Evidence, not inevitability: the Taoiseach’s plan for Ireland’s futures…

In breaking news this morning the Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, has announced a new government body to research the possible constitutional futures of the island of Ireland. It is expected to sit within the Department of the Taoiseach, with a Cabinet memo due before Christmas.

The body will examine three scenarios: a unitary 32-county state; a united Ireland in which Northern Ireland keeps its own assembly, executive, civil service and police; and the continuation of Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom.

Each will be assessed under the same headings: legal and constitutional implications, public services including health and education, the economy and the cost of unity, security and defence, and flags and symbols.

Why plan for more than one outcome?

Much of the debate so far has centred on a border poll. That is understandable give the immense marketing resources that have been dedicated to talking about it, but it depends on a single event whose timing is outside the Irish government’s control.

Under the Good Friday Agreement, the decision to call a poll rests with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. The criteria for calling one are not spelt out in detail, other than to suggest that a unity outcome should seem likely to him/her.

Preparation built only around a poll has an obvious weakness. If the poll is years away, or never called, much of that work loses its purpose. Research across several scenarios avoids this, because it remains useful whichever way events go.

Besides, work on health services, the economy or policing has a bankable value under any constitutional arrangement.

The approach also reflects how Northern Ireland’s population sees itself. In the 2021 census, 45.7% of people had a Catholic background, but 33.3% identified as Irish. Some 31.5% identified as Northern Irish, alone or alongside another identity.

The share with no religious background rose from 2.7% in 2001 to 9.3% in 2021. Many voters do not fit the traditional categories, and they are likely to weigh detailed options rather than respond to campaign messaging.

Continuity with Shared Island

The proposed body should follow the approach of the Shared Island initiative. Since 2020, that initiative has concentrated on practical cooperation and dialogue rather than the timing of a vote.

It has funded cross-border projects such as the Narrow Water bridge and the Ulster Canal restoration, and run a dialogue series with people across communities.

The new body applies the same method, evidence first and open to all traditions, to the constitutional question itself.

Potential objections from other parties

It is a way of delaying. Sinn Féin, among others, argues that the government has avoided serious preparation. But research itself is a form of preparation, and Sinn Féin’s own bill began with a Green Paper. The fair test is whether the body has a clear work programme and publishes its findings in full and on schedule. Those commitments would answer the charge directly.

Unionists will see it as unity planning under another name. Including the status quo as a full option is clearly intended to address this. It gives unionists a formal place to make the case for the union rather than only respond to proposals for change. Whether they take that option up remains to be seen.

It dilutes the case for unity. Nothing in the initiative affects the consent principle or the provisions for a poll. A case for unity that has been tested against realistic alternatives is likely to be more credible with undecided voters, not less.

Why should Dublin study the union’s continuation? Governments plan for the outcomes they may face, not only those they prefer. Understanding what the current arrangements need in order to work well, including cross-border services, is useful in any case.

Ending cultural deafness with a pluralist inheritance

The writer Ann Voskamp tells the story of a small town where so many people were deaf that everyone had learned to sign. The hearing majority took on the effort to include their neighbours, and found it enriched their own lives in ways they hadn’t expected. As she puts it, disadvantaging themselves turned out to be their advantage.

The debate on the island’s future has too often relied on assertion: unity described as inevitable, most recently (and most comically) by Donald Trump in Dublin, or change ruled out entirely. Martin’s approach replaces assertion with evidence.

Progress no longer depends on a single date. Cross-border cooperation continues regardless of any vote, Stormont reform proceeds on its own merits, and every option is examined before anything is put to voters.

It also takes a longer view. Martin’s term ends in a few weeks, but the body’s remit should continue to frame the debate well beyond even this administration’s full term. By setting it up formally within his department, he is leaving future taoisigh, of any party, a lasting set of tools for tackling a question that will outlast any single government.

Its value lies less in headlines than in keeping the debate open to several futures rather than one.

This month’s Drumcree stand-off is a reminder of just how fragile progress remains and how a gaping maw can open up if sectarian tensions are let get out of hand. Given independence, a credible membership and a firm commitment to publish its findings, the new body offers the island a shared basis of fact from which to decide its future.

A shared future requires shared facts, rather than competing sectarian half truths and downright lies which pit community against community, and so obscure any opportunity to coalesce individual powers around agreed shared purposes.