There was a definite sense of history in the Dáil – which had been recalled on Monday to debate the outcome of the Brexit – a sense of another parting in the relationship between Ireland and the United Kingdom.
The past few days have seen many try to weigh up how the Brexit referendum will affect British-Irish ties, with the majority agreeing the change is seismic. Others have cited historical precedent in arguing that in the past a way forward was found between the two islands after initial difficulties.
Links broken
Leo Varadkar has spoken of 1921 and 1948, the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the declaration of Ireland as a republic respectively, and of 1979 and 2002, when the link between the punt and sterling was broken and Ireland began to use the euro while Britain kept the pound.
Brexit will sit with these historical events as another significant moment in the relationship between the UK and Ireland.
The main party leaders in their speeches in the Dáil on Monday managed to capture that sense of history, aside from Taoiseach Enda Kenny, whose speech was flat. Kenny, perhaps constrained by his position as head of Government, used his speech to set out the Irish position ahead of today’s European summit meeting.
The Taoiseach made it clear the Brexit negotiations will be a matter for the European Council, comprising heads of state and government, and not for a select group of nations or the European Commission.
Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin made the best speech, arguing that Ireland must take its own road. The referendum outcome, he said, “was the final outcome of four decades of rhetoric which blamed Europe and foreigners for everything.
“Ireland must take a different route,” he said. “We do not have their nostalgia for empire or fear of outsiders. To be successful, to offer a future for our people and to have a voice in the world we must be active members of the European Union.”
Labour’s Brendan Howlin said the relationship between Ireland and Britain had been “afforded a body blow”.
Gerry Adams again pushed Sinn Féin’s position that now is the time for a Border poll on a united Ireland, but this was rejected by the majority of other speakers.
He persuasively argued the responsibility upon the Government was to think “nationally, in the real sense of the word - that means 32 counties”, conscious that many Irish citizens in Northern Ireland would no longer live in the EU.
Mick Barry of Anti-Austerity Alliance-People Before Profit said a Border poll would “deepen sectarian divisions among ordinary people” and would only amount to a “sectarian head count”.
Border poll
Martin said Fianna Fáil’s position was that a Border poll should be called when it was clear there was a possibility it would be passed. “At the moment there is no evidence of this. If it changes because of forced departure from the EU, then it may be the time for such a vote – yet this has not yet been demonstrated.”
He accused Sinn Féin of cynicism on the issue, given its previous hostility to the EU, and said a poll now would be “used to assert difference rather than build consensus”.
It is, nevertheless, a sign of the phase which Irish-British relations are entering that a united Ireland and a Border poll were being seriously debated on the floor of the Dáil.
