Preparing properly is a hard thing to disagree with.
Easy to understand why it frames much of the conversation about constitutional change.
The options are established: the union with Britain or a united Ireland.
Being ready makes good sense. Even opponents see the merit in it, and will surely accept that productive work has been completed.
More is required, but an impressive start is being made. Many want the Irish government to join in. They are right. Their reluctance is odd.
And even worse, it fuels critics who claim that talk of unity is somehow divisive.
The planning effort can co-exist with advancing policy agendas in the here and now. I suspect it will continue to intensify in 2025.
What is often missing from the script is a sense of urgency about the available choice.
People in this region are immersed in the language of consent.
The idea that the foundational compromise is fairly simple at heart.
The present union rests only on democracy. When views change, so should constitutional status.
It is now widely accepted that this will involve concurrent referendums on the island.
But the tendency to construct the whole thing in unilateral terms is unhelpful.
The notion that a secretary of state will one day look at credible polling evidence and/or electoral performance, for example, and then trigger a vote.
Conversations between the governments, political parties and civil society must start long before that.
We know enough for dialogue to commence immediately.
Better to think of the exercise as a well-managed process, with high levels of practical coordination and cooperation throughout.
Sight should not be lost of fundamentals. The right of self-determination belongs to the people of this island.
The British government is a facilitator/enabler for a decision that rests here, and a guarantor of assurances that will be essential for what follows.
Why labour points that may appear so familiar? Because there is a real risk that the pervasive culture of procrastination, evasion and avoidance will persist, especially around a timetable.
Given available evidence and mounting expectations, I do not believe that is sustainable or wise.
Negotiations on giving people a choice are as necessary as preparations for what may be on offer in a united Ireland.
Neglect this element at your peril. The tendency to get lost in euphemism and yearning for a day when the border might magically melt away should be resisted.
An understandable human desire for those who worry about what the referendums will bring.
One difficulty is that the border remains very real, damaging and destructive – with further Brexit-related divergence an ever-present danger.
More significantly, you cannot in good faith keep deferring the inevitable consequence of what was agreed and promised in 1998.
A choice denied, a right in the abstract that people are never permitted to exercise.
We know this already, right? I worry that we do not. A concern that there are those who wish the status quo on us forever.
Who may assume that a light coating of shared island rhetoric and associated funding will suffice.
With 2025 looking set to be another year of denial, those who want to achieve a New Ireland must give more focused attention to when people will have their say.
Colin Harvey is a Professor in the School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast