Sinn Féin has introduced a Bill requiring the Dublin government to publish a Green Paper on reunification within 12 months.

The government didn’t oppose the Bill, which reaches its second stage next week. It’s unlikely to pass unamended then.

Still, it’s a major step forward, especially when viewed alongside Fine Gael’s intention to produce a ‘blueprint’ – it would be blue – for reunification by November.

Fianna Fáil are not likely to want to be left on the starting blocks.

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My colleague, Alex Kane, has questioned whether Sinn Féin and nationalism as a whole is sincere about consulting unionist representatives, particularly those from unionist parties, about reunification.

He missed the point entirely. The Bill requires the government, not Sinn Féin, to consult.

After the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement (AIA), which broke the logjam on British-Irish relations, strenuous efforts were exerted to contact political unionism and those efforts continued right up to, and after, the Good Friday Agreement.

Irish diplomats from the Department of Foreign Affairs known as ‘the travellers’ traipsed the length and breadth of the north developing contacts with unionists:........

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