H.E. Dr. Eamonn McKee:

The Senator has asked a good question because we have not aired that enough. The role played by the White House and of the Congress of the United States has been absolutely critical to progress in Northern Ireland. To go back to first principles, after the Second World War, Britain tied its global interests and positions to the United States, and that remains to this day. One cannot over-exaggerate the sensitivity of Downing Street to the White House across all kinds of briefs. When the White House is engaged it makes a huge difference. Certainly, Irish diplomatic efforts throughout the conflict in Northern Ireland focused in Washington on the development of the Friends of Ireland group in Congress and the Senate. That was a great investment and always paid dividends.

If we go back, for example, to the New Ireland Forum and Margaret Thatcher's famous "Out, out, out" rejection of the options it produced, it was Ronald Reagan's response in which he told Mrs. Thatcher that we needed a solution that got her to engage in the negotiations on the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985. That was a breakthrough negotiation, in my view, as I said.

If we fast forward to the Clinton Administration, it was absolutely critical that we had engagement with it and that Clinton himself had the intelligence and independence to make his own decisions, contrary even to the advice of the State Department and other agencies in Washington, for example, to grant Gerry Adams a visa because if the republicans were going to surrender the leverage of violence, they needed an assurance that they would have the ear of Washington and they knew that was really important, as did we. The Clinton Administration played a key role. Vice President Al Gore, for example, was given the job of making sure there was outreach to unionism so that the White House was taking a balanced approach. It was no coincidence that the chair of the Good Friday talks was George Mitchell. He played a key role in making sure that when text was agreed it was banked with him and it could not be undone or resiled from. Washington played a crucial role throughout the Good Friday Agreement and negotiations, and the subsequent implementation.

I am glad to say that under Global Ireland, the Government has invested heavily and we now have an embassy and eight consulates in the United States. That is a great development because it gives us very deep roots.

As we have seen, and I think it is absolutely critical, President Biden and the White House are paying very close attention to the anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement and the efforts to restore the institutions. That gives huge momentum and builds up the opportunity to restore the institutions in Northern Ireland. I do not think the significance of the relationship and the interest of the White House and Congress generally can be underplayed. It is hugely valuable to us and has been in the past.

Canada has also made a huge contribution to the Northern Ireland peace process. We had Justice Hoyt on the Saville inquiry. Justice Cory did a phenomenal job on allegations of collusion. My neighbour here, John de Chastelain, as part of the independent International Commission on Decommissioning, made an absolutely vital contribution. He told a wonderful story about the achievement of decommissioning. He said he dealt with a quartermaster throughout the destruction of the weapons and he always noticed that he had a sidearm. When the last batch of weapons was destroyed the quartermaster turned to him and said, "That is it". John said to him, "No, it is not" and pointed to the sidearm. In a very redolent moment the quartermaster took out the weapon and handed it to him. I thought that was a great story from a man who gave an awful lot to taking the gun out of Irish politics. He is a great figure and indicative of the contribution that Canada has also made to the Northern Ireland peace process.