{"id":561090,"date":"2026-06-30T06:02:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T06:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/561090\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T06:02:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T06:02:18","slug":"soundbites-on-irish-unity-not-helpful-says-taoiseach-after-recent-ocallaghan-comments-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/561090\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Soundbites\u2019 on Irish unity not helpful, says Taoiseach, after recent O\u2019Callaghan comments \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Building all-island relationships requires \u201ca hard slog\u201d and not \u201crhetoric, slogans and soundbites\u201d, Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> has said, just days after Minister for Justice Jim O\u2019Callaghan<\/a>\u2019s declaration that the next government should plan for unity.<\/p>\n

In words that could be interpreted as a criticism of his Cabinet colleague, Martin said: \u201cI believe in the hard slog of working to build relationships, and, you know, I read a lot about the history of this island.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing I\u2019m absolutely certain about is that rhetoric, slogans, soundbites will achieve nothing and won\u2019t achieve a Border poll,\u201d the Taoiseach told a Shared Island conference in Dublin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Government\u2019s \u20ac2 billion Shared Island<\/a> Fund, which is spending money on cross-Border bridges, roads and railways and a slew of other projects, has succeeded because it has not become embroiled in the constitutional debate, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has basically enjoyed the support of every aspect of political tradition in communities around Ireland, and that should not be underestimated or underappreciated,\u201d he told his audience.<\/p>\n

His words come just days after O\u2019Callaghan told an SDLP-organised unity conference in Belfast that the next Irish government should begin preparing for unity, partly because the timetable for a Border poll could be set by English politicians for English interests.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Next government must prepare for Irish unity, Jim O\u2019Callaghan tells Belfast conferenceOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Some Fianna F\u00e1il<\/a> members have been irritated by Martin\u2019s more cautious instincts on Northern Ireland<\/a>, and this criticism has intensified following O\u2019Callaghan\u2019s intervention, and an earlier one by Fine Gael<\/a> leader and T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris<\/a> who has said his party would have \u201ca blueprint for unity\u201d ready by November. <\/p>\n

Pointedly, however, Martin, speaking at the fifth Shared Island forum in Dublin, said people should read the recently-published memoir of former Fianna F\u00e1il leader and taoiseach Se\u00e1n Lemass, who first opened a dialogue with Northern Ireland prime minister, Terence O\u2019Neill.<\/p>\n

Saying he believed in unity, Martin went on: \u201cI encourage people to read it and look at the pragmatism, but also the frustration of Lemass in the late 1960s when he was saying to himself that all the rhetoric of the previous three decades had achieved nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the last five years, Martin said he had called for the rules governing the operation of Stormont to be changed because they are \u201cfailing\u201d. The rules should ensurethe Assembly and Executive cannot be collapsed by one party quitting.<\/p>\n

However, everyone on the island must understand that the three-stranded relationship outlined by the Belfast Agreement \u2013 relations within Northern Ireland, between North and South and between Ireland and Britain \u2013 will have to continue, even after unity, Martin said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose three strands will always be part of whatever happens in the future. There will always be a British dimension, there will always be a North-South dimension,\u201d he told the forum.<\/p>\n

Irish Ministers and their Stormont colleagues are now working closely together on major policy questions in the North South Ministerial Council: \u201cWho would\u2019ve thought that possible six years ago?\u201d<\/p>\n

There should be far more co-operation between the Industrial Development Authority and its Northern equivalent, Invest NI, the Taoiseach added. \u201cI\u2019ve said this to the IDA, in particular, they need to really think on an all-island basis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Questioned about weekend opinion polling which suggest that a third of people in the Republic now want a hard border with Northern Ireland to curb asylum seeker numbers, Martin said he wondered if such people know what a hard border means.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s only when it would manifest itself that a lot of people [would] oppose it \u2013 when they would find out that movement impeded,\u201d he said, adding a hard border would \u201cactually injure and impede a lot of the basic rights that we take for granted\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Building all-island relationships requires \u201ca hard slog\u201d and not \u201crhetoric, slogans and soundbites\u201d, Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin has said,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[23936,9,10,23935,52,18,13,14,4771,553,6,19,17,26735,11,12,15,16,5765,5,239735,954,119739,44,51349,7,8],"class_list":["post-561090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-belfast-agreement","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-common-ground","tag-dublin","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-fianna-fail","tag-fine-gael","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jim-ocallaghan","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-micheal-martin","tag-news","tag-north-south-ministerial-council","tag-northern-ireland","tag-shared-island","tag-simon-harris","tag-stormont-assembly","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116837544521174063","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}