Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I would like to say at the outset that I will work with anybody who shares any idea with me. It is fair to say that a group of politicians who have worked hard together in recent months, across very diverse backgrounds, on the prisoner issue, including two previous speakers, Deputies Clare Daly and Mick Wallace. I saw Deputy Frank Feighan in the House earlier and I would like to compliment the work he has done, and Deputy Martin Ferris for the support, advice and help he has given. It is welcome that we work across parties, but it is wrong in any facet of politics to say we cannot debate issues openly and express differences of opinion.

There appear to be some sacred cows in this country, the Irish language being one of them, on which we are not meant to have a proper, robust political debate but how can we ever move forward if we are not willing to debate issues, express different ideas and respect different views?

We all know that the quickest way to get stagnation is to have no real debate and to create an atmosphere where we say that everything is okay and we should not question anything. That is very dangerous.

I am a republican. I have always been a republican. I believe passionately in the bringing together of the people of this island. I believe that partition has been very bad for Ireland socially, economically and culturally but the big challenge for us is how we achieve the bringing together of the people in the different communities in this island. My belief is that it will not be possible to do that until the people get to know each other. The biggest source of violence is distrust. The biggest source of distrust is people not knowing each other. The people at the top knowing each other is not good enough. We must always remember that the First World War was fought between families that were closely related to each other - the Kaiser of Germany was a grandson of Queen Victoria - but the ordinary people did not know each other, and we saw the slaughter that followed. Political change is important, but interaction on the ground is more important.

Since I became a politician I have visited as many times as I could every corner of the North and every community in the North to which I was invited, and they have been diverse. I have continued that over the years. I have met leaders of the UDA and the UVF. I met leaders of the IRA. Recently, with other colleagues, I have visited both loyalist and republican prisoners. I have been in Rathlin Island four times. I have been in Ballymoney. I have been in east Belfast. I have been in Newtownards, Portaferry and Ballymurphy. I could not count the number of times I was in west Belfast. I have been across Derry and in many other places. I believe all Members of this House have an obligation to meet our Northern co-citizens to create the trust and give the leadership needed to ensure the people of this island get rid of the fear and the distrust and begin to trust each other. In that way they will see that together we can create a much better place to live in than the island we have now.

One of the constant challenges is the idea that some day we will wake up and all Unionists will think the tricolour was the greatest flag in the world and that they would somehow turn on their own identity. That idea is wrong and simplistic. In whatever Ireland we build, we will have to respect the different identities that exist in this island.

In trying to illustrate that I recall being severely criticised many years ago by some super-Nationalists for saying I had no difficulty with a united Ireland being part of the Commonwealth so that those who would live in that united Ireland would have some way of associating themselves with the British Crown, which is so important to them, not only in a political sense for some of them but also in a quasi-religious sense. If we are not willing to engage with their identity, it is difficult to understand how people will engage with the depth of our identity. I have found that when one respects others' identity, they return that respect for one's own identity.

It was for that reason some years ago I facilitated the provision of funding to a company operating effectively as part of the Orange Order in lieu of halls that had been destroyed by vandals in the Border counties of this State. I believed that somebody coming from such a strong republican tradition as I do had an obligation to show that we are not afraid of their identity. I attended loyalist marches, and I was a guest of honour at an Orange march in Drum, County Monaghan, and it was good to see both Nationalists and Unionists come out and celebrate that in a non-confrontational way. All of us went into the Orange Hall afterwards and had tea and sandwiches. That has not made me any less a republican. As far as I am concerned, part of being a republican is that we share every tradition, every identity and work with everybody.

There are some issues that worry me deeply. I am not sure that this Government, at a ministerial level, is engaging with the communities in the North in the same way the previous Government did. I am not denying it has many contacts with the British Government but the British Government has clearly declared that it has no strategic or selfish interest here. The challenge, therefore, is not to achieve good relations with the British Government, which one would expect to have anyway as northern members of the European Union, but to win the hearts and minds of the people of this island for a new way forward. I will be told that North-South ministerial meetings take place. We had those too, but I am talking about getting on the ground in the communities. I am talking about going into loyalist, Unionist, Nationalist and republican communities and getting to know the people in Portaferry, Newtownards, the Creggan, south Armagh and so on. Unless we do that day by day, week by week, I do not believe we are doing the job in the way it needs to be done.

To be blunt, in terms of my experience of dealing with Northern Secretaries of State over the years, with the single exception of Mo Mowlam, to whom this island owes a debt that will never be repaid because she genuinely cared, showed a genuine interest and engaged with the problem day and night despite her illness, it is fair to say that for most Northern Secretaries of State now, being Secretary of State is something they do for a while. They are very disinterested and disengaged, and that may not be a bad thing. It is very natural because if I was a politician in England and I was sent to the Northern Ireland Office for two or three years, I am not sure how engaged I would be with it in terms of a problem I do not understand, that I have never been involved in and that had nothing to do with my life until then. It would be difficult to see how they can engage, particularly as they move on so rapidly, but that may not be a bad thing.

How long have we argued that if the British disengaged, we on this island could re-engage across all of our differences? I do not agree with the policy the Government followed in respect of the Haass talks, whereby only Irish people born north of an arbitrary line were involved. That process should have been on an all-Ireland basis, and if Britain wanted to be involved, that was its call. The identity issue does not solely concern Northern Nationalists. If we are to be truthful, we must admit that Southern people have never dealt with it properly.

My colleague spoke eloquently on the issue of prisoners. Trying people for what occurred prior to the peace process is wrong and always seems to be on the one side. I do not agree with the revocation of licences and what was said about remand is wrong. However, we must not forget that a decent and honest prison officer is now dead. David Black was murdered because of the refusal on the part of people in authority to deal with the issues that resulted in a dirty protest that lasted 18 months. One can see the cause and effect.

See this speech in context