Anticipation of moves towards a referendum on Irish unity is at a new high after former British Direct Ruler Shaun Woodward said that a border poll could be held within three years, while former DUP MP Ian Paisley has said he is open to debate the issue.

Woodward was speaking on the BBC Nolan Show. The former Labour MP, who headed up the British government in Belfast for several years, said: “We are approaching the point when the people of Northern Ireland should be entitled to express their view.”

When asked for a timescale, he said “In the next few years.”

It came as former DUP MP Ian Paisley Jr said for the first time he is open to “persuasive arguments” around the potential of a united Ireland.

Mr Paisley is a former MP for North Antrim, and son of infamous unionist politician and DUP founder Ian Paisley Sr.

On the new ‘Borderlands’ podcast alongside former Sinn Féin MP Michelle Gildernew, he revealed that he was open to debating Irish unity.

“My mind is open,” he said. “I’m a true believer in Britain and this place being British, but if you have got persuasive arguments please present them... because to date I have not heard them.”

It also came after an SDLP conference held in Belfast at the weekend heard a call from the party leader Claire Hanna for the Dublin government to acknowledge the “definite trajectory” towards ending partition by establishing a ‘Ministry for a New Ireland’.

A year after being elected party leader, Ms Hanna accused Dublin of failing to provide leadership on unification. The two main parties in government in Dublin “can’t keep denying responsibility for planning for constitutional change”.

“We’re not just a peace project to be managed and soothed. Many across this island are looking to Dublin for leadership that they have yet to provide.”

Acknowledging the 26 Counties is “not a utopia”, she said it had shown “a true capacity for transformation”.

“For those who say it’s too soon, what exactly are we waiting for? What’s about to come in year 27, or year 30, of the (Good Friday) Agreement that suddenly offers a better plan?” she said.

Unification would offer an opportunity to redesign public services and provide “the best of both systems for the benefit of all” and create a “cultural superpower”.

Last week, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald accused the Taoiseach Micheál Martin of a “complete disregard for the Good Friday Agreement and its provisions for a border poll”.

“Firstly he falsely claimed that Sinn Féin had ‘invented’ the provision for a border poll after Brexit, when it is a core provision of the Good Friday Agreement which his government signed up to in 1998. Now he is attempting to cherry‑pick the agreement,” she said.

“Nobody can have a veto on progress. The constitutional duty is on the taoiseach and a future president to champion Ireland’s future and to lead the preparation for referendums.”

Ms McDonald restated her belief that there will be referendums on unity before the end of this decade.

Meanwhile, former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said he has not “given up” hope the Dublin government will lead Irish unity preparations, even though he noted both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil had abandoned their election pledges on the issues.

Speaking in Belfast, Mr Varadkar said the two parties had committed to making Irish unity an objective, not just an aspiration, in their election manifestos but then dropped the promise.

Preparations for unification must be led by the Dublin government, he said. “They’re not there yet, but I haven’t given up, and I won’t. I hope during the period of this government, it’ll still be possible to do exactly that and bring the conversation forward.

“Both parties in the government got elected with a mandate that said that unification should be an objective, and aspirations are not just the same as objectives,” the former Fine Gael leader told the SDLP conference in Belfast.

He agreed that it was no longer acceptable for the north of Ireland to be handled in Dublin by the Department of Foreign Affairs. He also accused the Dublin government of putting up obstacles to a referendum on a united Ireland be demanding ‘reconciliation’ as a precondition.

“There will always be people who are not reconciled for one reason or another but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pursue it,” he told the Borderlands podcast. “I don’t think we should put up an artificial barrier towards a border poll.”