Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We need to be careful about the language we use during an election campaign. Politics is already very polarised in Northern Ireland and we need to work towards political reconciliation between parties as well as reconciliation between communities. That is why yesterday I tried to respond in an appropriate way to suggestions that there may be commitments to non-prosecution of certain state actors in the context of the legacy of the past in Northern Ireland. I do not think that would be helpful; in fact I think it would be very unhelpful in terms of efforts to move a legacy process and a reconciliation process forward in Northern Ireland.

We have an agreed approach. It is called the Stormont House Agreement. It is quite detailed and it took a lot of time to put together. There is a commitment to a historical investigations unit, which would investigate without fear or favour atrocities and crimes in Northern Ireland. The vast majority of them will concern non-state actors in acts of terrorism. We cannot have a situation where there is essentially an amnesty for any one element of Northern Ireland's past. That it not going to be the basis for lasting reconciliation. The Irish Government's position on that is very clear.

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