Niall Blaney (Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

On a more serious note, I thank Lord Alderdice for his contribution. This is fascinating work because we need to realise what was achieved in the Good Friday Agreement. Moreover, we need to get a greater understanding of how we came to that point of getting agreement across the religious divide in the final moments and, in so doing, learn the lessons from the past that might help us to move forward. Lord Alderdice has been very helpful in that regard thus far.

Towards the end of his presentation, Lord Alderdice referred to the EU and the US backing Ireland. I will not get into the politics of that today. I have a different opinion. I certainly feel the UK has been quite reckless in its approach and it has taken positions that are contrary to previous agreements it made. It is very hard to deal with political arrangements in that context.

One of the major issues since the Good Friday Agreement relates to dealing with issues of the past and legacy issues. Lord Alderdice touched on this. How big a factor are those issues in resolving the divide in Northern Ireland? Moreover, at the time of the Good Friday Agreement, were they on the table? Did discussions take place on them or were they too hot to handle? What is Lord Alderdice's memory of dealing with them at that time?