Mary Lou McDonald: I want referendums on reunification in this decade
Mary Lou McDonald has remained tight-lipped on Sinn Fein's plans for the upcoming Irish presidency election, but believes that the new Uachtarán na hÉireann will be the last before a united Ireland.
Speaking to commentator Andree Murphy tonight during this year's Féile an Phobail in west Belfast, the Sinn Fein leader said it is 'crazy' that people in Northern Ireland cannot vote for the Irish president, adding that 'there is no reason why it [a referendum on the issue] shouldn't go ahead'.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Belfast Telegraph
4 hours ago
- Belfast Telegraph
Lyons ‘received legal advice' that Kimmins' Grand Central Irish signs decision should have gone to Executive
Communities Minister Gordon Lyons wrote to Infrastructure Minister Liz Kimmins advising her he received legal advice that a decision to place Irish language signage at Grand Central Station should have been brought to the wider Executive for discussion. The letter, seen by the Belfast Telegraph, is dated May 28 and also asks for confirmation Ms Kimmins would bring the matter to the next meeting of the Executive 'where it can be considered by all ministers'. Just five days after this letter was sent, Ms Kimmins said she stood firm behind her decision.
Spectator
11 hours ago
- Spectator
Haircuts are a human right!
During the immigration deluge in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, it seems one Afghan and one Indian national who threw themselves on the mercy of much-besieged Ireland got lost in the shuffle. Fobbed off with €25 vouchers, they were obliged to sometimes sleep rough for two months, without access to food and hygiene and exposed to hardship and fear. They've sued the Irish state. Knowing Irish NGOs, I bet they got help. The government has argued that the pressures on Ireland's hospitality at the time were severe enough to qualify as a force majeure. Their reception centres were full to bursting and there was no room at the inn (and haven't we heard that before). The Irish High Court sought a ruling from the European Court of Justice. Last Friday, the ECJ determined that being overwhelmed and full up did not reprieve the state from its obligations under the EU Reception Conditions Directive to provide all asylum seekers with, among other things, housing, food, clothing and education for minors. Therefore, having been cheated of such provisions, the petitioners are likely due compensation. Why, those 71 days of Down and Out in Dublin could really pay off. So no matter how limitless an inundation of indigent foreigners and how finite their own resources, European states literally owe nationals from all over the world a living. Because housing is a 'human right'. (Certainly it's a human right according to the New York Democratic mayoral nominee, Zohran Mamdani, who hopes to extend the city's hitherto ruinously universal 'right to shelter'.) Food is a 'human right'. Healthcare is a 'human right' (often extending to sex-change operations). The umbrella of 'human rights' does nothing but expand and now protects not merely citizens but anyone from anywhere who rocks up on your patch. Imagine, then, that you were born in a rural area of an African country whose political rhetoric isn't so loftily supranational. If you don't scratch a few mouthfuls from your parched smallholding, you don't eat. Your 'accommodation' wouldn't naturally command such a grand label: a grass-roofed hut with a mud floor. Inside you cook on an open fire, the smoke from which is ravaging your lungs. Second-rate healthcare may be available only after a long, expensive journey. Education for your children requires school fees you may not be able to afford. Anyone in such circumstances who hears tell of a place where all these basic needs are 'human rights' even for foreigners and doesn't hightail it to such a Valhalla would have to be stupid, lazy or crazy. Brits shouldn't feel smug about no longer being required to follow the likes of the EU Reception Conditions Directive (yet; give our friend Sir Keir a bit more time), because in the UK asylum seekers are due not just free room and board, but often luxury hotel digs – with four-poster beds, video games and all-you-can-eat buffets – as well as group outings to the circus and safari parks. For British asylum seekers, even Netflix and Disney+ are 'human rights'. Funnily enough, Whitehall doesn't consider such subscriptions human rights for its own citizenry, some of whom, astonishingly, have to pay for them. This human rights business is a bigger issue than its influence on immigration. Is it really the case that the world, or at least your government, owes you a living from the off? At this point, too, maybe we should be asking what's not a human right. In fact, many folks seriously argue that access to the smartphones and the internet is now a human right. Well, we all grow hair. So shouldn't haircuts be a human right? Electricity, clean running water and indoor plumbing? If so, why should anyone pay utility bills? In both British and American cities, the effective decriminalisation of shoplifting – which progressives justify as the poor's response to 'inequality' – means just about any off-the-shelf good is a human right. Razor blades. Turtlenecks. Mayonnaise. A human right is anything you happen to need. Bloated welfare rolls suggest that opting for benefits in Britain has become a lifestyle choice. Taking advantage of a host of programmes, Americans, too, can amass more in state support than the average wage. But isn't that nice? Haven't we created a better world, in which everything is free and work is elective? That way you only take a job if it's fun. Alas, gifting sweeping human rights to some people takes other people's human rights away. Requiring the state to provide all-comers with housing, food, clothing, healthcare and, yeah, maybe even haircuts implicitly demands that the state requisition these resources from the few suckers who still work for a living. The suckers are punished twice: they provide their own basic needs – even their own safari park tickets! – and then they provide the basic needs of everyone else. Eventually the smarter dray horses will stop hauling the cart and jump in the hay wagon, too. The western welfare state disables the survival instinct – or at least reroutes it from foraging in the forest to foraging on governmental websites. State dependents apply all the cunning, ingenuity and resourcefulness they might otherwise have employed to keep body and soul together in a more Darwinian social landscape to filling out forms, researching on TikTok what phrases to use in Zoom interviews with bureaucrats and maximising motability schemes. This is where I'm supposed to add: 'Of course, advanced societies shouldn't let people starve!' But maybe this ostensibly unquestionable precept has sown the seeds of our destruction. A handful of genuinely hungry people could be usefully cautionary. Western refusal to house, feed and clothe every newcomer might encourage more would-be immigrants to make a go of things where they are. And without handouts, you can bet most of those anxious and depressed young people currently swelling the disability rolls would figure out how to obtain a sandwich before they fainted from malnutrition.
