Taoiseach Micheal Martin: More knowledge needed before changing Northern Ireland constitution
The Irish Premier, Micheal Martin, said more knowledge is needed before any changes are made to Northern Ireland’s constitution, after briefing Fianna Fail parliamentary party colleagues this week on the establishment of a group to inform any debate on a united Ireland.
“It seems to me that we can make politics work better in the north,” he said.
“In respect of the constitutional future of the island, my sense is, and it’s somewhat different to the approach that others have taken to date, is to in the first instance, establish and create a framework whereby we can, through an expert analysis create an independent, evidence-based approach to what various constitutional frameworks would look like.
“Be it a unitary state, be it a united Ireland with a devolved Assembly, or be it a continuation of the current situation under the Good Friday Agreement in areas like constitutional law and law itself, and jurisprudence, in areas like economy, health, education.
Speaking at an Attestation Ceremony for Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Student Officers in Belfast, he said that other parties have taken too simplistic a view of the potential for a united Ireland.
“There’s been too much of an easy narrative about all of this, too much simplistic sort of ideas around let’s have the poll in a couple of years’ time and everything will be grand.
“Everything will not be grand if we take that approach.
“My view is the public want very almost a non-partisan evidenced approach to these fundamental issues because they’re complex and they’re difficult and they’re deep, and we know that from the last 25 years and indeed a decade or so before the Good Friday Agreement.”