Border poll is ‘inevitable’ but not for 10 years, claims ex-Taoiseach
FORMER Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has said a border poll by the end of the decade is “inevitable” — but he believes if the vote was to happen today “it would fail”.
The former Fianna Fail leader made his comments on LBC radio on Saturday morning, when asked whether the unification of Ireland would happen in his lifetime.
Mr Ahern said the issue of a border poll is “growing all the time” and was brought “centre stage” following the Brexit referendum in June 2016.
“If the work is done, if the preparatory work is done, if we can hold out the hand of friendship to unionists and loyalists ... I think somewhere in this decade,” the former Dublin Central TD said.
“I think more towards the end of the decade.
“I think it’s a possibility.
“It is now fairly well 50/50 in Northern Ireland in terms of people that want to see unification,” he added.
But Mr Ahern said two things would have to happen first.
The first is allowing the new Stormont Executive to bed in for a number of years, and the second is preparing for how a united Ireland would function in terms of policing and criminal justice systems.
Mr Ahern, a key architect of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, said: “The institutions in Northern Ireland, which have just recently been reset up, have to run for a sustainable period to show that they can work together across parties and across various religious divides and that they can operate together.”
The former Irish premier said the outcome of the vote would be based on “the case that’s made” following qualitative and analytic work.
If a poll was taken today, Mr Ahern believes it would not pass due to financial issues and because “people are not prepared anymore to see coercion of unionists or loyalists into a united Ireland until there’s a comfort zone established where people see that everyone could work together”.