Niall Blaney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Mr. Durkan. It is great to see him again. There is no element of his opening remarks one could disagree with. We could do another report on the intricacies of matters between ourselves and the British Government and what has not happened in relation to the agreement. As a committee we have a job to do on the implementation of the agreement. The idea of bringing in people like Mr. Durkan, namely, those who were at the helm in the lead-up to the agreement and were involved in bringing it together as we approach the 25th anniversary is to get an insight into the difficulties behind the scenes that existed in bringing this together. It is about getting to the bottom of that and having an appreciation of what was necessary to get to that very historic occasion where all on this island came together as one. That was a historic event we had thought would never be possible.

Mr. Durkan rightly ended his speech in the spirit of John Hume and the amount of work he did on this. What was the reason behind somebody like David Trimble sticking his neck out the way he did when he unexpectedly signed up to the Good Friday Agreement at the last minute? What are the moments that stick out in Mr. Durkan's mind as being significant during that process in the weeks beforehand and during those days of negotiations?