Opinion

Jim Gibney: The momentum for change is unstoppable

The Leaders' Debate was just one of the discussion events at Feile an Phobail. Picture by Hugh Russell
The Leaders' Debate was just one of the discussion events at Feile an Phobail. Picture by Hugh Russell The Leaders' Debate was just one of the discussion events at Feile an Phobail. Picture by Hugh Russell

BIG ideas about the future of Ireland and its people brought big and record-breaking crowds to Féile an Phobal's debates and discussions.

For 10 days St Mary's University College resembled an Irish national debating chamber - an Oireachtas - with elected politicians from the Dáil, Seanad, Assembly, Westminster and Europe eagerly offering up their views about Ireland's future to a diverse audience of community and political activists, feminists and trade unionists and Féile aficionados.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar rang the bell for the national debate to begin when he launched Féile's 30th la breithe, birthday gig, a few months ago in St Mary's.

His involvement and the participation of TDs and Seanadoirí gave the debates and the issues aired an all-important national setting.

Lessons to be learned for the future here from post-apartheid South Africa, especially on the economic and equality front; the conduct of referenda campaigns in Scotland and Catalonia and the ill-thought out Brexit poll in Britain echoed throughout the debates.

The backdrop to the discussions created a sense that Ireland is in transition to a new and different Ireland.

And it was the "difference" that unionists and those participants from a Protestant background particularly wanted the detail of; while others from that background opposed any notions of change.

A growing acceptance that a border poll was not only 'inevitable' but 'necessary' prompted calls for new language to frame the lead into a border poll with an emphasis on a 'new' Ireland.

And that this new Ireland be 'co-designed' with unionists to avoid the Brexit-type chaos and uncertainty in Britain being visited on Ireland in a pre- and post-unity border poll situation.

To avoid such a scenario, it was suggested that a national civic assembly be established similar to the citizens' assemblies which advised the Irish government on marriage equality and abortion law reform.

A civic assembly could advise on the wording of a border poll and hear submissions on a range of concerns from unionists about guaranteeing their cultural identity and British heritage and concerns from everyone about the quality of health, education and welfare services in a new Ireland.

The debates around the referenda campaigns in Scotland and Catalonia were of particular interest for the light they shed on motivating a vote which shifted from a traditional constituency opposed to independence and joined a completely new vote which boosted the independence vote.

The journalist and broadcaster Paul Mason said there were many and different factors which shaped this mood in both referenda: economics, austerity, modernisation, self-government and progressive cosmopolitan nationalism.

For the advocates of a new Ireland this is worth a detailed study as is the shifting mood among unionists here which began when they voted to remain in the EU referendum and continued in the last assembly election when the unionist parties lost their majority for the first time since partition.

The financial journalist Paul Gosling argued for preparations to begin now for north-south economic integration towards achieving an all island economy, where both Sterling and the Euro were accepted; with a harmonised corporation tax and a single job creating agency for the whole island; a £10bn investment in infrastructure from the British government and EU investment to help with the cost and social pressures involved in Irish reunification.

The politics of transition sat alongside the politics of here and now with eight events dedicated to discussing legacy and the failure of the British government to implement the Stormont House Agreement.

'The Good Friday Agreement: The Women in the Room' was one of the best attended events on the Féile clár.

It was a stinging reminder that 100 years after the suffragette movement won the vote for some women and pioneered the breakthrough for universal suffrage for women that they continue to struggle for recognition.

The absence of women from the events earlier this year to mark the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement prompted Andree Murphy, columnist, broadcaster and Relatives for Justice deputy director to host the event.

This year's special anniversary Féile has generated lots of new ideas and kick-started a debate about the future just as it did in August 1988.

The momentum for change is unstoppable. The destination: a new and inclusive Ireland.

It is entirely achievable.