EVEN if you haven’t read eminent books on a United Ireland or distinguished university papers on the new dispensation of economics, the atmosphere tastes of constitutional change. It is in the air.

In some ways it’s like early 1994, despite the horror and the clearly savage military policies surrounding us we knew peace was coming. It was not inevitable but the environment was of change, and caught few by surprise. Knowing that gives us the opportunity to engage with complex, and indeed uncomfortable, questions now, while there is still time for thoughtfulness.  

While there is a necessary and pointed concentration on matters of health, education and economy there are other issues that require attention. Victims and survivors have been engaged in a parallel debate regarding basic rights yet the two debates have not been formally joined. 

Right now London and the English people have completely disengaged from the North of Ireland in their hearts as well as their minds. They don’t just see us as devolved, they see all of us on this island as separate. They don’t care. That is a hard truth for those who live here and care about that connection. One indicator is that there is no longer a Tory MP with credibility that is identifiably unionist.

Meanwhile, the connection with London is doing daily harm to the lives of those living on this island and changing that is worth talking about not just in the abstract. If the London government cared one jot about citizens living here or the impact of their governance upon us the Legacy Bill would have been scrapped last year when first mooted. That it will be law by the end of the month, with a former devolved Lord Chief Justice at its helm to mange the flak and inevitable failure, tells us that they want no post-border poll legacy for their British squaddies, generals or policy-makers and to hell with those harmed by them or anyone else. 

That we will be having the conversation for constitutional change with this as a backdrop should enrage us and  inform the debate at a fundamental level. Britain is not a good-faith player. 

How will we build anew after a century of partition, chaos and repression and a brutal conflict and in the context of this legislation and its own impact? Generationally harmed citizens for whom law was used as a tool to further harm and abuse, on both sides of the border, will have particular and pointed concerns and needs as change happens. These will not diminish in a new Ireland. 

The rights to information, truth, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence will need to form part of the settlement. For those harmed by the British state, where will the avenues to compellability go? For those harmed by republicans, how will they be assured that a New Ireland will not compound their injury? These are just two of the complex questions that will need to be addressed. And cannot be sidelined.
 
A new Ireland will be a fresh start, but it will not draw a line under the past. The past will be present and carry into the new arrangements. Victims and survivors of the conflict, and of partition’s consequences, must be guaranteed the dignity of acknowledged rights. The time for planning that, along with other matters, is now.