Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Sorry now, I did not interrupt anybody. I would equally ask Deputy Conway-Walsh not to lecture me. Since first coming into this House I have had a commitment to North-South relationships and to the issue of the future of this island. That has been my principal interest. I have worked hard behind the scenes and as a Minister to develop collegiate arrangements with people of all political persuasions in the North. I do not need lectures from Deputy Conway-Walsh or from anybody on the Sinn Féin side of the House. Working with others, Fianna Fáil was essential to the Good Friday Agreement. Fianna Fáil enabled the Deputy Conway-Walsh's party to give up the gun. Sinn Féin endorsed violence as the way to unify Ireland and did more damage to Irish unity than anybody else. Sinn Féin continues to endorse that narrative of violence, not understanding that every time it does so it makes more difficult than ever to get a united Ireland or to get consent.

When Deputy Conway-Walsh's colleague, Gerry Kelly, celebrates a prison escape which resulted in the murder of a prison officer, is that okay? Does she think that advances the cause of Irish unity? Of course it does not, nor does saying that Sinn Féin is more pure than Fianna Fáil because of my position on a shared island unit. That sums up Sinn Féin's view. Its members see it as something to appease the base. How many more votes can I win if I shout "united Ireland" more often than somebody else? That is the essence of what I have just heard from the Deputies opposite.

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