Paul Murphy: Calls for Eco-Socialist Ireland, Demands Abortion Rights in North

If we are to overcome sectarian divisions and partition on this island, we need to provide a vision for an alternative Ireland, I would argue an eco-socialist Ireland, that protects all minorities and delivers real changes and improvements for people's lives. Abortion rights for women in the north is a crucial issue. It is shameful that women and pregnant people in the north are being left behind those in the south and in Britain. They are still being denied the right to choose. It is, I would say, particularly disappointing that Sinn Fein, who in the south adopted a pro-choice position, are actually helping to continue the anti-choice status quo in the north, abstaining recently on a very poor, shameful anti-choice bill from the DUP. There should be no abstaining on the right to choose. That is why People Before Profit, MLA Gerry Carroll, has long been a strong advocate for choice and, of course, voted against this terrible bill. You cannot have a partitionist approach to women's rights saying one thing in Dublin and another in Belfast. First of all, I thank the deputies for the questions that they have raised in relation to Deputy Murphy. I would like to think that the National Women's Council has formed an all-island women's forum and that that could become a good forum and channel for discussing and debating the issues that you have identified. I can comment on Sinn Fein having a dual approach. It is not new. You are doing a lot of issues in the north and south, but we have no time to go into it here. We hope to end it. You could have ended a long time ago with Covid certificates, but you choose not to. I think you might have changed last night after a long period, but hopefully. The point has been well made by Deputy Murphy. I just want to say about the citizens' assembly. I have said there in the shared dialogue that 1,000 people have already met. Covering subjects from biodiversity to climate change, women's rights, women's issues, young people have met, enterprise has met. That does not happen in the citizens' assembly. It is a different model, it is a different idea and I think it is valid. I do not think it is valid in terms of the long journey of reconciliation and developing shared perspectives, which has to be between communities and traditions on a very consistent basis. That is not something to just create one assembly, have it for a week, get the outcome, not a week, but for a number of weeks and you get an outcome. That is why I think we need to be careful about presenting it as a kind of a celebrant. It is the most important thing, and it is not. The most important thing is to get people engaged with each other. It has been my experience for many years as a public representative. I have learned a lot throughout that journey, which I do not go into the sloganeering any more. Believe me, when I was younger we used to do the slogans too, but they did not advance anyone too far in relation to it. I think we should use the Good Friday Agreement. I really do regret that you took a decision your party did years ago. We had no assembly for three years. It is crazy. We should utilise the Good Friday Agreement institutions to the full. Within the Good Friday Agreement, the constitutional position is provided for in terms of how that advances. Before we get there, there is a lot of work that has to be done and there is a lot of engagement required. Deputy Hawley raised issues in terms of the Shared Ireland dialogue. You know, civic unionism has participated. Political unionism actually is not against it, but they are not participating up front in terms of it. But they do appreciate the investment that is coming with the Shared Ireland initiative. I am intrigued by the Deputy Maura Koo about Narrow Water Bridge. You lost that opportunity years ago, as well as the previous Government did. I am determined to get it over the line now, through the local authority. The documentation we have provided for $3 million for tendering and all of that. But I want progress the whole way, cooperation the whole way, and just one single agenda to get that over the line. On the ESRI and on the NESC reports, the research programme with the ESRI is focusing on aspects of health, education, enterprise and an all-island economy post-Brexit. That is what NESC has worked. Scoping papers for each of the research topics were published on 17 May. The final report will be published in December and early 2022. They will be important reports. ESRI specifically worked with the ESRI on building understanding of the structure and composition of cross-border trade and services. We will get a better understanding of that on the island of Ireland. We will examine the primary healthcare system of Ireland and Northern Ireland and drawing out implications for policy. We will examine patterns of educational participation and attainment in the two jurisdictions and assess what lessons can be learned for the future. I have an issue around school completions. I think in the north, school completions in certain communities could be much better than they are. That is a factor and we are in a stronger position, but maybe lessons can be learned both ways. Then looking at issues that could enhance the attractiveness of the island as a whole to high-value FDI. I probably do not have enough time to go through everything, but NESC is covering a whole range of areas that I have identified. NESC published a shared island report on collaborating on climate biodiversity challenges on the island. That was on 28 October. That is published and it did the scoping paper on economy, regional development, tackling poverty, mental health, social enterprise and climate. There is a lot of good, solid research work being done here that we are funding through the shared island initiative. On a much bigger scale, we have provided £40 million for research between third-level institutions, North and South. We will fund it all, but we want equal collaboration between North and South and third-level institutions on matters of mutual interest, if you like, to the benefit of the island. In terms of the young people, I think Deputy Hawi raised that point. It is very important that young people in the Republic get engaged in the debate about the future of the island. We have had a number of engagements. We would like more, so the young people in Dublin, Galway, Waterford, Cork, Limerick and elsewhere would be engaged with young people from Northern Ireland. We are facilitating that. We also want to facilitate political exchanges between people from different political backgrounds as well and traditions. Some of those would be Chatham House Rules. I think I engaged in those back in the early 90s that were very, very valuable, where politicians could feel safe and secure to come into an environment and have a weekend of engagement without anybody publicly commenting on what was said. But that is important to break down barriers, not to manipulate people for something they might say at a meeting, that they can speak frankly about things. I think we need an awful lot more of that. The British-Irish Association, to its credit, has been doing that for 30 years or more. That has been a very valuable instrument. I have been involved in a number of meetings of that kind myself, which has given me a better understanding of where people are coming from. We are all politicians at the end, and we understand the pressures of constituency and the pressures on a given electoral base. I think that is something that we need to continue to work on. I would like to see that developed more and more. I hope I have covered most of the issues. I think that facilities are going to help address pubic talk and thinkers. I wonder if those people cultura-outraineunders have been defined with if they are open to a legal context. You oxygenate, I'm going to have to keep that paradigm at Quellege, but I haven't necessarily invested previously, because it's been written in one of one of his grandparents. I hate that one of the people, I don't know that would be creating small changes. You know, Mr. Mayor, may be smart in time for people to remember this. There are a lot of developers around Europe, there are a lot of relationships between other formats.