Frank Feighan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our guests and will try to be as brief as possible. Somebody said, "If you don't know your history, you don't know anything." Last Sunday week I attended a remembrance service in Boyle, a ceremony that has been celebrated for the past ten years. I come from a town of 3,000 people; some126 young men from it died in the First World War. These young men were never remembered until this remembrance service began. Some 400 people from County Roscommon and 50,000 from the island of Ireland died in the First World War. Some 700 Nationalists from west Belfast joined the Connacht Rangers in Boyle for obvious reasons. Those who died were forgotten, but they are part of a shared history we should remember. My family comes from Cullyhanna, a Nationalist area in south Armagh, but those who participated in the First World War are part of our history.

I wish to raise two issues. First, there is a huge clamour to have a truth commission in Northern Ireland. What are the delegates' views on the proposal that there be a truth commission? Do they see it as positive, or are there issues with which they have a difficulty in that regard? Second, when we were in Northern Ireland last year, we visited the Skainos centre on the Newtownards Road where we witnessed an address by Mr. Martin McGuinness and Mr. Peter Robinson. Nothing could have been more perfect on the day, but less than one week later the flags protest broke out. I understand, as the delegates have pointed out, that there is an underlying issue. However, could the flags protest have been managed in a better way? What caused it to manifest on the streets of Northern Ireland? Is there an urban-rural divide with the Orange Order?