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Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland
Gerry Adams leads Sinn Féin members in launching the Easter Lily campaign at Leinster House last week.
# United Ireland?
Adams outlines seven-point plan for a United Ireland
The Sinn Féin president outlines seven points which he says can build popular support for reunification on both sides of the border.
THE PRESIDENT of Sinn Féin, Gerry Adams, has outlined seven points of a plan which he believes could lead to a United Ireland.
Speaking from Cork, where he is attending events to mark the anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising, Adams outlined a series of “key strategic goals” which, if followed, would lead to greater support for a reunited Ireland on both sides of the border.
“To achieve reunification will require the consent of a majority of the people voting in referenda North and South,” Adams said, adding that the Irish were “an island people in transition”.
Adams’ seven points are:
- To popularise re-unification as viable, achievable and in the best interests of all and to build consensus for this;
- To encourage all non-unionist political parties and sections of civic society to become persuaders and actors for reunification;
- To convince a section of unionist opinion that their identity, self-interest and quality of life will be best served, secured and guaranteed in a united Ireland;
- To challenge those who would seek to maintain the status quo;
- To ensure the Irish Government act on the constitutional imperative of reunification;
- To encourage the British Government to become persuaders for reunification;
- To build on international political and practical support for reunification drawing in particular on the support and influence of the diaspora.
The Louth TD said reunification also made economic sense, and that in the Republic, “more and more people realise that we do not have a real republic”.
Separately, Adams described the vision of the Fiscal Compact treaty as being “the complete opposite” of that of the original Proclamation of Independence of 1916.
“This Treaty would entrench austerity policies in the constitution,” Adams said, complaining that ratification of the treaty would mean “another significant reduction of our sovereignty and a handover of our democratic rights of Irish people/
That’s not the vision of 1916. It is the complete opposite of the Proclamanation.
Adams appealed to householders who had rejected the household charge, “and the many others who were coerced and bulled into paying it”, to vote No to the treaty.
