It is disappointing at the time of the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement that we do not have a functioning Assembly at Stormont

It is 25 years since the Good Friday Agreement. The landscape in Ireland has completely changed in those 25 years. Which is your balance after those 25 years?

The most significant change has, of course, been the significant reduction in violence on the streets and the move to building peace through dialogue and democratic processes.  It is disappointing at the time of the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement that we do not have a functioning Assembly at Stormont, but this is something I hope can be addressed in the next few months.  The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) have said they are refusing to go back into the Assembly since the last election because of their objection to the Windsor Framework agreement between the EU and British government in respect of Brexit but there are concerns that this is not entirely honest and that a significant factor contributing to the decision is that Sinn Féin are now the largest party and will therefore nominate the First Minister, which will be Michelle O’Neill.  Many in the Republican community think the DUP are refusing to go back to Stormont because they want to prevent a republican taking that office.  But the alternative is direct rule from London and the majority of people in the north do not want that, so I believe the DUP will have to come back, probably after the local government elections later in May.

Even the prospect of a border poll was included in the Good Friday Agreement, and the right to self-determination of all the Island (to be implemented through two referendums north and south), and demography is slowly changing in the North; nobody could expect Brexit 25 years ago, which has been its impact on the reinforcement of the debate for a United Ireland and consultation with that purpose.

Without doubt Brexit has had an impact on the campaign for reunification in Ireland and that is for several reasons.  Firstly, people in the north of Ireland have a strong affinity with Europe and this is not just in terms of tourism.  Business and education links have grown significantly in the last 25 years.  Our last census showed that almost 4% of residents in the north are from elsewhere in Europe, which is double what it was 10 years ago.  We have strong family ties in many cases and these are disrupted by Brexit.

As well as that, the impact on trade had the potential to damage the economy of the north and of the whole island of Ireland.  It was essential that an agreement on trade which did not disadvantage Irish business or undo the economic progress we have seen since the Good Friday Agreement was put in place.  But getting to the point where that agreement has come about has been difficult and has caused some elements of unionism to become more entrenched and opposed to a referendum on reunification.  On the other hand, people who might have come from a traditional pro-British perspective now see their free movement in Europe impinged, the opportunities for educational exchanges for their children disappear and the potential of tariffs being introduced on some goods or services.  This had caused them to re-examine their perspective on reunification.  Added to this, Ireland is currently running a budget surplus and Britain is an economic basket case with the worst strikes in the public sector for decades.  A united Ireland inside the EU is a much more attractive proposition.

The Scottish Independence referendum also suffered as a result of project fear because people were uncertain of what a new Scotland would look like.  Despite the pro-independence lobby publishing a lot of research, people just did not take it all in and I think Scotland has learned a lesson for a future referendum in that.  Much more dialogue needs to take place before a vote happens.

There is a long tradition of citizens’ assemblies in Ireland which have been tasked with developing government policy or framing questions for referendums.  These have proven to be very effective and popular as they are bottom up and not top down policy making

Your organization insists on promoting a non-partisan broad, calm and constructive debate. Something utterly opposed to what happened with Brexit and project fear. Why is this so important? Which lessons have you learned from there?

There will always be people in the reunification debate who are strongly pro-Union and those strongly pro-reunification and it is the people who are as yet undecided who will ultimately be the ones whose votes will make the difference on the day of the referendum.  What brexit has taught us – and anyone who works for the cause of self-determination and the right to choose – is that fear needs to be tackled head-on.  The only way to do that is through information and dialogue.

Ireland’s Future is committed to reaching out to people to address those fears that are very real for many people.  What will the Health Service look like in a new Ireland?  What about taxes – will they go up or down?  What if I have paid into a pension for a number of years – will I still be able to access it after reunification? We don’t have the answers to those questions because we are a civil society initiative but we do have the power to lobby governments and ensure that they start working on those issues.  The costs need to be calculated.  The plans for streamlining public services need to be developed.

We also need to manage expectations.  I personally don’t think there will be a referendum one day and a date for reunification set following the result.  I think it will be, and should be, a managed transition.  That might include a period of time where the Assembly in Stormont continues to operate alongside the Oireachtas in Dublin and that we may see transition over a seven year period for example in schools from one system to another.  But the fundamental difference on day one is that the government that would be sovereign would be an Irish one.

The Citizen Assembly is one of your demands. And Ireland has been a pioneer in Citizen Assemblies with quite significant results. So who should promote this Assembly? Which Institutions? Do you imagine one or two Assemblies? How would it work?

There is a long tradition of citizens’ assemblies in Ireland which have been tasked with developing government policy or framing questions for referendums.  These have proven to be very effective and popular as they are bottom up and not top down policy making which include the electorate in the decision making process.  They are made up of a random selection of 100 voters on the electoral register.

That formula would not work in respect of a citizens’ assembly on the constitutional future of Ireland because it would not include people from the north of Ireland.  We need to look at a creative approach to ensuring broad representation of geography, gender, age and political outlook.  The All-island Civic Dialogue on Brexit could provide a useful model as it hosted separate dialogues from different sectors such as agriculture and food, jobs and investment, tourism, energy and transport and these then fed back into a larger plenary which represented all of the key issues raised by Brexit.

The Irish government, in particular, has a Constitutional responsibility to facilitate such dialogue and it is part of our mission in Ireland’s Future to lobby them to do so.

The TM eLab is an initiative of the Olaso Dorrea Foundation, which offers its heritage to the Basque pro-sovereignity movement.