TIME FOR POLL ON UNITED IRELAND, SAYS SINN FEIN

Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams TD on Monday reiterated his position on a border poll and said that the Northern Executive and the Irish government ‘must uphold the vote of the electorate in the north to remain in the EU’, despite almost universal objection to his stance.

Mr Adams said: ‘ The Brexit decision will inevitably impact on the two economies on this island.

‘ The fact that the border will now become an international border between an EU member state and a non-member creates particular concerns for the people of Louth.

‘ There is now a huge responsibility on the Irish government to think nationally – that is with an all-island view.

‘ The government, as a co-equal guarantor of the agreement, also has a responsibility to defend the Good Friday Agreement and its political institutions.

‘ The British decision also puts at risk the human rights legislation that underpins much of the Agreement and the all-Ireland structures.

‘ The people in the north voted to remain a part of the EU. English votes threaten to drag it out of the EU. It is imperative that this democratic deficit is challenged.

‘Sinn Féin believes that this can best be achieved by the maximum cooperation between the Executive and the government in Dublin upholding the vote of the electorate in the north. In the time ahead this should include a referendum on the border’.

But the call for the border poll has been slammed by politicians across the island, including Stormont First Minister Arlene Foster and Louth TDs Peter Fitzpatrick and Declan Breathnach.

The Fianna Fail TD said Sinn Féin calls for a border poll ‘would muddy the waters at this stage, and putting that in the mix will not solve the problem (of the Brexit).

‘ The bottom line is I don’t think Ireland, north and south, can afford a united Ireland, unless there is a huge injection of money from the EU or Britain.’

Mr Fitzpatrick added he was not in favour of a Sinn Fein suggestion of a border poll in the wake of the North’s vote to remain in the EU.

He said: ‘I hope that Gerry Adams doesn’t play politics with the aftermath of Brexit. This is a very serious situation and we need to make sure that Ireland is looked after.

‘I would be very disappointed if he makes a political football out of this’.

Mr Adams’s constituency colleague, Imelda Munster TD, criticised Mr Breathnach and Fianna Fail’s position on a united Ireland, calling it ‘ typically confused and partitionist’, and accused her former Louth County Council contemporary of ‘ living in cloud cuckoo land’.

She said: ‘Deputy Breathnach says we should respect the outcome of the vote. He also states that ‘as an island we must stand united’.

‘ The northern six counties of this island voted to stay with the EU. Will Deputy Breathnach stand with his fellow Irish citizens in the north who voted to remain or will he stand with those Little Englanders who voted to leave?

‘ The Fianna Fáil position on this issue is typically confused and partitionist.

‘Worse, he wants the Irish government to meet with the British Secretary of State Theresa Villiers, who campaigned to leave the EU, to discuss how to protect the border region. Declan Breathnach is living in cloud cuckoo-land’.