines.

So this is the nudge they needed to see the light and they're now going to stop setting unachievable deadlines on things like housing and children's hospitals?

[Snapchap]

Yes. On a protracted timeline that may not be workable and then gleefully using it to undermine the bona fides of FF or FG as interested in a United Ireland.

FF/FG have spent decades undermining themselves when it comes to their interest in a UI. They hardly need help from SF or anyone else to show them up on that front. FFS Micheal Martin point blank refuses to say that he is even "a persuader" for unity.

[JollyGreenGiant]

Yes. On a protracted timeline that may not be workable and then gleefully using it to undermine the bona fides of FF or FG as interested in a United Ireland.

FF/FG have spent decades undermining themselves when it comes to their interest in a UI. They hardly need help from SF or anyone else to show them up on that front. FFS Micheal Martin point blank refuses to say that he is even "a persuader" for unity.

Have they? I do recall them playing a heavy role in the Peace Process.

[JollyGreenGiant]

What were the actual deadlines on the SF?

Why not suggest amendments to something as simple as dates

I would argue they don't need a bill at all. And without the bill becoming law it doesn't create deadlines considered unworkable.

[JollyGreenGiant]

If the SF Bill (or stunt) had been passed would that make Ireland united???

FFG were clear they aren't against the spirit of it, but were unsure about the strict timelines. It's common at national and local government level to be in favour of the spirit of something but oppose the substantive measures in a bill. That doesn't mean an opposition in principle.

SF and their fanboys will paint it that way, of course.

Is it also common for parties to find nitpicking excuses to oppose a bill which they would like to pretend they otherwise support?

That's called scrutiny. It's not "nitpicking".

So the idea that a party would come up with an excuse for not supporting a bill they'd otherwise like to say the'd support, is just fanciful? The sort of cynical thing that politicians wouldn't do?

Quite frankly, yes. Why would an administration tie itself to deadlines that may not be workable?

Like on housing, or building childrens hospitals for example?

Not a reason to continue setting unreasonable deadlines.

So this is the nudge they needed to see the light and they're now going to stop setting unachievable deadlines on things like housing and children's hospitals?

Well on houses they currently have a five year plan to run between 2025-2030
So it's hard to call that an unachievable (or unachieved deadline).

There is  also a difference between the delivery of a service which requires bricks, mortar etc, and a green paper etc.

[Snapchap]

Yes. On a protracted timeline that may not be workable and then gleefully using it to undermine the bona fides of FF or FG as interested in a United Ireland.

FF/FG have spent decades undermining themselves when it comes to their interest in a UI. They hardly need help from SF or anyone else to show them up on that front. FFS Micheal Martin point blank refuses to say that he is even "a persuader" for unity.

Have they? I do recall them playing a heavy role in the Peace Process.

Yeah you're probably right. I mean, they have had a hundred yesrs to stand candidates north of the border and have never done so, but instead delegated issues related to the north to the Department of "Foreign Affairs". And, again, so invested are they in Irish Unity that the leader of FF refuses to even say he is a persuader in favour it.

[Armagh18]

FG ridiculous as it is are doing a lot more for a UI than FF FFS. Varadkar speaks well on the matter these days too, shame he did f**k all when he was actually in a position to do something

Might not have done much re a border poll, but keeping north in EU for goods trade post Brexit was an underrated achievement and quite a battle with Britain. Keeping island aligned on such matters will make eventual unification smoother at a time when Unionists thought they could put distance between standards on the island. The Future Ireland sovereign wealth fund was launched by Varadkar in 2018. It will have €100 billion by 2040. It's not wrap the green flag around me stuff, or vote getter, but it's long term economic policy to make unification work.

Yeah that is a very good point. As much as I can't stand Leo and his arrogance he's done a plenty of good work and is twice the politician of Mehole.

Remember that RTE show on unity I think it was around covid time when they cut Brolly off. Leo was speaking with Mary Lou and came across fairly well on the issue, a lot better than that Martin bollox.   

[Armagh18]

Yes. On a protracted timeline that may not be workable and then gleefully using it to undermine the bona fides of FF or FG as interested in a United Ireland.

