How many of us think that unification is no longer a priority and don't really want unification ?

That is as simple as leadership change tbh.

Michael Martin has been shown to run his party by dictat, he has maneouvered himself into a position on it that he can't back off from.

will that change in FF, yes.
Is FG changing on the matter, signs of that too.

Unionism continues to decline and calls from NI get stronger (SDLP getting increasingly antsy waiting) and the UK will have no choice but to call one.

It will change and change very quickly IMO.

Fact is, FF and FG got comfortable with the power swapping between them over the decades. So comfortable did it become, they have revealed it became a sham fight between them by easily and tacitly merging to keep power.

It's my opinion as to why a UI has not been prioritised by the main two parties of government here since partition and in answer to a poster who wondered why it hadn't been prioritised.
You are entitled to your own view.

How do they express how much they care?

They need to be asked the question, they need this to be discussed in a serious way by a government responding to the constitutional mandate that aspires to a UI.
That is being sytmied by forces within the two main political parties, As evidenced by Leo Varadkar's advocacy for a UI as soon as he slipped the clutches of his parties control.
Will that happen?
Yes, I think it will, we are on a path now that will inexorably lead to the question being asked. I'm not alone in thinking that it is inevitable the question will be asked now.

So outline a strategy for parties not in power to make it a priority?

You'll soon run into the same answer. Constitutional change has to be led by governing parties.

How much onus you put on a governing party to fulfill or even start the process of fulfilling a constitutional aim is up to you. It is in the constitution because guess who? cared about it enough to enshrine it there via referendum.

...edit ... blah

Even recently we can not afford N.I.

As of March 2026, Ireland's gross national debt is approximately €229.2 billion,, with an average debt of around €38,460 per person….that is one of the highest in the world, despite all the EU handouts we got, the FDI from America etc.

As of early 2026, nearly 320,000 households in Ireland are in arrears on their electricity bills, a record high representing roughly one in seven households.

Few people under 40 can afford to buy a home. Imagine what the economy in Ireland would be like if we had to divert a reasonable amount of money to our defence forces, because our "neutrality" is a joke - we depend on other countries to do the heavy lifting for us.

There is a myth, mainly emanating from those anti a UI that what is on offer is some sort of debt free Republican nirvana.
No serious UIers are offering that.

A UI will have all the challenges of any modern western economy and society.

People are being failed in both jurisdictions at the moment particularly NI. It cannot function properly and never has since partition.

Question will be, is a whole island of constitutionally recognised equals with the inherent economies of scale and absence of wasted double spending better placed to look after all of it's population in a modern world?

This only works if you live in a bubble where 'we' are insulated from what happens in NI.

Surely the painful and tragic reality that we aren't should have dawned on people by now.

NI is a failed statelet and that shows no signs of changing under it's current uncaring governance. Tarrif free access isn't going to change anything much bar on a balance sheet.

Northern Ireland's governance is led by Sinn Fein. I would agree with you that it is uncaring.

The package they have put in place in response to the fuel crisis is miserable and miserly compared to what our Government has done here.

The mythmaking that NI is governed in the same way as here continues.

Not worth correcting your likes yet again as it has been done many times and blithely ignored.

I would imagine a UI would still involve the 6 retaining some form of free trade access and free movement of people to the UK for at least the next hundred years. It certainly won't be the seismic break people think it would be.

So in the event of a U.I., you think a border would continue in Ireland for another 100 years, and in the new 32 country "Republic of Ireland" people in Donegal or Dundalk would be at a disadvantage in not having free trade access to Britain, the same as their neighbours in Derry or Newry would have? That would be discriminatory against some of the citizens of the new 32 county Republic. I though a Republic should treat all its citizens equally?

No, that's not what I said.

I'm simply saying that a large section of Northern Irish folk will want to retain their UK citizenship and the associated benefits thereof. The people of Donegal or Louth won't enjoy those benefits unless they are UK passport holders, I guess. It stands to reason that there would need to be a long transitional run in for a UI to work.

You said "I would imagine a UI would still involve the 6 retaining some form of free trade access".

That would be interesting as at the moment all EU countries have to charge import duty / tariffs etc on goods coming from Britain, and vice versa.

You suggest a 32 county new Republic of Ireland, cherishing all its citizens equally, would not have to do that in the case of a U.I.

Not very consistent.

If you think a border would continue in Ireland after a U.I, allowing free trade between the 6 counties and Britain, do you, as I asked FrancieBrady, think

" Would the different tax rates still apply to VRT between Belcoo and Blacklion? Could Belcoo, Co. Fermanagh residents hold on to their FREE doctor visits and NHS in a U.I.? Would public servants and pensioners be paid the same in Belcoo compared with a few hundred meters away in Blacklion? Would VAT continue to be payable on housing on the south side of the border as it is now, with no VAT north of the border as it is now?"