Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Deputy McHugh made a point about the further potential for North-South engagement. As a Border Deputy, he will be well aware that the facilities which now exist, including the North-South Ministerial Council, the non-formal connections between Ministers and Ministers of State on cross-Border issues and the connections between agencies and organisations on either side of the Border, have increased greatly over recent years. I met the Deputy and a number of councillor representatives from North and South earlier in the summer, and this speaks volumes in this regard as well.

I commend the Ceann Comhairle on the work he did, along with the Speaker, in putting together the North-South Parliamentary Forum. As the forum is a political tier, it does not relate directly to the local authority system. It has some potential if it finds its feet and if it can develop in the way we would think. There are many community engagements that are very fruitful. I met members of a choral society from Ballymena earlier this year. It has been twinned with a similar group in my home town since 1969. While the connections might not have been as strong as they should have been in the intervening years, a very strong connection is building up again, purely on the basis of community and social activities, including music, culture and everything else. This is certainly something we can look at on the basis of what Deputy McHugh has said. I am not sure a sort of formal structure for local authorities is the way to go here because, as the Deputy knows, a great deal of cross-Border activity applies at the moment.

Deputy Martin raised the question of Narrow Water Bridge. The bridge order was signed by Minister Wilson on 28 May last. Louth County Council announced on 9 July that the Narrow Water Bridge proposal was on hold because of cost issues regarding the extent of the tenders received. As the Deputy knows, funding was approved by the Irish Government, by the Northern Ireland Executive, which issued the bridge order, and by the EU.

There is a deal of discussion about this in which Deputy Adams has an interest. I would like to see what the conclusion of those negotiations and discussions might be.

The Minister for Finance is meeting with the First Minister this Friday in Stormont. Obviously, this arises from issues discussed at the North South Ministerial Council and the engagements between Ministers here and their colleague Ministers and the Executive in general. We were able to negotiate €150 million under the peace dividend arising out of our Presidency of the Union for areas dealing with sensitive community issues in Northern Ireland. That is an issue on which we were glad to work with our colleagues in Northern Ireland and to have approval given for it.

I do not take the Deputy's point about Dr. Haass. He is very experienced in dealing with complex negotiations and will add greatly to the capacity of the Executive and negotiations to deal with parades, the past and other sensitive issues. I commend the First Minister and Deputy First Minister on being able to put that together and on the close association and collaboration they both showed in New York quite recently. That is something we should commend in terms of its potential. I point back to the years when George Mitchell gave six months of his life in very difficult circumstances to working through the very sensitive and complex negotiations that led to the Good Friday Agreement. That was with the imprimaturof all the political personalities in the US, including Dr. Haass, so I see real potential in that and hope we can develop it in the time ahead.

There are a range of issues we need to discuss, be they the Maze Prison, the good relations strategy, the Parades Commission and the question of the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement and the St Andrews Agreement. Perhaps it might be appropriate if leaders who do not want them all bunched together had the capacity to table priority questions to the Taoiseach. I do not dictate what questions come in here. Every Deputy in the House has the same right in terms of asking questions of the Taoiseach of the day. Obviously, we could spend the entire week going through a whole load of these.

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