Opinion

Jim Gibney: Presidential election debate can reawaken sympathy for a new Ireland

Sinn Féin Vice President Michelle O'Neill and MEP Liadh Ní­ Riada, the party's candidate in the presidential election
Sinn Féin Vice President Michelle O'Neill and MEP Liadh Ní­ Riada, the party's candidate in the presidential election Sinn Féin Vice President Michelle O'Neill and MEP Liadh Ní­ Riada, the party's candidate in the presidential election

IRELAND's presidential election next month is taking place at a time of great change and opportunity for all the people of this island.

The people are modernising Ireland – sometimes with the help of their political leaders; other times without their help.

The pace of that change has been breathtaking compared with the slow pace of change over the previous decades.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the two referenda in the south where the people voted for gay marriage and abortion reform.

And in the north change of similar significance has occurred: a majority of people (unionists and nationalists) voted to remain in the EU; the unionist parties lost their majority in the assembly for the first time in nearly 100 years and a demographic trend suggests a nationalist voting majority in a few years.

A majority which could vote in a border poll to end partition and usher in a new independent Ireland.

And if everything goes according to plan the presidential election, after the next one, will see, for the first time, a truly national election where all the people of this island will be able to vote for this nation's president.

Next May a referendum in the south will be held to change the constitution to allow this to happen.

Those candidates involved in the current election campaign need to reflect on the winds of change that are blowing across this country and tailor their manifestos to ensure a debate takes place about their vision of what a new Ireland – post partition – would look like.

Unlike any other election the election for president lends itself easily to such a national debate because the office of president is the one state institution defined in national terms – President of Ireland.

Almost 100 years of partition has engrained partitionist thinking, north and south in the minds of politicians, the media and consequently the popular mind.

Such an insular outlook has made the task of thinking and acting nationally rare – with the exception of Sinn Féin.

Politicians and state institutions in the south are complacent, lazy and visionless.

The election debate in the lead up to polling day can be a platform for an informed, rational and positive discussion about a new Ireland.

With the correct tone it could help unlock the partitionist mind-set and release intellectual and practical energy at all levels.

It should be a lot easier in this election, compared to the last one, to debate a new Ireland in terms of reconciliation and the rights and entitlements of the unionist people; the new political structures needed to facilitate such a huge unionist minority; a new economic model to deliver a welfare state, functioning and fully financed and resourced to deliver a first class national health service and other services similar to that which existed in Britain before the Tories aggressive privatisation programme.

Easier because the prejudiced media and politicians do not have the IRA to insert into the debate as they did last time because Martin McGuinness was a candidate.

This argument, largely contrived, is a spent force; an echo from another period in history.

The people want to hear about polices and plans to deal with finally resolving the legacy of the conflict in favour of relative’s needs; to sensibly conclude Brexit.

They are more interested in hearing about policies to reverse the decline and deprivation in rural Ireland; in a house building programme; to end the homeless crisis; a fairer tax system to end the punitive tax regime foist on working people to pay for the government’s bail out for well-off bankers.

It took some time for the Irish government to realise that the Brexit crisis had national implications and not only state implications.

And that they had to have a national plan and argument for dealing with it.

The marshalling of the EU behind its demands to protect the Irish economy, north and south and to face the British government with such a united front is a template which can be used to end partition.

The presidential election debate can contribute to marshalling the mood of the Irish people to reawaken the sympathy that is there for a new Ireland.

In these new times a new approach is urgently needed.