Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to have the opportunity to contribute to this debate on behalf of the Labour Party. I am sharing time with Deputy Robert Dowds.

Northern Ireland has been on the political agenda of this House for all of our lives. In 1989, when I came into the House, 81 people were killed in the Northern Ireland Troubles. It is difficult at this remove and for younger people to appreciate the horror and scale of the slaughter that was occurring in Northern Ireland at the time. I also remember the attempts by the IRA to blow up the rail line between Belfast and Dublin. I was involved in the peace train initiative to stand against this and promote travel, co-operation and relationships, North and South. Fortunately, great progress has been made since and Northern Ireland is now a much more peaceful, democratic and lawful society, but there are still challenges to be overcome. The scenes of rioting and violence following the 12 July commemorations in Belfast earlier this week, albeit on a much less dramatic scale than in recent years, are reminders of this, as is agreeing structures for dealing with outstanding issues arising from the Good Friday Agreement such as the legacy of the past. In this respect, I join speakers in the previous session in welcoming the all-party motion which was endorsed by the House. I acknowledge the remarks made by the Tánaiste on my own contribution to that issue during the period of time I held office.

It is not just what we call on others to do but what we do ourselves. It is important to lead by example in promoting reconciliation and dealing with issues of the past. I was honoured to be the first Irish Government Minister to lay a wreath at the Cenotaph in Belfast on Remembrance Sunday and I am glad that the Minister, Deputy Charles Flanagan, has continued that work. In a speech I made at Cambridge University two years ago I also said the Irish Government was prepared to address Unionist suspicions that during the Troubles elements of the State had somehow supported the activities of the IRA. Following publication of the Smithwick report later that year I followed through on this by apologising on behalf of the State to the Breen and Buchanan families for the role played by individual members of the Garda in the murder of two RUC members by the IRA. I did this because I believed words must be followed by actions. If we are to promote true reconciliation on the island, there is an onus on all of those in positions of responsibility to show leadership.

I regret that the political process in Northern Ireland remains somewhat deadlocked. It is welcome that the Stormont House Agreement, built on the formula developed under the chairmanship of Dr. Richard Haass and Professor Meghan O'Sullivan, was made. However, I share the concerns expressed by the Tánaiste that the package of measures agreed are ebbing further away from the original Eames-Bradley proposals of five years ago, which remain the most comprehensive set of ideas and mechanisms for addressing the legacy of the past and promoting reconciliation which should serve to guide all parties. It is inevitable that, because of the length of the horror and the atrocities that occurred in Northern Ireland, we spend a lot of our time addressing issues of the past and that will, rightly, remain on the agenda for a considerable time to come.

However, it is also important to look to the future.

The Good Friday Agreement is now more than 17 years old and one of its big opportunities was the peace dividend. This was the potential for economic development on the island on the back of the Agreement. That opportunity was interrupted somewhat by the impact of the economic crisis that occurred since 2008. Now that we have emerged from that economic crisis and the economy is growing again, the time has come to look afresh at the development of an all-island economy. When one looks at the impact of globalisation around the world, particularly when one looks at the efforts being made on almost every continent to break down borders and harmonise regulations and economic activity, and the degree and height to which it has been brought on the European continent, it is something of an anomaly that on this relatively small island we still effectively have two systems. A person travelling between Belfast and Dublin changes currency and the way in which distance is measured is different. There are two sets of regulatory measurements and two social welfare systems. There are two systems for almost everything. We need to look at the practical steps which need to be taken to facilitate the development of all-island economic activity.

Apart from eliminating the barriers to all-island economic activity, there are two developments or contexts which are important. The first is the growth of the population. The population of the island, at approximately 6.5 million, is at its highest since the time of the Famine. At the rate at which it is growing, in all probability in the next two decades the population will exceed that on the island at the time of the Famine. We need to be preparing for that growth in population. There are big implications in terms of housing and employment provision and the development and provision of infrastructure and social services. It makes sense that the preparation for this be done on an all-island basis. It makes no sense in the modern world, in the context of what we see happening in a much more globalised economic environment, that it is being done separately. The appropriate location for that work to be performed is the North-South Ministerial Council. I accept and acknowledge that considerable progress has been made by the Council. Work has been done, for example, in hospital provision and areas of education and transport. The Taoiseach referred to the potential for the development of the A5 roadway to the north west. There is enormous potential in the North-South Ministerial Council in leading what is really an all-island project in terms of how we prepare and develop an economy within two decades and create jobs for the size of population we are likely to have in that period of time.

That agenda is important in the changing political context on these islands. The issue of Scottish independence is very much on the political agenda. The possibility - I put it no stronger than this - of a British exit from the European Union is also something which is going to be addressed in the next couple of years. If either or both of these were to happen, the political context and the relationship between the countries on these islands would change dramatically, which gives rise to an imperative to consider our future development and the future development of economic activity for farmers, those in industry, research, public services and so on across the island. I encourage the Taoiseach and the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade to continue their good work on this issue. I commend them for what they have done and are doing. I ask, however, that the issue of the practical outworking of what is needed to facilitate the growth of an all-island economy and the implications for population growth across the island be looked at through the North-South Ministerial Council, the Northern Ireland Executive and the Irish Government.

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