Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

As others have said, that it is more than two years since the collapse of power-sharing in Northern Ireland. We are all agreed that the Government has a pivotal role to play in facilitating the return of the much needed institutions. Clearly we have some influence over our Government and we have none over the British Government, which has responsibility in that regard. One of the demands on our Government is to build bridges with unionism. It has been a very important component part of the process of peace building over many decades. Successive Governments have gone out of their way to ensure there was an understanding and clear lines of communication with the various strands of unionism. According to a DUP figure, however, the Taoiseach and Tánaiste do not possess rational qualities and there seems to be no capacity for relationship building. Whatever one believes of that, this is an expressed view of the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste. Last week, a DUP MP commented that they had never known a time when Irish-unionist relations have been so broken. When we think back most of us could envisage a time there was very sundered relations between Irish Governments and unionism. For it be expressed, however, it means we are at fairly difficult impasse. I do not believe it is something we should just ignore. Listening to the tone of the debate in this House during Question Time, there is a movement away from the sense of rapport and rapprochement that has categorised - using the crudest of measures - nationalist and unionist relations over the past two decades. Does the Taoiseach recognise this relationship and does he recognise it as a problem? If so, does he have a particular strategy to address it?

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