Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We are all here because of the major impact Brexit will have. I listened to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Creed, speak earlier about the issues facing the agricultural sector and the agrifood industry. While the Bill is quite technical as to the areas it has to amend, there is little or no mention of those issues because they are mainly covered under aspects of trade. There are issues around tariffs and the free movement of goods, particularly in the Border region, about which we are very concerned but I believe all of that will be dealt with by way of amendments to the Bill as we move through Committee Stage and on to Report Stage, which I will deal with shortly.

I want to talk first about the issue of the Good Friday Agreement, which in fairness the Minister acknowledged and spoke about in his contribution in terms of the importance of it. I have shared this story many times in different venues. More than 20 years ago I was in Belfast one evening. At that time the negotiations were taking place. Sinn Féin used to organise what we call community meetings in community halls. I think it was in Turf Lodge or somewhere like that but we went into a hall, which was probably about the size of this Chamber and it was full of ordinary people from the community. Some of the negotiators were at the top table talking about what was going on in the talks. I recall Gerry Kelly, Leo Green and others were there. At that time, the Tánaiste was Dick Spring and Dick Spring's mantra was that it was not about uniting territory but about uniting people and bringing them together. They were explaining how he was always saying that. A little old woman at the back of the room stood up and said, "Who is this Dick Spring guy and where is he from?". They said he was from County Kerry. She said, "I went out this morning to put out my ashes and there was a soldier with a gun sitting behind the wheelie bin. If he went out to his back garden in Kerry tomorrow morning and there was a soldier in it, territory would be important to him". Everyone laughed and joked about it but I got a lesson that evening that I had not got before because for people in those communities, that thing we used to call the British occupation was an occupation of their very lives. When people like Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and other republican leaders went into republican communities and convinced people to transform the situation of conflict into a different situation, it was a whole change in their lives because their very existence had been resistance up to that time.

I often think, certainly when I come into this place, that there is not enough acknowledgment of the huge amount of work that was done at that time by republican leaders to change that situation.

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