Paudge Connolly (Cavan-Monaghan, Independent)

I will leave it at that. I believe the President was 50% correct but there is a two-way process involved. I regret that I was not aware that I could not make reference to this matter.

Some 95% of people in Northern Ireland, both Catholic and Protestant, want to co-exist with one another. The feeling of hatred is restricted to small areas. It is sometimes fed to the communities in question and therefore the political leaders must consider the effects of their public statements on people in some of the ghetto areas.

The peace process has achieved a great deal. We have come a very long way, particularly when one considers the circumstances that obtained in 1975 and, more recently, over the past ten or 11 years. Many lives have been saved as a result of the peace process and we should not risk abandoning it. We had an offer of arms decommissioning, which I felt was good enough because it was to be verified by two men of the cloth. If we lose respect for such men, we must question the direction in which our society is going.

The photograph issue was a fudge. The two Governments should have bitten the bullet when it arose, requested that the photograph be forgotten about and moved on. Criminality is still an issue and I do not know who is responsible but we have courts and I suggest that we use them to tackle it. We noted today that there is a ceasefire in Israel and Palestine. I did not hear any talk of preconditions, clarifications or verifications in this regard. We will have to take risks in the peace process in Northern Ireland. I would like the talks to be resumed and the media to take a step back for another month.

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