Powys County Times
17 hours ago
- Powys County Times
Higgins praises Princess Royal's ‘significant contribution' to UK-Ireland ties
Irish president Michael D Higgins has praised the 'significant contribution' the Princess Royal has made to the relationship between Ireland and the UK, during a meeting at his official residence in Dublin. Anne visited Aras an Uachtarain in what has been described as 'a courtesy call'. The King's sister met Mr Higgins and his wife, Sabina, on her second visit to the President's residence. Anne was greeted by Orla O'Hanrahan, the secretary general to Mr Higgins, and escorted to the State Reception Room where she shook hands with the President and his wife. Anne said: 'It's a little bit warmer than our usual meetings. It's a better time of year, isn't it?' She told Mr Higgins it was 'very kind of you' after he invited her to sign the visitors' book. After asking where on the page to place her signature, she said she did not want to 'waste an entire page'. Sabina told the princess: 'You deserve a whole page.' She signed it: 'Anne. 6th August 2025.' Anne remarked how the President has been in office for 'quite a long time'. Mr Higgins said he has been in the role for 14 years but his tenure will come to an end in November. After enquiring whether they spend all their time at the Aras, the couple replied 'all the time'. President Michael D. Higgins and his wife Sabina today received Her Royal Highness Princess Anne, The Princess Royal, at Áras an Uachtaráin. You can read the President's statement following the meeting at — President of Ireland (@PresidentIRL) August 6, 2025 'It's a nice spot,' Anne stated. She also praised Mr Higgins and his wife for attending a number of rugby games with her. In a statement following their meeting, Mr Higgins said: 'It was a pleasure to renew my conversations with Her Royal Highness Princess Anne, The Princess Royal, and to recognise the significant contribution which she has made over so many years to the relationship between our two countries. 'I was also pleased to recognise the contribution which The Princess Royal has made to equestrian sports over the years as well as to related learning and therapy services. 'I further took the opportunity to extend my best wishes to His Majesty King Charles and to recall his unwavering support for peace and reconciliation.' Anne is attending the official opening day of the 150th Dublin Horse Show at the Royal Dublin Society (RDS). During the visit, Anne will tour a special exhibition on the history of the show and meet representatives from Festina Lente – a Bray-based charity offering equine-assisted learning and therapy services – and the Riding for the Disabled Association Ireland. The princess, who competed in the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games in the equestrian three-day event, will also present rosettes to the winners in Class 20 of the Small Hunters competition. The British Ambassador to Ireland, Paul Johnston, said: 'The Princess Royal's visit underscores the deep and enduring friendship between the United Kingdom and Ireland, and the significance of the 150th holding of the RDS Dublin Horse Show. 'Her Royal Highness has visited Ireland on many occasions, including as patron of the Scottish Rugby Union for their biannual Six Nations games here. 'Her visit this week reflects her lifelong interest in equestrianism and charitable work.' Mr Higgins has had significant interaction with the royal family over the course of his two terms. In 2014, he became the first President of Ireland to make a State Visit to the United Kingdom, reciprocating the State Visit made by Queen Elizabeth II to Ireland in 2011. Anne visited the Aras in February 2004 during engagements where she was greeted by then-Irish president Mary McAleese. The princess was accompanied on that private visit by the British ambassador to Ireland at the time, Stewart Eldon. Members of the royal family have visited the president's residence on several occasions, including the historic trip by Queen Elizabeth II in May 2011. She was the first monarch to visit the Republic, where she signed a guest book at the Aras and planted an English oak tree at the Peace Bell. Her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, made solo visits to Aras an Uachtarain in November 1998 and again in April 2006. During their three-day visit to the Republic in 2020, the Prince and Princess of Wales – then titled the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge – had a tea party with Mr Higgins and his wife at the Aras and met one of the president's dogs, Brod.
