25-04-2025
- Politics
- Belfast Telegraph
Sinn Féin President backs unity referendum by 2030 saying Irish Government ‘can't bury its head in sand', on The Late Late Show
On The Late Late Show host Patrick Kielty said he wanted to talk about North and South as Ms McDonald had said at the weekend she believes a United Ireland referendum would happen before the end of the decade.
Kielty said the only way that can happen under the Good Friday Agreement is with the approval of Northern Ireland Secretary of State.
He referenced a recent poll by the Irish Times ARINS project says 34% in the North favour it and asked how that is going to change in the next five years.
The Sinn Féin leader said she believes that 'we're living in the end days of partition'.
She added: 'Actually, this year marks a century since the Boundary Commission partitioned our island.
'So a century ago, people in Tyrone, in your own home county of County Down, woke up one morning and everything had changed for them and they had been left behind. And then the history unfolded, as we know.
'We're now at a point where we have real opportunities, economically, socially, to build an Ireland that creates wealth, prosperity, happiness, security for our entire island population.
'And I think we need to grasp that. And I also know that we need to plan for it. One of the astonishing things is that in the absence of any substantive debate, that you have 34% of the population north of the border saying, yes, I favour this.
'I believe that as the conversation deepens and as we listen to each other carefully and as the opportunities become more apparent, I believe that support will grow. But the government here in Dublin has to lead that.
'They can't bury their heads in the sand.'
Mr Kielty made the point that it isn't about economics but a 'hearts and minds thing' and the DUP and those who are British have to be 'persuaded'.
Ms McDonald responded: 'Of course we do. Of course we do. And that's on the one hand the great challenge of this process, but that's actually what makes it interesting.
'That's what makes it exciting. And by the way, if you are British in a partitioned Ireland, you will be British in a united Ireland. That's who you are. That's your identity. We're not trying to challenge that.
'But I'm saying very directly that this island, this entire economy is better off as a single unit. And there's evidence of that already. I mean, in the time of the Good Friday Agreement, the all-Ireland trade was somewhere in the region of about two billion.
'It's now, what, about 14 billion all those years on. The border is a liability for us. We have unfinished business, and I think we should have this as a national project that we reconcile, we unite our island, and we build a place where our young people, all of them, whatever their background, have their right chance here at home and that we're not seeing them unscathed.'
Kielty suggested Sinn Féin as a party should lay out its plan for a united Ireland,
Ms McDonald said there should be conversations about issues such as health care and setting out values, adding, 'I'm not going to hand down on tablets of stone, this is how it shall be.'
She said there has to be a defined democratic space where that conversation happens and repeated that the current government in Dublin has to lead in that regard, pointing to north-south engagement on the Brexit issue with input from hauliers and business people.
When speaking to women from the unionist community, she said, they want to talk about healthcare, about their children and grandchildren and about how tomorrow can be better.
The Co Down presenter agreed, but said when he speaks to the same people they want to talk about those issues while still being part of the UK.
Ms McDonald accepted there will be people who are 'absolutely committed to a unionist position' and 'that's okay' as across the island there are committed nationalists and republicans, unionists and others.
She said there is also a 'whole swathe of people in the middle' who 'ultimately need to be engaged in this conversation', describing it as a 'really exciting time it's a time of opportunity'.
In a wide-ranging interview Kielty and Ms McDonald also spoke of dealing with the loss of parents in recent times.
The republican leader praised Pope Francis for championing the 'underdog' recognising how he rang Gaza City every evening, 'even when he was really, really sick and struggling himself' which 'told the world who he was'.
She also ruled herself out of running for President of Ireland and said her party was undecided when it comes to fielding their own candidate or backing someone from outside of Sinn Féin.
