Martin Mansergh (Tipperary South, Fianna Fail)

The successful negotiation of what should prove the final chapter in the peace process is a cause of great satisfaction. I warmly congratulate the Taoiseach, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Irish officials on their leadership role in bringing this about as joint guarantor with the British Government of the Good Friday and St. Andrews agreements. As the Taoiseach has observed, the institutions have continued to function for the longest sustained period but the intervention and involvement of the two Governments undoubtedly prevented a breakdown.

As is known from previous experience, a great deal of time, dedication, painstaking work grappling with difficult, interconnected and complex issues the roots of which in many cases are deeply embedded in the past, and an extraordinary level of patience is required in order to achieve the necessary breakthrough. While this level of commitment is sometimes criticised, it has been necessary and it has produced results. The Taoiseach will well remember the time he spent on policing issues as Minister for Foreign Affairs in Weston Park in 2001, and in many other venues, when he had to re-thread, so to speak, the implementation of the Patten report. It must be said that Sinn Féin took its time to accept reformed policing and it is not entirely surprising the DUP has taken its time to agree to its devolution.

The political parties in Northern Ireland are also to be greatly commended on concluding this agreement in conditions which are three months ahead of a British general election. It sends out an important message that the stability of the Northern Ireland peace agreement and its agreed self-governing institutions have been protected. It will reassure investors in difficult and challenging economic times, it is a good example for other intractable conflicts in other parts of the world and, above all, it confirms that there is no going back to the past.

A parallel example of patience rewarded is the work of the International Commission on Decommissioning. As we know, all paramilitary groups, even when on ceasefire, were initially appalled at the notion that anyone was asking them to decommission their weapons. Now all groups on ceasefire have done so, including the UVF, the UDA - all branches of, the INLA and the Official IRA, and this has been paralleled by extensive demilitarisation by the British Army. Great credit is due to General de Chastelain, who has probably had one of the most extraordinary military missions in history but has brought it over many years to a successful conclusion.

May I, too, interject in this debate to pay my respects to the memory of the late former Deputy Tomás MacGiolla. His roots were in the IRA - later Official IRA - but the broader movement was a political nursery to many leading lights in these Houses which on the whole has made its own contribution, collectively and progressively, to the modernisation of a democratic Nationalist and republican philosophy.

A particular tribute is also due to President Mary McAleese and her husband Martin for the practical but also potentially hazardous bridge building in which they have engaged and which has borne fruit, not least in terms of trust.

It is dismaying that there are still small reactionary elements holding back and engaging in sporadic but occasionally lethal armed attacks. It cannot be repeated too often that such activities have no theoretical, historical or moral justification and that the settled will of the Irish people for peace will not be changed by them. Without wishing for any censorship, I would ask editors of media organs not to let themselves be used as al-Jazeera type outlets for murderous threats or self-justifications. The constitutional position now arrived at is legitimate and has been legitimated by the Irish people as a whole - to put it more neutrally, by the people of the island of Ireland.

One of the main achievements of the peace process has been the widespread normalisation of relations between the two parts of the island even though, as has been observed, there is much progress to be made still in community relations in Northern Ireland and in tackling the scourge of sectarianism.

Relations between Britain and Ireland have also been normalised and those who want to maintain old enmities and obstruct normal courtesies between friendly and neighbouring states, or to deny all shared experiences and traditions, have at this stage to be quietly ignored and faced down. To those who want to claim that we have not moved on, the answer is "Yes, we have, and decisively so." We must transcend the wounds of history mutually inflicted. I say that because complaints about past wounds inflicted on us would always come better if accompanied by acknowledgement of appalling wounds that have been inflicted, sometimes by persons making such complaints.

A proud and independent state should hold its head high and behave with appropriate self-confidence and magnanimity. While the focus has been on the largest parties, Sinn Féin and the DUP, which have made a further statesman-like accommodation from what were once very fundamentalist positions, and for this they deserve much praise, we should not forget the role of other parties such as the SDLP, the Ulster Unionist Party and the Alliance Party. Mark Durkan, a successor of John Hume, carried on in the most honourable manner, the signal contribution of his party throughout the Troubles, and we all congratulate and wish well the new leader, Margaret Ritchie. If there is a new government in Westminster after the May election, which cannot be presumed, I hope it will, notwithstanding any partisan interests, maintain unswerving and renew the commitment of successive British Governments under Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and John Major to both the principles and the achievements of the peace agreements.

Parades have long been a contentious issue and it is to be hoped that a better modus vivendi building on the Derry model can be achieved. Greater unity on this island can only be built up on respect for different traditions and on acceptance that we proceed from where we have now arrived and not from where we might wish to have been if we could roll history back to 1919 or 1914 or the 1790s. Ireland, all of it, has an important role to play and contribution to make in the modern world and much of that we can do, North and South, together.

We should remember all those politicians, officials, clergy and community activists who laboured long and hard in the field to bring about a just and lasting peace. I think of the Taoiseach's predecessors, Deputy Bertie Ahern, and Albert Reynolds, not forgetting Dick Spring, John Bruton and the late Charles Haughey, who were all associated with historic advances. I also think of Dermot Nally, now deceased, who gave great service to the State and to the betterment of Anglo-Irish relations. I commend the Taoiseach and the Minister for Foreign Affairs for bringing a noble work to both a conclusion and a new start.

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