Mr. Gerry Adams:

Fianna Fáil and the Labour Party should think nationally. We would not do so ourselves, so we should not expect anyone to be reconciled to something they detest or abhor or cannot relate to. It is better just to go on about your business and not get upset by it. The issue of reconciliation would take ages to philosophise on and to try to figure out but the phrase "non-judgmental" comes to mind. Eighty one people who were IRA volunteers or republicans or members of Na Fianna Éireann were summarily killed by the State during the awful Civil War. Perhaps they were killed by virtue the Government but not by virtue of the will of the Parliament because during that period Cumann na nGaedheal did not attend the Parliament. More than 100 were arrested and summarily shot to death, including folks that were tied to mines and so on. I know that there were atrocities on the republican side. We have a long continuum of both struggle and the excesses of violence. I am trying to be sensitive in what I say here. If you extol Michael Collins, watch out. A Francis Hughes will pop up. If you extol Terence McSwiney, Bobby Sands will come out of the history books. Let us try to have a bit of sense about all of this. What was wrong was wrong and what has been done cannot be undone. Let us concentrate our efforts on trying to move forward. I said in my earlier remarks that we have this opportunity that political leaders should be excited about to bring about this new society. To start it all over and to start from new is what we have the opportunity to do.

All states and societies are imperfect. We need to deal with housing, public services, folks who have disabilities, the plight of the Traveller community and ethnic communities. We need to deal with all these matters and we have the possibility of starting all of that anew with the dynamic of a united people and the inclusive involvement of those from northern Protestant stock. All that is before us and there is a way to bring it about. I do not mean to get excited in a romantic, rhetorical or naive way, but to be able to redraw and write the future is the opportunity which has been created out of 30 years of conflict and centuries of disaster. Let us seize that. Part of seizing that is to think nationally.