IN 2020, TAOISEACH Micheál Martin declared there would be no border poll on the reunification of Ireland in the lifetime of his newly formed government. Five years on, after having been returned to power for a second run as Taoiseach, Martin has reaffirmed his commitment to remain a firewall against advancing the debate on our constitutional future, announcing last month that there would now be no border poll before 2030.

Successive governments led by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have declared that there will be no unity referendum during their lifetime.

During October’s remarks, Martin also suggested Sinn Fein had “invented” the border poll debate after Brexit, despite all evidence demonstrating that Brexit fundamentally shifted the debate on unification, most likely ushering constitutional change forward by decades.

Since the 2016 Brexit referendum, political unionism in Northern Ireland has lost its majority in local government, the Northern Ireland Assembly and at Westminster. The office of First Minister and the Leader of the Opposition are now held by nationalist parties calling for the unification of Ireland.

Personal identity has changed alongside political allegiances, with the 2021 census demonstrating a marked decline in British self-identification. Polls consistently show that people, North and South, believe Brexit has made a border poll more likely.

This isn’t an artificial debate; it’s a live issue. Pro-unity campaign groups like Ireland’s Future and pro-UK groups like Arlene Foster’s Together UK are already tilling the ground in preparation for a vote.

Academic institutions are leading the way in research across Ireland and the UK, political parties have launched their own initiatives such as the SDLP’s New Ireland Commission, there is a growing composition of books, podcasts, and bylines.

All the while the Irish government, constitutionally tasked with reunifying this island, actively blocks meaningful progress.

Martin uses the term ‘reconciliation’ as a fig leaf to conceal his abandonment of Northern Ireland; during his tenure there have been no Northern Ireland voices nominated to Seanad Eireann, the commitment to hold a referendum on extending presidential voting rights to Irish citizens in Northern Ireland and abroad was scrapped, and his flagship Shared Island Unit has not one person from Northern Ireland staffing it. Fine Gael as partners in government have been at best passive participants in limiting the participation of people from Northern Ireland.

What Martin fails to recognise is that constitutional change is, at its heart, a peace process. The reunification of Ireland is the next step in reconciliation and should be viewed through the prism of a democratic peace transition.

Ireland does not need to reinvent the wheel to develop a comprehensive peace plan to prepare and transition toward a new and agreed Ireland. There are any number of successful mechanisms from which to learn.

Examples to learn from

An essential proponent to a successful peace process is the participation of civil society; evidence demonstrates that when civil society participates, a peace agreement is 64% less likely to fail.

Participation can take many forms; in Liberia, civil society had a direct role in negotiations. In South Africa, it was the intervention of civil society that broke political deadlock and led to the creation of peace committees. In Colombia, civil society has had an active role in implementation of the peace agreement, monitoring grassroots reconciliation.

In the context of Northern Ireland, it was civil society that spent decades preparing communities for peace, from the Peace People rallies in the 1970s, to launching the first integrated education initiatives in the 1980s, to leading the ‘yes’ referendum campaign in 1998. Civil society was, and continues to be, critical to the ongoing success of the Good Friday Agreement.

There are two critical components to civil society engagement that could help facilitate a democratic peace transition in Ireland; a National Dialogue focused on public participation, and a formal civil society forum for direct engagement with government.

Sinn Féin has called for an all-island citizens assembly, but an assembly is the wrong model under these circumstances; what Ireland needs is a national dialogue.

The 2019 National dialogue in Colombia included a process for direct submissions to government, the creation of a victims’ delegation and hundreds of meetings with civil society. The government received thousands of suggestions, implementing over 50 amendments to the peace agreement.

At various stages of the country’s peace process, expansive public participation efforts had been utilized; the Colombian Truth Commission, which had a special remit centred on truth and justice, interviewed over 24,000 people as part of its engagement process.

The success of the Colombian Truth Commission in reaching underrepresented communities was in no small part due to its independence and the inclusion of grassroots communities in the execution and delivery of its functions. The Irish government could launch an independent inquiry into the constitutional future of Ireland, ceding delivery to civil society leaders who, over the course of 18 months, could lead in an all-island national dialogue focused on localised deliberative forums.

A formal New Ireland Forum designed to encompass members of civil society who can directly engage in government preparations should run in tandem. Forums for direct negotiations are commonly utilised in peace talks; the Northern Ireland Forum for Political Dialogue included 110 members elected in 1996.

A better model however could be drawn from Guatemala where over 50 organisations formed The Assembly of Civil Society (ACS), the ACS was directly responsible for key aspects of the country’s peace plan including indigenous rights.

Launching these two structures would be a modest and responsible step providing wider society with the space to reconcile with the long-term impact of partition; with indifference; with outdated stereotypes; and with the distance that can sometimes be felt between people North and South – these are natural outworkings from a debate on our shared future.

In place of an ambitious approach to spark a national debate, the government has pointed critics to the Shared Island Dialogue series within the Shared Island Unit, as an example of its work to create space for greater North-South dialogue. However, the last dialogue session was in January 2024.

Rather than expand public participation, the unit appears to be pulling back, whilst instead focusing more on the economy and infrastructure projects.

Former Taoiseach and partner-in-government Leo Varadkar has indicated he believes the Irish government has created an “artificial barrier” to a referendum, stating that Micheál Martin expects “total reconciliation” before moving on this issue – an area of disagreement between them. A true peace builder would create space for dialogue – not prevent it.

Beyond the participation of civil society, global peace processes offer any number of lessons. In South Africa, peace became a national objective complete with its own symbol and national song. In Colombia the government has adopted an all-of government approach with its “Total Peace” plan, and whilst there are of course issues, the continued investment of government resources directly contributes to sustained progress.

A border poll is not “divisive” nor is it disruptive to efforts to build reconciliation; it will be a vehicle through which to critically examine our past and fundamentally question our future.

Reunification isn’t a threat to peace; it is the path to peace.

The peace process was never about just Northern Ireland, but Ireland as a whole. The next stage is one we must, once again, face together.