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

I welcome the delegations. This committee is conscious of trying to implement the Good Friday Agreement in order to bring peace to a very troubled area and to our country. We takes our job very seriously. I am also a member of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly committee where I chair its sovereign committee that has prepared a report on the decade of commemorations. We are preparing a report on the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. Our discussions have taken us to Belfast, Northern Ireland, across to Scotland and all across the island of Ireland.

The discussions have been fruitful but we must deal with the past and the legacy issues. In all of the details and discussions that have taken place, the Eames-Bradley report crops up all of the time. Some people thought it was a great idea. I have heard others to say as it was not their idea they will not agree with it. Also, the £12,000 recognition payment was seen as a very blunt instrument. A lot of time, discussions and cross-Border negotiations were taken on board and went into the Eames-Bradley report. Why did the report not get the traction that I believe it deserved? When talking to people behind the scenes, from all political parties and all groups in Northern Ireland, one hears that it was not a bad idea. Did politicians not take the lead? Were they fearful of taking a lead in something that people have told me is a good idea? The politicians decided that they did not want it because it was not their idea. The politicians should have taken the lead. Politicians are in a different zone now. I would like to hear the opinions from the witnesses on the report.

I watched the programme called "The Disappeared." It brought home the message to people in the Republic who were not as familiar as they should have been with the suffering and legacy of the past.

The committee must make an effort to try to deal with the legacy of the past. I ask for the views of the delegation on why the Eames-Bradley report did not succeed and on the Haass talks. The committee is absolutely committed to dealing fairly with all the aspects in our efforts to be helpful. This Government will not forget. Comments that we are only worried about our own economy could not be further from the truth.