How soon shall we see a united Ireland? Five years? Or 10? If there is a poll on the issue of the Border, will it be held in both parts of the island? If a vote is taken, will taxpayers in this State - on whom the main financial burden of unity will fall - vote as enthusiastically in favour as they did for the Belfast Agreement? asks Mary Holland
How soon shall we see a united Ireland? Five years? Or 10? If there is a poll on the issue of the Border, will it be held in both parts of the island? If a vote is taken, will taxpayers in this State - on whom the main financial burden of unity will fall - vote as enthusiastically in favour as they did for the Belfast Agreement?
Which party is the SDLP likely to join up with if there is an overarching Irish parliament? Could the Ulster Unionist party make common cause with Fine Gael?
These are just a few of the questions thrown up by BBC Northern Ireland's Spotlight programme on Tuesday, which was devoted to "this much-overlooked issue". It was prompted by the prediction that the latest census figures in Northern Ireland are likely to show that the Catholic/nationalist minority now constitutes 46 per cent of the population.
More important, the gap between the two communities is narrowing. Official records show that there are 173,000 Catholic children of school-going age, while Protestant pupils number 146,000. The unionist population is ageing faster. Put at its most brutal, there are now two Protestant deaths for each Catholic one.
This shift is happening at a time when the two communities are physically and emotionally more divided than ever. Over half of the total population of Northern Ireland lives in areas which are either 90 per cent Catholic or Protestant. We see the bitter harvest of increasing sectarianism each night on our television screens.
This is the single most important challenge facing all the political parties in this State, but we shall hear very little about it in the forthcoming election campaign; except, of course, from Sinn Féin. None of the major parties in this State has put forward proposals as to how a future united Ireland might be negotiated or structured.
Yet even the most sanguine political scientist interviewed on the Spotlight programme, having argued that this was not an "imminent" problem, conceded that there would certainly be a nationalist majority by the second or third decade of the century.
The Belfast Agreement provides that the British government will legislate for Irish unity as soon as there is a majority in favour of it. We know the arguments why this could take longer than the polls suggest. A proportion of nationalists are happy with the present constitutional arrangements, possibly as high as 20 per cent. There is some evidence that fewer Protestant teenagers are leaving Northern Ireland to study at British universities.
The Secretary of State, Dr John Reid, may say that a united Ireland is not inevitable. But he knows that the increasingly dangerous sense of alienation which now affects the loyalist community has its roots in the belief that the demographic tide is flowing inexorably in that direction.
He is right to keep making speeches pleading for a more generous understanding of Protestant fears. As one of the pollsters speaking on the Spotlight programme put it, "There is a sense of the community retreating back to the boats at Larne, ready for the crossing to Scotland".
That is why Gerry Adams's comments at the World Economic Forum in New York last week were so important. The Sinn Féin president told a seminar on the Northern Ireland peace process: "I don't think we can force upon unionism an all-Ireland which does not have their assent or consent and does not offer them a sense of them having their own place."
Some readers may be tempted to dismiss this as nothing more than a statement of the obvious. After all, Sinn Féin signed up to the principle of consent when the party accepted the Belfast Agreement. But the party is now attempting to inject a new sense of realism into the debate, not least among its own members.
Mitchel McLaughlin recently told a gathering of Sinn Féin public representatives that the party must use its electoral strength to broaden public discussion of the issue. Each week An Phoblacht, Sinn Féin's newspaper, carries advertisements for seminars, conferences on such issues as the place of unionists in the new Ireland.
This is commendable enough, but the Sinn Féin leadership must know that there are many steps the party could take to create a more welcoming atmosphere for unionists.
I'm not talking here about the big political leaps like decommissioning or joining the new policing board, important though these obviously are. Within the day-to-day conduct of politics in Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin needs to begin to practise what Gerry Adams preaches about reaching out to unionists.
Here is just one example from this week's news. Schoolchildren in Northern Ireland are to be given a commemorative medal for Queen Elizabeth's golden jubilee. Martin McGuinness has said his Department will not pay for this.
But does he not claim to be a Minister of Education for all the people of Northern Ireland? This is exactly the kind of gesture which unionist teachers and parents, whom he still has to convince of his impartiality, would notice.
Gerry Adams has forecast that Sinn Féin will be "the big story" of the general election. If that proves to be true, we may at last get the debate on a united Ireland, which has been ignored for far too long.