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

I am answering the question. I did not interrupt any other Deputies when they spoke. I have been heckled since I began to speak and there have been efforts to interfere. With the greatest respect, I would appreciate the protection of the Chair when I have the floor.

Regarding the questions around the shared island unit, it is a noble objective to work with all sides to enable people to share this island together in whatever format into the future. I have clear views on it and I want to work with people in that regard. It is outrageous that Deputy Tóibín would put those words in my mouth about Irish unity. I never said that and I never would say it. This is about people and about minds.

I do endorse aspects of the Seamus Mallon approach, not the majoritarian approach or whatever particular formulas he had, but the ethos of what he said, that there were people in his own neighbourhood who had been there for 400 years and that it was about time we learned to share our homeland, so that people would live in neighbourhoods together rather than always opposing each other. That is the spirit in which we should go forward on the island. There is lots to engage on and we need to engage people, not just constantly polarise them through rhetoric and appealing to the base.

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