Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

Both of my colleagues have set out my position but, as I said in my reply, if it helps I will meet the Quinn family.

The bilateral agreement has its merits and it is our view that we should keep arguing that case. It does not solve all the issues, but we have always seen this as an all-island issue. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Dermot Ahern, has argued that we should look at it in that context. He has raised all the points made by the Deputy. It is a changed position. We have had very little emigration for the past 17 or 18 years and that generation of people in their early 20s have already moved into the over 40 age bracket. A time will come when we will not have the numbers we previously had, particularly key people across business. We will continue to pursue that issue. With the Varney report and other reports of the agencies, as well as the North-South bodies, I have always believed, since we agreed the first implementation bodies, that the more co-operation and engagement between the agencies, the better. We have taken the progressive view that we would engage actively to promote investment, tourism and export markets on an all-island basis. The same applies to our arguments on emigration.

I join the Deputy in totally condemning the mischievous targeted activities against Orange halls that have been going on for some months. A number of them occurred on this side of the Border on the night of Hallowe'en. Many of these Orange halls are historic, ancient buildings that are used for community purposes. The hall on this side of the Border has been there for over 100 years. It is entirely disruptive to communities, big and small; and in some cases on our side we have tried to help them with the rehabilitation work to assist in restoring it. It is very hard to restore community buildings that have been there for so long and have been attacked so often. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Ahern, raised the issue yesterday and was strongly supported by the Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness, and Ian Paisley Jnr., MLA. A group is currently targeting halls and we must work with the Garda Síochána and the PSNI to see what can be done.

See this speech in context