Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is good that the summit is going to Fermanagh. The Taoiseach will know that Peter Canavan, Peter the Great, manages the Fermanagh football team. Fermanagh is also a very beautiful part of the world and people there will welcome the international attention that will be paid to the county. It is significant that the Taoiseach has been invited to the summit in his capacity as President of the Council of the European Union.

I have read the priorities the British Prime Minister has spelled out for the summit. The G8 is made up of the big, powerful and more advanced industrial nations. Therefore, part of our effort must be to get them to focus on the grave economic situation facing millions of people around the world. We talk about economic distress, with some justification, but millions of people are dying of hunger and people are starving in the developing world. I ask that this be part of our focus at the G8.

Notwithstanding its imperfections and its fragility, we have one of the most successful peace processes in the world. The visit of these very powerful leaders to Fermanagh provides us with an opportunity to put issues to them, for example, the situation in the Middle East, an ongoing conflict that has seen failure by the international community to intervene in a positive and progressive way. I have commended the Tánaiste on raising this issue in the past and I see this visit as an opportunity for the Taoiseach and I to raise these issues, particularly in terms of the ongoing situation in Syria and the conflict in the Palestinian Territories and Israel. I urge the Taoiseach to consider the opportunity of this international platform to raise these issues.

Has the Taoiseach got any commitment from the Obama Administration as to whether the President will make a visit "home" when he is only a few miles up the road?

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