The Government’s multibillion-euro Shared Island programme, which is paying for cross-Border roads and bridges and economic and social co-operation, cannot be used to push the cause of Irish unity, Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers has said.
He was speaking in Tralee, Co Kerry, at a meeting of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, which includes TDs, senators, Westminster MPs, members of the Scottish, Welsh, Stormont parliaments and legislators from the Isle of Man and Channel Islands.
The Shared Island project, backed by €2 billion of taxpayers’ money, aims to improve co-operation and build “cross-community support without it veering into a more divisive conversation”, Chambers said.
More than six years of efforts by Irish governments have gone into slowly building support for it and securing “broad and collective engagement”, he added, but that would be put at risk if unionists suspected its motives.
READ MORE
Chambers’s comments followed criticism of Taoiseach Micheál Martin from Sinn Féin TD Ruairí Ó Murchú, who claimed the Taoiseach “has absolutely ensured that it never veers into constitutional change”.
“This is a conversation that is happening. I don’t think anybody’s at risk from having the conversation. Even those against the idea of Irish unity accept it’s part of the conversation, and it is a possibility,” the Louth TD said.
The Government must ensure “a proper conversation” takes place with the British government about setting a date for a unity referendum – though the 1998 Belfast Agreement has set down rules to govern its calling.
“That is something that just cannot be allowed to drift. This idea that we must wait until everybody gets on board into some perfect utopia is the biggest obstacle to delivering unity,” Ó Murchú added.
Rejecting Sinn Féin’s demands for the Shared Island unit to lead unity planning, Chambers said: “If everything was to be done in the context of a constitutional conversation, we lose people in the room at the very start.”
He said the Taoiseach had sought “to put nuts and bolts” on to the Belfast Agreement by developing jointly-useful infrastructure, cultural ties, environmental initiatives and “a lot” of shared opportunities.
Insisting that he favoured unity, Chambers told the meeting of the 35-year-old British-Irish parliamentary body: “My position on unity is clear, but I think it’s about making the case to others over time.
“That builds the foundations for a better future across the island,” he told Ó Murchú. “If that veers into what you want it to be tomorrow, then that will potentially cause fractures with those who have a different view.”
He also rejected complaints from Derry SDLP MLA Sinéad McLaughlin, who said the Government was failing to create a framework for long-term economic planning on the island.
“Co-operation is still a bit piecemeal, and really dependent on political will rather than embedded in long-term planning,” she said. “I don’t see that Shared Island is actually doing that long-term planning.”
In response, Chambers cited a list of projects, including the Narrow Water Bridge linking Louth and Down and work between Queen’s University Belfast and Dundalk Institute of Technology as examples of long-term co-operation.
“I can probably list 100 or more projects to you which are very strategic, which are receiving attention, but they’re just not being done with the sole objective of creating division at the very start,” the Minister said.
“If everything was to be done in the context of a constitutional conversation, we lose people in the room at the very start. This is about making the case for co-operation without undermining that conversation from the get-go.”
Democratic Unionist Party MLA for Derry Maurice Bradley welcomed the co-operative manner in which Chambers presented the ambitions of Shared Island.
“You can’t take a million people into a room they don’t want to be in, but you can work with that million people and bring that million people with you. Forcing the issue is not the way to do it,” he said.
