Rebuilding relationships in NI more important than Border poll, Coveney says

The priority in Northern Ireland must be on mending relationships and not planning for a Border poll, the Minister for Foreign Affairs has said.

Simon Coveney said there is a “huge problem” with trust in the region and work has to be done first to “settle” the post-Brexit protocol issue and ensure that the Stormont institutions start functioning again.

“The focus for now in Northern Ireland has got to be on relationships,” he told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland on his return from the UN general assembly on Friday. “We have a new British prime minister. We have a new secretary of state. We have a new deputy secretary of state, if you like, a new foreign minister in Britain.

“We have a lot of work to do in the context of trying to settle the Northern Ireland Protocol issue.

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“We have to listen to unionism as well as, of course, to everybody else in Northern Ireland, and we have to try to make sure that the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement are functioning again because they have not been functioning for quite some time.”

According to the census people from a Catholic background now made up 45.7 per cent of the population in the North while 43.5 per cent identify as Protestant. Almost 10 per cent declare themselves as belonging to no religion.

Asked about the timing of a potential Border poll, Mr Coveney said “the priority for now has got to be on getting the institutions” of the Belfast Agreement functioning again with its 25th anniversary approaching next year.

“Of course, we have to plan for a potential change in the future and we have to respect different perspectives in relation to what that change might look like, but if we can’t build relationships, it’s very hard to to plan for that in a way that is fully inclusive,” he said.

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has said the latest census figures makes it imperative to begin planning now for a border poll and eventual unification.

Ms McDonald accused the Irish Government of inaction on this issue: “The question is, what do we do about that? Do we simply, as the Government has done so far, stick our heads in the sand and say, No, we cannot talk about the change.

“I think that’s a very dangerous course of action. I think it’s potentially a very destabilising course of action,” she said.

She said the immediate course of action was to convene a Citizens’ Assembly.”

Ms McDonald was speaking during a media conference in Dublin to announce Sinn Féin’s alternative budget. She and her party colleagues - Pearse Doherty and Mairéad Farrell - were asked by a journalist when was the last time they had attended Mass.

“I don’t think that’s an appropriate question to ask so it won’t be answered,” she replied.

She added, later: “It’s not appropriate to ask anyone, in our view, what their religious disposition is and whether they’re practicing or not. It’s just not appropriate.”

She said there had been “several straws in the wind” that showed the mood had been changing in the North, including the election of Michelle O’Neill as a nationalist first minister.

However, unionist politicians have downplayed the figures, warning against “simplistic and lazy” conclusions based on religious headcount and emphasising political opinions could not be extrapolated from religious allegiance. - Additional reporting PA