FF/FG have spent decades undermining themselves when it comes to their interest in a UI. They hardly need help from SF or anyone else to show them up on that front. FFS Micheal Martin point blank refuses to say that he is even "a persuader" for unity.

Have they? I do recall them playing a heavy role in the Peace Process.

Yeah you're probably right. I mean, they have had a hundred yesrs to stand candidates north of the border and have never done so, but instead delegated issues related to the north to the Department of "Foreign Affairs". And, again, so invested are they in Irish Unity that the leader of FF refuses to even say he is a persuader in favour it.

They're like the Met Eireann storms they magically stop at the border.

[Rossfan]

Mick Clifford in D'Examiner---


Everybody is talking about a united Ireland. Or so we're told. Among the young, they talk of little else. Or so we're told.

The only thing stopping a march to the reclamation of the fourth green field is Micheál Martin, standing Canute-like against the tide of positive nationalism washing across the country. Or so we're told.

If ever a project was to come into being purely by dint of talking about it as if it is inevitable and imminent, it is a united Ireland.

The polls — apart from one outlier concerning mainly the EU — all suggest it could be 10 years before conditions for a border poll are met.

Irish unity is not a manifesto item for electoral advantage
Anything could happen in the interim to either shorten or lengthen the distance to a poll. But some people would have you believe that specific preparations should be put in place now as if to hurry up a poll.

This week Sinn Féin brought a motion to the Dáil, calling for a citizen's assembly to be established and a green paper formulated with a deadline of 18 months to begin preparations.

All of that is against a background where the same entity appears to have more or less given up on any efforts towards reconciliation with the other tradition in the north east of the island.

During the debate Mary Lou McDonald invoked her adult children, whom she said she believed were reflective of their generation.

They would, she said, view the rejection of the Sinn Féin bill in a particular way.

"They will see this — driven by Micheál Martin, of that there is no doubt — as a direct pushback against them.

"That generation is hungry. It has an appetite for change, that can see the next horizon and opportunity and that hears the same old tired, jaded rhetoric as blah, blah, blah and all the reasons we cannot have the Republic."

Have you noticed 'hunger' for a border poll?

Have you noticed a "hunger" among the young for a border poll? Or an expression of deep frustration that a united Ireland has not come into being as if it could be sung by the Wolfe Tones, or rapped As Gaeilge by Kneecap? Me neither.

On Virgin Media's Tonight show that evening, professor of economics in DCU Edgar Morgenroth estimated that an annual subvention of the order of €12bn "is the best case scenario" for the cost of a united Ireland.

"It would have a very significant impact (on the Republic's budget) but this is a relatively conservative number and any other numbers I've seen aren't credible," he said.

All that may well be worth it, but who exactly is talking about such an impact, or would that be impolite?

How do the "hungry" young feel about that kind of hit when they are already bearing the greatest burden over the housing crisis in the country?

Meanwhile, in the Dáil, the Sinn Féin leader continued with her speech.

"To anyone who believes this issue will go away, it is not going away, you know," she said.

Thirty years ago on a Belfast street Gerry Adams referenced the IRA to an assembled crowd. "They haven't gone away, you know," he famously said.

Mary Lou McDonald provides an echo with the past

Now, Ms McDonald is providing an echo with the past. Maybe it was a bizarre coincidence. An inquiry to the Sinn Féin press office for an explanation did not receive any reply.

Could it have been for the benefit of the aging Provo godfathers in Belfast who ran the IRA?

Let them know that the so-called struggle is continuing through peaceful means and their killing and dying will not be forgotten?

Or was it for the unionist community, to let them know that just because the IRA is long gone its former political wing sees its function as completing, peacefully, the aims of the terrorist organisation?

One way or the other, the tenor of McDonald's speech will have contributed nothing towards reconciliation.

She also managed to show contempt for other political entities who want to see constitutional change addressed in a different manner.

At one point in the debate, junior minister Mary Butler had this to say: "I am a proud Republican and member of Fianna Fáil."

To which McDonald responded: "Jesus Christ."

