Niall Blaney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses and thank them for their presentations. Following on from some of the comments I made on the previous occasion about the Good Friday Agreement, where we are on this island, the pathway that lies ahead for us and how we create that pathway, there is a lot of responsibility and onus on us all. In reference to this, the battle over many decades was with the British establishment and British Government. Since the Good Friday Agreement, that pathway has changed. We have our own destiny and how we create that destiny is what this is all about.

One of the questions I asked on the previous occasion, and I pose it again in the context of what Reverend Karen said this morning, was how do we break down these barriers. What can Ireland's Future do as an organisation? It has done a lot of good work. What can it now do to bring the unionist communities, parties and tradition, and the Protestant people in Northern Ireland with it? Much of the work it has done heretofore has been very heavily on the nationalist voice. There is a pathway for a group such as Ireland's Future to do massive work on bringing in these unionist speakers and voices and letting them have their say. We need these voices at the table.

We are crying out for them and we crying out for them on this committee. The pathway ahead must be one that we all share. I will be interested to hear the witnesses' thoughts in that regard.