Skip to main content

Wouldn’t it be better?

                                              

Wouldn’t it be better if the British government, the Irish government and the DUP upheld the Brexit referendum vote in the North to remain in the EU?
Yes                             No
Wouldn’t it be better if there was no hard border?
Yes                             No
Wouldn’t it be better if there was no border at all?
Yes                             No
Wouldn’t it be better if the rights of every citizen on the island of Ireland were upheld in law?
Yes                             No
Wouldn’t it be better if the British government honoured its commitments under the Good Friday and subsequent Agreements?
Yes                             No
Wouldn’t it be better if the Irish government honoured its commitments under the Good Friday and subsequent Agreements?
Yes                             No
Wouldn’t it be better if the British government refused to accept a Unionist veto over the rights of citizens available elsewhere on these islands, except the North?
Yes                             No
Wouldn’t it be better if the Irish government pro-actively and publicly campaigned for these rights and for the right of Irish citizens living in the North and overseas to vote in Presidential elections?
Yes                             No
Wouldn’t it be better if the Irish government honoured the commitment in the Good Friday Agreement negotiations to allow MPs elected in the North to attend and speak in the Dáil -without voting rights?
Yes                             No
Wouldn’t it be better if the British government accepted the right of citizens in the North to identify as Irish or British or both and to honour that right in legislation?
Yes                             No
Wouldn’t it be better if the Irish government privately and publicly challenged the British government on its refusal to accept the right of citizens in the North, enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement, to identity as Irish?
Yes                             No
Wouldn’t it be better if our future was based on tolerance and rights?
Yes                             No
Wouldn’t it be better if there was no place for sectarian politics, segregation, gender or racial discrimination?
Yes                             No
Wouldn’t it be better if the island of Ireland was a leader in tackling climate change?
Yes                             No
Wouldn’t it be better if every citizen had the right to a home, to a job, to education at all levels and access to health care at the point of delivery?
Yes                             No
Wouldn’t it be better if we lived in a society in which neither gender or race, age or disability, sexual orientation or class, or creed or skin colour or location was used to deny citizens their full rights and entitlements?
Yes                             No
Wouldn’t it be better to live in a society – a place of opportunity and equality in which there is no denial of rights and where every single person, despite our differences, is equal?
Yes                             No
Wouldn’t it be better if there was full co-operation across our island on public services, as well as agriculture, tourism, fishing, the environment, health, education, policing and other services?
Yes                             No
Wouldn’t it be better if health services in the North were available to people from the South and vice versa?
Yes                             No
Wouldn’t it be better if we lived in a society that upheld and defended workers’ rights, ended the crisis in housing and homelessness across this island?
Yes                             No
Wouldn’t it be better if we had an all-island economy that created more employment, better paid jobs, ended the scourge of zero hour contracts, and treated workers with respect?
Yes                             No
Wouldn’t it be better if we had one policing and justice system for the island of Ireland?
Yes                             No
Wouldn’t it be better if these matters were agreed between the people who live on the island of Ireland without interference from others?
Yes                             No
Wouldn’t it be better to live in a new, shared Ireland in which people of all religions and none, whether unionist or nationalist or republican or none, have the same entitlement to the full ownership of that new Ireland??
Yes                             No
Wouldn’t it be better if we started planning for this?
Yes                             No
Wouldn’t it be better if the people of the North and the South on the opportunity to agree on our future?
Yes                             No
Wouldn’t it be better if, instead of engaging in negative carping and criticising as divisive efforts to achieve a united, modern and shared Ireland, Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and others in the South agreed to establish a Forum which could plan for and win a United Ireland?
Yes                             No
Wouldn’t it be better if the Irish government supported the demand for a referendum on Irish Unity as set out in the Good Friday Agreement?
Yes                             No



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

There can be no preconditions

Blog January 21st 10 Apparently the DUP were sitting up at Stormont Castle on Thursday waiting for the Shinners to come and talk to them. Strange. This Blog had told Peter Robinson late the evening before that that phase of our discussions was over. I told him there would be a Sinn Féin national officer board meeting on Thursday and a report from Martin McGuinness on the negotiations would be discussed. The failure of the DUP thus far to come up to the plate during the current round of negotiations shouldn’t come as any great surprise. The DUP are looking over their shoulder at Jim Allister and then there are the ‘secret’ talks between the UUs and the DUP and talk of electoral pacts. That’s their own business and nothing to get too excited about. Except to note they told us they couldn’t do any business on the Sabbath – the very day they were busy on unionist unity business. But lest we forget the DUP was born out of the anti civil rights politics of the late 60s and the firebrand unio...

Remembering Bobby Sands.

In 1973 just before midnight on Christmas Eve, I was caught along with three other comrades attempting to escape from Long Kesh. We were among a large group of men and women interned without charge or trial. My first bout of internment was on the Maidstone Prison Ship in 1972. Internees-the British later called us detainees as part of their fiction that internment was ended – were held in Armagh Women’s Gaol, Belfast Prison, Magilligan, and Long Kesh. In July 1974 I was caught again in another escape bid. Steve McQueen I was not. The following March 1975 I was taken out to court where I was convicted on the first escape attempt and received an 18 month sentence. A month later I was convicted of the second escape attempt and got another three years. Then as the rest of the internees were being released a small group of us nearly got-aways were moved out of the internee end of Long Kesh to the top end of the camp where the sentenced POWs were held. We were incarcerated in Cage...

Remembering Bobby and his comrades

Today marks the anniversary of the death of my friend and comrade Bobby Sands on the sixty sixth day of hunger strike. I don’t remember the first time I met Bobby. I had been interned in Long Kesh and was sentenced for trying to escape and found myself in Cage 11, in another part of the camp which held sentenced political prisoners. Bobby was already one of those in the Cage. The cages were literally that - a large space surrounded by a high wire fence in which there were four Nissan huts, a study hut and a toilet shower hut. In the sentenced end of Long Kesh these each held around 80 prisoners. In Cage 11 one of the Nissan huts was also a Gaeltacht for those wanting to learn the Irish language and that’s were Bobby was. I remember him as a keen sportsman who played soccer or gaelic football whenever he got the chance. He had long hair, a good sense of humour and liked music. He was very good on the guitar. I remember sitting in the study hut writing while he would be practic...