Sinn Féin have no blueprint for future of island

The most bizarre aspect to McDonald and her party's approach is that they have absolutely no blueprint for what they want for this island.

This, they say, is up to the government. Beyond the mantra of "border poll" Sinn Féin has nothing to offer on what could emerge.

Even Fine Gael is promising to produce a blueprint, although this is probably as a result of Simon Harris seeing the issue popping up a few times on TikTok.

Let's remember that Sinn Féin, as we now know it, was formed in 1970, initially under the name Provisional Sinn Féin, to support the Provisional IRA's campaign of killing for a united Ireland.

The Provos repeatedly stated that they would kill anybody whose death would advance the cause of imposition of a 32 county socialist republic on the island.

The killing stopped in the 1990s, long after it was obvious that it could never succeed. Further along the line, the socialism was abandoned.

All that now remains from the original mission statement for Sinn Fein is the imposition of a united Ireland, albeit by democratic means.

But to what? The party, as reported again this week in terms of its property portfolio, is by far the wealthiest in the state.

It has plenty of resources to produce a blueprint of what exact form it sees its primary political goal being achieved. Yet, nothing.

Surely this paralysis of imagination and focus is not because they have looked into the future and can see that it will not be the nirvana they are endlessly projecting.

Surely not because they are afraid of reconciling with the cost, the changes that will be required, the upheaval.

Surely they don't want to hide behind a border poll and to hell with whatever may follow.

Meanwhile, there were a few glimpses of the real world in the Dáil debate on Tuesday.

Independent Ireland's Michael Collins said his constituents were "not talking to me about green papers, citizens assemblies, or constitutional reports".

Instead they were talking about "trying to get a roof over their heads", "waiting months and years for healthcare", and "the pressures that working people and small businesses are under every day".

Fianna Fáil TD Malcolm Byrne's contribution was even more instructive.

He welcomed the debate and pointed out that 25 years ago there was far more cross border exchanges going on among "community, youth, sporting, and cultural groups" than there are today.

"I also find it bizarre meeting young people in my constituency who have travelled all over Europe and the world, but have never been to the North," he said.

"We need to explore to a far greater extent how we can exchange and get groups of people on this island and these islands working closer together."

This is real world stuff, the basics of trying to bring together peoples who have long been divided. A little more concentration on that wouldn't' go astray.

Instead we have Sinn Féin attempting to rush everybody towards an unwritten future, for little more reason than to justify its past.

[Wildweasel74]

They gonna prepare for a United Ireland vote, the same way we tried build casement park. Make the financial case for it. What way u closing the pay gaps, ?pensions ?,Doctors/ Hospital appointments,? Road Infrastructure?. how u funding this? how u gonna intergrate school systens,? how sort out the unionist issue?. They cant answer any of this! U want sthing, do the background work, feasibility reports. Actually put forward your case. Not lets have a vote like they did with Brexit, and 70/80% of the population had 2 fucks what they were voting for. PS i never hear any teenagers talk of United Ireland, or even politics for that matter.

[Snapchap]

Mick Clifford 😂

[weareros]

Biggest issues will be North's £17 billion deficit. I don't know what world people live in that think it will only cost €3 billion a year. The public sector in North is 2x rate of 26 counties. You could lay off a lot of people to bring down costs. No one will vote for that. The US tech companies are already reducing staff in Dublin. There's not going to be much more inward investment with AI killing jobs. South's surplus (which is only around €5b) will fall off in a few years too. North's economy will need to improve for UI to work financially. Who is working on that?

[laceer]

While economic, financial and reconciliation issues need investigated and planned for, why would any country not want to reunite a quarter of their land that was taken and is being ruled by another? Just out of a sense of respect for themselves and their national identity.

[BigGreenField]

While economic, financial and reconciliation issues need investigated and planned for, why would any country not want to reunite a quarter of their land that was taken and is being ruled by another? Just out of a sense of respect for themselves and their national identity.

Mexico should invade Texas, the Koreans should go for round 2 and China needs to pile into Taiwan. Alternatively it's a bit more complicated than the ballads would have us believe.