Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I shall address the first matter on Irish unity. I reiterate the Government is committed to the Good Friday Agreement and we see ourselves as - and are - co-guarantors of that agreement. We should not forget that when the Good Friday Agreement was approved, it was approved by 97% of people voting in a referendum in this State and more than 70% of people voting in a referendum in Northern Ireland. Talks are under way in Stormont at present. As I speak, the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Coveney, is in Belfast representing the Government.

As those talks are at a very sensitive stage, today is not the day to be asserting our unionism or nationalism. I do not think any good purpose would be served by giving anyone any cause to take offence. I think that is all I will say for now. The Tánaiste is working very hard today in Belfast to try to help the parties, particularly the two largest parties, to come to a compromise in order that the Executive and the Assembly can get up and running again.

Even though the Executive and the Assembly are not functioning, a great deal of good work is still being done with regard to North-South projects. For example, the cancer service at Altnagelvin Area Hospital in Derry is seeing patients from County Donegal who need radiotherapy every day. There is an agreement in place to ensure patients from County Donegal who have particular types of heart attacks can get primary percutaneous coronary intervention treatment in Altnagelvin in Derry, rather than in locations like Galway or Dublin, which are much further away. We are making very good progress on integrating cardiac surgery for children in order that children from the entire island of Ireland will have their cardiac surgery in Crumlin and subsequently, in the new national children's hospital.

The A5 project has received approval in Northern Ireland at long last. I anticipate that the sod will be turned on the first phase of that road this year. We are co-funding that. We are very keen to complete that project, which will connect Dublin to Derry and Letterkenny. It will pass through Northern Ireland and counties Monaghan and Meath. When I was looking at the travel times the other day, I noted that when the road has been completed, it will take an hour to drive from Emyvale to Derry. It will be quicker to drive from the northern part of Monaghan to Derry than to Dublin. This shows how infrastructure of this nature can change a country. We are very committed to this project.

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