Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to make a point through the Chair. The Northern Ireland Executive and the Assembly were deliberately scuttled on an issue that everyone knew about six months in advance, namely, the renewable heat scandal. Sinn Féin has no monopoly in the context of objecting to corruption, no more than anyone else. Tonight's "Panorama" programme might be revealing in that regard.

I want to make the point that what we got in the last all-island Brexit forum was a clear message from the civil dialogue people from Northern Ireland. It was simply this: there is an absence of a coherent voice on Brexit at the table in Northern Ireland because of the collapse of the Northern Executive and the Assembly. The overriding imperative has to be to restore the Northern Executive and Assembly rather than seeking election after election, as if the whole purpose of the Good Friday Agreement was electoral advantage and appealing to the base all the time. Let us remember that a month before the collapse of the Northern Executive, both parties appointed a joint spin doctor on the grounds that they had a good story to tell. One month later, it collapsed. People can make up their own minds about that. In any event, the Brexit issue demands that the parties come together, put aside their squabbles and organise the restoration of the Executive and the Assembly. They both now have a mandate to do that. The others do too of course.

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