Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I am pleased to have an opportunity to say a few words on the motion before the House. I support the agreed motion set out by many parties in the House. However, I would like to say something about the current position in which we find ourselves and how we should move forward.

The whole idea of the Good Friday Agreement is to agree on a common journey rather than prescribe an ultimate destination. The paradigm of politics in the past on this island has been about confronting two realities which were deemed not to be mutually co-existent — those whose nationality and loyalty is to Westminster, Britain and the Crown and those who believe it is in the best interests of the country and the nation, regardless of the diversity of its tradition, to work together on the basis of achieving a republic in our own country. The major strategic political decisions that have been taken on this island, and between these islands, since the issue became the clarifying principle on which politics was discussed, for example, the accession to the European Union and the growing globalisation and inter-dependency of States, has meant that if we are to shape the future, we must stop this idea that we can look to the future by building from the past. However, we must proceed on the basis of clear democratic principles. The peace process emerging out of conflict has been about a preparedness to give a voice and space to everyone, not on the basis of right and wrong or win or lose but on the basis of equality and justice for all. We were prepared to build institutions creatively which reflected the core of our nationalities and recognised the connection with Britain for those whose adherence is to Britain, and the adherence of the remainder of those on the island to this country. We are also prepared to work together, not on the basis of who won but on the basis of who can win in future, which means all of us.

People in this country who talk about the peace process, which has proved to be very resilient against many difficulties, mishaps and misjudgments since the Good Friday Agreement was signed, should try to avoid the terminology that the peace process has failed each time there is a difficulty. The sceptics should avoid coming out into the open, having been silent and hoping it will work but, where they see a difficulty, suggesting it was all a bad idea in the first place. The only way we can move from where we are currently is if we see the last seven years not as being on the verge of the completion of a process but as bedding down the institutions. This has been the main concentration for both Governments and all the parties, as well as the reforms in policing, criminal justice and equality issues generally, in an attempt to convey to people that we are changing the reality and that people can subscribe to their own political principles and work with others who oppose these on the basis of democratic debate and dialogue.

As the Minister of State, Deputy Brendan Smith, said last night, if we are to get out of this impasse, people must submit themselves to the will of the people. They must trust the people and not seek to trust political opponents if they cannot find it in their hearts to do so now because of some foolhardy statements that might have been made at crucial times in the recent past, and there were some. What we are trying to achieve is to transform the country and change the reality for future generations in a way that has not been possible in the past because our politics has been confined to a narrow stream of consciousness that sees people as being the exact opposite and as those who cannot or will not work in harmony with us.

If we want to turn our rhetoric and aspirations into reality, what the Good Friday Agreement signifies is not that we will ultimately achieve the noble aspirations or objectives that we all share in the broad Nationalist tradition, where we genuinely believe that coming together under our own agreed structures is the best way forward, but that we accept that the creative institutional framework of the Good Friday Agreement provides the means by which we can make a quantum leap forward. One of the ways of dealing with this issue and dealing with people who are emerging from conflict with a distrust, lack of ambition, understanding or acquaintance with the dynamic of politics is that if this dynamic is allowed to flow and people are allowed to look forward rather than trying not to betray the past, there will be a greater chance of moving much further up the road of these aspirations than people would otherwise think. We found that in our own body politic in terms of coalition Government with people of different persuasions.

I say to people that they must adhere to the Agreement's fundamental principles if we are to achieve the potential it provides. We have not even scratched the potential of the Agreement, nor have we even begun the common journey which will move this process, not incrementally or gradually, but way beyond where we are. I say to these people who can provide trust and confidence in the process in terms of the existence of paramilitary weapons, and the need to convince others this is no longer a process to which we can return and that we have reached an irreversible democratic road forward, to do so for the sake of our people in the part of the nation to whom they believe they have a loyalty. I say to those people to leave the spectre of paramilitarism behind us forever, not because one seeks to impugn defeat or victory but because one is trying to bring about a situation where the politics of dialogue, of working together and of building a democracy is given an opportunity for the first time in two, three or four centuries on this island to make sure we can provide the same level of opportunity north of the Border as we can provide thankfully south of the Border, particularly in the past 15 years. That is the issue. True republicanism is about expanding opportunities. That will not be done by a 60% public sector-led economy in the North or with only ten firms in the North providing 50% of exports. It will not be done by communities who have been alienated from all the basic institutions of a state. We have to be prepared.

Having come to the point before Christmas where there were only two issues in question, we must remember those in the Provisional IRA, who claimed they were not signatories to the Agreement, stated on a number of occasions that the context in which they would, as I put it, clear the pitch was on the basis of full implementation of the Agreement. We were at that point. We were agreed that we were at that point. Therefore, we should not allow even foolhardy or less than magnanimous leadership on the other side at a critical point to deflect us from our obligation to our own people and, ultimately, to expand that philosophy in a way which would be meaningful to people of another tradition through politics. It will not be done through violence — that we know — but it will be done through politics.

I ask people, in the context of the internal dialogue that should be going on at present, to take that brave and solid decision. If they do that, they will serve the people they seek to represent. More importantly, the democratic road for this country would become a far more open road for everyone on the basis of the basic principles of democracy being respected.

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