Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Ba mhaith liom ar dtús báire mo bhuíochas a ghabháil leo siúd a ghlac páirt sa díospóireacht seo athuair. Is aisteach an rud é, ach is iad na pointí ceanann céanna iad roinnt de na pointí a tháinig suas inniu is a tháinig suas anuraidh nuair a bhí an cheist seo os chomhair na Dála cheana.

I would like to address first the issue the Minister addressed, that is, the huge success of this year. It has been a year in which people could show great pride in their country and what it has achieved over 100 years and look at the mistakes made but also at the totality of a country transformed from the world about which we all learned that existed in the period leading up to the Rising. We were able to commemorate sustained peace over a long period, a Constitution that we, the people, own and that can only be changed by the people, which is unusual even in the modern world, and a country where, in the main, everybody accepts that the way to change things is through political dialogue. It is a very different world from that faced by this nation back in 1916.

The second point is that it was a people celebration. There were fantastic State commemorations. Easter Sunday was a very important day but throughout the year in every parish in Ireland, people commemorated and celebrated the Rising and its aftermath in a dignified, community-based and inclusive way.

I was very fortunate to get an e-mail last autumn from the grand-niece of the officer who arrested and took the surrender from the 3rd Battalion offering to make available her grand-uncle's collection of five scrap books to do with his connection with the 3rd Battalion Old IRA. It is a fantastic legacy. This is a British soldier who fully appreciated the cause he had been fighting against and who, in 1938, gave back the field glasses he had confiscated, through Neville Chamberlain, at the conclusion of the agreement of 1938 and who, as early as 1948, came here with his wife and daughter on an invitation from the 3rd Battalion Old IRA to attend an event at which he was the guest speaker. Some of the correspondence is very interesting. It talks of reconciliation. In one letter he told them to have their fiery speeches first and he would come in later. They wrote back immediately saying that he was their guest speaker, they did not care whether he was an after dinner speaker and that they wanted him to be their special guest. He came here again in 1966 for the 50th anniversary and was present in Boland's Mills with my grandfather, Éamon de Valera, who was President at the time. In 1967, in what I believe was one of the most interesting acts of reconciliation in a time when we did not think all this was going, and perhaps do not fully understand everything that was going on in this regard, the 3rd Battalion made this British officer an honorary member, sent him a fantastic certificate and told him he was now an honorary member of the 3rd Battalion Old IRA but that he did not have to give up his loyalty to England or swear an oath of allegiance to the Irish Republic.

That man's grand-niece attended the commemoration at Boland's Mills on Easter Monday. We made an exhibition out of a fraction of the material she had, and the welcome she received from the families of those who had fought in 1916 would warm one's heart. Occasions like that were the kernel of what our commemoration was about. I hope in the coming seven or eight years that kind of spirit will prevail.

Our Proclamation is striking in admonishing us to be oblivious of the differences carefully fostered that has separated a minority from the majority in the past. The first part of it must be the most misquoted sentence in Ireland because it refers to the children of the nation, and it has nothing to do with children in the pedagogic sense. Basically, it tells us to reconcile with all people on this island, put difference behind us and accept difference, which is much more important.

Regarding the specific proposals in the Bill, first, for as long as I can remember, people in this country have celebrated the Easter Rising on Easter Sunday and Easter Monday, irrespective of what time in the six-week window it occurred. I do not expect that to change in the future. Even though Easter fell very early this year, and being March there was a risk of cold weather, the Government was right to stick with Easter Sunday for the commemoration because in the minds of 99% of the people, Easter Sunday is the Easter Rising. We call it the Easter Rising.

Second, on a practical level, and the Minister has dealt with the issue of cost and so on, if we were to make a holiday of 24 April, we would have a guaranteed holiday on 17 March, 24 April and a holiday somewhere between 1 and 8 May, depending on when the first Monday of May fell.

On top of that, there is the roving official holiday of Easter Monday which could fall on the 23rd, the 24th or whatever, which would mean that there would be two bank holidays on top of each other and there would have to be another bank holiday. Therefore, the practicalities and the distraction of moving Easter commemorations of the Rising away from Easter Sunday would be wrong.

The point is made that we have fewer bank holidays. Definitely, we have fewer public holidays, probably two less than the average. In this country most people think Good Friday is a public holiday, but it is not. Maybe we should count that as a de facto public holiday when we are making comparisons. Few work on Good Friday if they are not in the hospitality sector. All the pubs are closed even though they try to be open.

I propose, in recognition of the centenary year and in recognition of the importance of the Rising, that we would designate Easter Monday as Lá na Saoirse. I am purposely not using "Lá na Poblachta" because for some that might be emotive in the negative sense but all are happy and comfortable with the idea of independence. It would be symbolic, particularly as the Rising started on Easter Monday, to make that day Lá na Saoirse and to remind people every year of the importance of that day.

There are two major objections to the setting up of the board, . When my party was last in government, there were complaints week after week on all sides of the House that there were too many quangos. Even though some of these bodies were not even costing €50,000, all we ever heard was there were too many quangos. It is funny how short our corporate memory is. The second objection, and one of the fundamental reasons I would object to setting up an independent board, is that I am not one who has been hugely in favour of taking the power of decision away from those of us who stand for election and are elected by the people.

The arrangements put in place were good, with the all-party Oireachtas committee and the expert committee, and I would ask the Minister to move urgently to reinstate the all-party Oireachtas committee in order that we can plan for 2017, 2018 and 2019. To me, the centenary of 1919 will be huge because it was the founding of our democracy. That is why the five pictures are in the front hall of Cathal Brugha, who was first President of the First Dáil, Eamon de Valera, Arthur Griffith, Michael Collins and W.T. Cosgrave. As the centenary of the founding of this Oireachtas or Parliament, I believe that will be a huge year.

Therefore, I would hope that arising from this debate the Minister might give consideration to my idea of designating Easter Monday as our independence day, if the Minister wants to call it that, and that furthermore she would reinstate the all-party Oireachtas committee, keep her expert committee, which if it needs refreshing, so be it, and that we would plan in the same meticulous way the community and national involvement in commemorating the years 1917 to 1920, inclusive. If we do that, the debate that has been sparked here today by Sinn Féin, which I credit it for doing, will certainly have had a good effect even if I cannot go along with another board and the taking of control over another facet of our life away from the politicians out to an independent quango.

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