The claim that all that is needed to secure Irish unity is a “White Paper and a Citizens’ Assembly and everything will work itself out” is “damaging” and false, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said on Sunday.
Strongly defending his approach to the unity issue and criticising Sinn Féin, Martin said he and his party would be bringing forward some proposals and ideas on the issue soon.
Speaking at the annual Fianna Fáil Wolfe Tone commemoration in Bodenstown, Co Kildare, the Fianna Fáil leader said recent events at Portadown had “damaged everyone”, and he was sharply critical of Sinn Féin’s behaviour and rhetoric at the Garvaghy Road.
“It is absolutely right to say that there can be no going back to the days of escalating conflict around parades,” he said. “The problem for everyone is that there are those who genuinely don’t seem to understand that how they behave means that, as well as no going back, there is no going forward either. When confronted with a situation like this, people who are interested in uniting communities don’t call for a reckoning; they call for a dialogue.”
The Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald declared that if the Orange Order parade was forced through a nationalist area, there would “be a reckoning”.
Asked afterwards if he was referring to Sinn Féin, Martin said: “If you want unity you have to think really hard about how we unite people, how we avoid going back to the past but also how do we move forward. We can’t just dismiss the imperative of reconciliation ... We need a more substantive approach to the issues than we’ve seen from Sinn Féin and others, whose presentations seem very superficial.
“There needs to be strong objective information that lays it out on the table about what needs to be done – as opposed to coming at it from a very aggressive partisan advocacy perspective like Sinn Féin does, and ignore everybody else, ignore the perspective of others.”
Martin said that he would be “bringing our thoughts on that to the party and sharing that with my Government colleagues in the time ahead”.
Asked if he would elaborate on this, the Taoiseach replied: “No”, but added: “I’m concerned that a lot of the language that we’ve heard in the last couple of months is the language of the 1970s. We don’t need that language. We need to work with people.”
In his speech, Martin said he would “never accept the demand of angry partisan commentators that we move away from an approach which has delivered and follow their lead in aggressive advocacy.
“It is striking how often people who claim to want to unite the people of Ireland spend their time personally attacking people who disagree with their approach,” he said.
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“If you claim to want to build an inclusive republic which respects diverse opinions and traditions, your first duty is to start showing some respect to other opinions and traditions. Too many people are making casual assumptions about what is required – or are dismissing the idea that there are any hard choices.
“In fact, one of the most damaging developments we have seen recently is the claim that all we need is a White Paper and a Citizens’ Assembly and everything will work itself out.
“This is exactly the type of approach which is unlikely to secure the change of public opinion required to make a vote likely or winnable,” he said.