Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We have three speakers. I said I would take Deputy Wynne next, then on the rotation it will be Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

We all have a history. We all have a past. In my family, my mother’s name was Devins and she had a relation called James Devins who was a Deputy and was killed in the Civil War fighting on the republican side. On the other side, my mother's brother was killed in the Royal Air Force, RAF, in the Second World War. We all come from a shared past that is a different past in a way. We must learn from the atrocities of the Civil War on all sides. Seán Hale was a Deputy of the Dáil who was shot on his way out of the Dáil. He was murdered. It was wrong. All those executions were wrong as well. I have no doubt about that, but we must learn from and build on that and build a better country for us all.

I would like to talk about improving the North-South bodies when the Executive is up and running again, what we need to do and how we need to address the issue of the future of the island. I hope we might have further discussions in the broader sense on those issues.