Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to have an opportunity to speak on this important subject. At the outset I congratulate An Taoiseach and the Minister for Foreign Affairs for the tremendous work they have done and continue to do. I include past Taoisigh and Ministers for Foreign Affairs in that as well. It is no harm to take stock. Politics has many challenges around every corner. Brexit was one such challenge and Covid was another. Those two challenges came together and it was not to the advantage of anybody that this happened.

I want to emphasise one or two points. When the late Reverend Ian Paisley and the late Martin McGuinness concluded, agreed to and signed up to the Good Friday Agreement, they achieved something that many of us did not think was possible in the climate that had prevailed on the island of Ireland for the previous 30 years but they did it. I believe they did it for a good reason. They had learned from their experiences and they had wondered how much had been contributed to society as a result of the previous 30 years. They rightly concluded that it was time to sit down together and pursue a common goal for the common good. They were successful in that and we should recognise the scene and the example they set, notwithstanding the respective positions they came from.

The shared island concept is excellent. It is in that area that I want to address a few words. I had occasion in a previous Dáil to see the efforts and success of work undertaken by Trevor Ringland and Hugo MacNeill at community level in Northern Ireland to address the issues and concerns of unionists who felt that they had been deprived of certain positions as a result of the Good Friday Agreement. They were successful and that work needs to be continued. Strange as it may seem, we cannot aspire to a united Ireland without remembering that the people have to be united first. We have to have a common goal. The people, North and South, must be facing in the same direction and have the same common objectives. If we do not go that way we will not have success. Let us not forget that the history of next year and the next decade will be written on the basis of the decisions that we take now.

We may well have to offer further financial assistance when the occasion arises in the near and medium-term future. This will do two things. It will show our commitment to the issues that we claim responsibility for and aspire to and that will be a good thing. It will also show that we are prepared to make sacrifices to address the issues of any imbalances that may occur in Northern Ireland. It is not just sufficient to say that on the one hand we want a united Ireland and at the same time we want the British Government to intervene more by way of supporting the concept that existed for generations. It is hugely important that we look carefully and closely at the degree to which we may have to expend money in the future to support the institutions that are there now to reassure the general public and to make certain that we do not slide back into recrimination and counter-accusation that was the pattern in the past.

We can learn a lot from history and I hope we have learned already. We have enough history between the institutions on this island, North and South, the population on both sides of the divide in Northern Ireland, and with our colleagues across the water in the UK. We have established enough ground there already. As her majesty, the British Queen said, when she spoke in Dublin Castle about the things that happened between the two countries, it might be better if some of them had never happened at all. It is no harm to reflect on that because it means a lot and if it does not mean a lot to us then we have not read our history properly.

We can do a lot more. We can still do a huge amount in supporting those who have concerns on both sides of the political and religious divide in Northern Ireland. We need to move away from those old-fashioned concepts and move into something different. We need to assist the people in Northern Ireland in achieving a forward progress that is useful from their point of view, useful from the point of view of the all-island concept and useful to peace and prosperity on the island of Ireland.

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