Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In light of the threat of a collapsed Northern Ireland Executive and increased community tensions, it is timely that we review an agreement that was born out of similar circumstances. The Good Friday Agreement was an opportunity for us to demonstrate how a shared island might lead to a united Ireland. The commitments that the Irish Government gave in the New Decade, New Approach agreement, in particular those around infrastructure, are tangible examples of how that shared island can be developed. Our Government has made a strong commitment not just in words, but in financial terms by allocating €500 million to the shared island fund for cross-Border infrastructure. The North-South Ministerial Council has focused on the Ulster Canal and the Narrow Water Bridge. Recently, the Taoiseach met the North West Regional Development Group to update it on the shared island unit. The Irish Government has the willingness and funds to progress cross-Border investments. I want to see that same willingness and commitment from other parties to the agreement.

I compliment my SDLP colleague, the Minister of Infrastructure, Ms Nichola Mallon, MLA, who has met the Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, to commence a feasibility study on a high-speed rail link between Belfast, Dublin and Cork and may have ambitions to include Limerick and Derry. Today, a £250 million city deal was confirmed by the British Government. The Minister, Ms Mallon, and Mr. Colum Eastwood, MP for Foyle, campaigned for many years for that deal, which will include funding for the A5. The Irish Government stands ready to meet its long-standing commitment to contribute funding to that road upgrade. Last year, I had the privilege of welcoming to Dublin the campaign for a university in the north west. We are working on how to use the shared island unit to progress that concept. The real challenge for New Decade, New Approach is not in naming these projects, but in funding and delivering them and in working out the day-to-day issues facing governments in any infrastructural project.

Someone told me recently that, in the Good Friday Agreement, many Irish people had let go of the Articles 2 and 3 claim to the North in return for a shared institution in the North and being part of a wider relationship between Britain and Ireland and within Europe. That shared institution has not worked to its fullest since then and, unfortunately, the relationship between the islands has become more stressed due to Brexit.

Before we proceed in the march towards unity – that is absolutely where I would like us to go – we must demonstrate that we can share this island and do so through the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement. Saying that is easy for us in the South, given that we are not at the coalface, but I encourage everyone sitting around the Northern Ireland Executive's table to make use of the institutions, not lurch into collapse and instead work towards a functioning government.

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