United Ireland 'screwed' without Protestant support

Máirtín Ó Muilleoir is a former minister in the Stormont Executive

"If we don't have the Presbyterians in Ulster on our side in a new Ireland, we are definitely screwed."

Former Sinn Féin executive minister Máirtín Ó Muilleoir believes there will be a border poll and that constitutional change is coming in Ireland.

But he says unionist engagement is important.

"Every time I meet a unionist, what do they want to talk about? They want to talk about a united Ireland," he told BBC News NI's Red Lines podcast.

"Either they're afraid of it, or they're not afraid of it."

'Unionists are engaging'

The former Lord Mayor of Belfast, who left frontline politics in 2019, added: "Or what will it mean for their business, or what will it mean for their culture or their sport?

"So the reality is that unionists are engaging with the issue".

Máirtín Ó Muilleoir said he believed a new Ireland was possible, even if he may not live to see it

On the specifics of whether or not constitutional change will happen, he couldn't have been clearer: "There will be a border poll.

"And, by the way, I'm not in a big hurry because this is only going in one direction and we want to take as many people with us as possible.

"I don't even know if I'll live to see it. My father lived to 74 - I'm 64. But there will be a united Ireland."

'We've been through a nightmare'

There was, however, a shot across the bows of his fellow nationalists and republicans.

The onus will be on them, he warned, to make everyone feel comfortable in a new constitutional arrangement - and that will mean respecting unionists' British identity, being prepared to discuss what a future Irish flag and anthem might look like, and even being prepared to accept some kind of continuing devolved role for Stormont in a new 32-county state.

"Everything has to be on the table," he said. "Respect, social justice, reconciliation."

Mr Ó Muilleoir reflected on his political career during an interview with Mark Carruthers

During the podcast interview, Mr Ó Muilleoir recalled a trip to Cork with his "great friend" Maurice Kincaid, who founded the East Belfast Partnership, that made him pause for thought.

"We were sitting at the end of the night after going to the theatre - we were trying to bring a play to Belfast - having a glass of wine.

"And he said: 'You know, maybe 30 years of this instead of 30 years of bombs might have been more productive to your cause!' And he said it tongue-in-cheek.

"But there's some truth in that. We've been through a nightmare. So maybe. I've a long way to go continuing to engage with unionists, trying to say to them: things will be better."

The former politician, who served as finance minister, is now focussing on his business interests in Ireland and the United States.

He also told Red Lines about the impact the early years of the Troubles had on him as a teenager growing up in west Belfast, his many years as a Belfast city councillor and the autonomy his party gave him to make decisions as a minister in the Stormont Executive.

You can hear Mark's interview with Máirtín Ó Muilleoir in full on this week's edition of Red Lines.