On a slightly more positive note, I commend and congratulate our Uachtarán nua, Catherine Connolly, on her inauguration yesterday. Many of us were privileged to attend the ceremony. On behalf of my group, I wish her well in her term. I have every confidence that she will be an excellent President, following the course of previous Presidents who have also distinguished the office. I had thought when I was at the inauguration ceremony yesterday that I might be the only representative present from County Armagh, but I realised afterwards that the Church of Ireland archbishop is from Lurgan, the Presbyterian moderator is from Tandragee and the Methodist minister is from Portadown. Therefore, the county was very well represented. More is the pity that the deputy First Minister, who is from Markethill, was unable to attend and did not nominate someone to represent her in her place. The presence of people from my county brought home the fact that while we were able to attend, and while the reverend gentlemen were able to participate in the service associated with the inauguration, none of us can vote for our President. That is an anomaly that has persisted for far too long. Commitments were made some 13 years ago to address this, yet here we are beginning a seven-year mandate without the ability to extend voting rights to citizens north of the Border and to the diaspora. Surely the Government must now, with some urgency and having committed to addressing this issue under previous mandates, begin to do so.

There was much to commend in the speech an tUachtarán Connolly made yesterday, particularly her reference to the imperative in Article 3 of the Constitution for reunification. In that sense, I share the anger and frustration of many people, particularly those north of the Border but also those across the island generally, at the casual dismissal by the British Secretary of State, Hilary Benn, of all efforts to have conversations and make preparations in that regard. We are used to arrogant dismissals by unionists of our legitimate aspirations, as reflected in the Good Friday Agreement, but for such a dismissal to come from a British Secretary of State, whose job is supposed to be that of an honest broker, was reprehensible. I ask the Leader to raise this matter with the Tánaiste. The Tánaiste should engage directly with the British Secretary of State in the North and remind him not only that there is an imperative under the Constitution to seek reunification of the country but also that doing so is a legitimate right under the Good Friday Agreement and that that right must be supported and reflected by a British Secretary of State and not dismissed.

It is patently untrue to say there is no conversation ongoing when the conversation is happening all around him. The inaction of the current Government in this regard lends itself to him making such an assertion and I would like the Government to engage, as it promised to in its manifesto, in active preparation for reunification.