UN General Assembly
1980

293. The area is fundamentally unstable because there has never been within it the kind of political consensus which in more normal societies underlies party differences. Instead, the very existence of Northern Ireland itself has always been the issue, so that normal politics do not exist; and that has been the only basic issue for over 60 years. The majority were always insecure and fearful that the settlement which made them a majority would be upset; the minority, on their side, were frustrated in their basic aspirations to Irish unity, discriminated against because of this and excluded in practice from effective political participation in an area whose very existence they called into question. 294. The result is that normal political life has been distorted and community divisions based on historical or religious differences have been accentuated rather than diminished.