Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I share that hope. I hope that a successful conclusion is achieved sooner rather than later. As the Deputy will be aware, I was in Belfast for the conclusion of the Haass discussions at the new year. I remain very closely in contact with that. I have remained in contact with Richard Haass and although he is not directly involved, he has maintained an interest and was here last year to receive the Tipperary peace prize. I have been frustrated, and have expressed this, that there has been a kind of a stop-go approach to these talks since the new year. We all understood that not much was going to happen during the election period. I was glad that the talks resumed on 2 June but I must say that I was deeply frustrated that there was no meeting between 2 June and 24 June when the next meeting took place. That is one of the reasons I wrote to each of the party leaders on 20 June expressing my concern that no meeting had been arranged, conveying to them the frustrations that were being conveyed to me when I was in Washington a couple of days earlier. I am glad now that the two three day sessions have been arranged. They start this morning. They will meet today, tomorrow and Friday and will meet again next week for three days. I believe it is possible to bridge the issues that are outstanding.

There are dimensions that must be legislated for in Westminster and probably here. We have a direct and close interest in it.

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