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

That needs to be said loudly and clearly because the next morning when I woke up in a little room in Belfast, I listened for a few minutes and all I could hear was a helicopter in the sky because for the British Government and the British military presence at that time, while some people thought the helicopter was about looking at people like insects under a microscope, it was actually about the noise. It was about telling the people who lived in communities like Ardoyne, Turf Lodge, parts of Tyrone, Armagh or wherever that they were there and they were in charge. I knew then that one of the big things we had to do in the peace process was to demilitarise the situation, and that was achieved. It was achieved because people took risks. They took risks for the things they wanted to do and the things they wanted to achieve, and the Good Friday Agreement is central to that.

The republican leaders then, and now, were just as committed to an Irish Republic as Eamon de Valera was in 1916 when he walked out, and Michael Collins along with him. Sometimes when we come in here we think it is all about the different sides we are on, but it is not. It is about our vision for a different Ireland. It is about the future Ireland and the future Ireland, for me and for the vast majority of the Irish people, is about a united Ireland of united people. It is about moving forward into a new place. It is about unity and inclusion. If we are to achieve that unity and inclusion we have to work together. We have to stop bickering about nonsense. I hear too much of that in this Chamber. To make that happen we have to acknowledge that the vast majority of people want a better future.

At different times over many years I have spoken to people who come from a traditionally unionist position and who see themselves as being British but they want the same thing as the rest of us want. If we can create a republic, a new Ireland, where their space in it is guaranteed, they will be a unique and absolutely crucial part of it.

When we say we want a Border poll, that Brexit has exposed the folly of a Border and that one of the things we should do is remove that Border in order to move ourselves forward, we are not saying we want to do that out of a sense of revenge for the past. We are doing that out of a sense of having a new future for all our people.

While this entire debate is about Brexit and all those technical issues, it is also about having a bit of common sense and working together. I hope we can continue to do that.

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