Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

While it is fresh and reverberates, I add my words of encouragement in the direction of Deputy Gerry Adams's remarks. The issue is important. In recent days I was reminded of the importance of the phrase that in this world we all have to "get along". The phrase was used by Senator Bill Nelson in his words of welcome on 4 July at the US ambassador's residence to the people who had been invited. He was an astronaut who had travelled around the globe. He was asked about the most significant experience in that journey around the Earth. He said the peoples of the Earth were one family, that he could not see the distinctions of borders, political parties, religions or anything else, that the Earth was the home of the human race and, to use the American phrase, that we had to learn to get along. He is right. I call on the Taoiseach, in his detailed endeavours and discussions, to keep to that agenda. Yesterday Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Secretary General of NATO, of which Ireland is not a member, pointed out that last year Russian military expenditure increased by 50% on the figure for the previous year. Meanwhile, the NATO alliance reduced its expenditure by 20%. The significant events that have occurred on the globe to which Senator Bill Nelson referred include the invasion of Crimea, the troubles in Ukraine and the Middle East, the platform that is Iran, the collapse of the fragile government of Iraq and Syria's destruction of its own people. The Iranian ambassador to Ireland will be before an Oireachtas committee tomorrow. I will remind him that in Paris-----

See this speech in context