Dáil debates

Wednesday, 24 February 2021

New Decade, New Approach Agreement: Statements

 

3:40 pm

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

A little over a year ago, I stood together in the cold with the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Julian Smith, and we announced we believed we had found the basis for an agreement on which all parties could come together and restore the Executive, the assembly and the North-South Ministerial Council. In an act of political courage and imagination, and in a spirit of compromise, the five parties did just that. It had taken three tough years to get us to that point. Hard compromises were made on all sides. No one got everything they wanted except one thing. They ended the stalemate and got politics working again, and gave people in Northern Ireland a democratic voice that they had not had for three years.

The years since the New Decade, New Approach agreement have presented exceptional challenges, some, I think, we expected and others we could scarcely have imagined. Though the storm of Covid has not yet passed, there has been a shared determination in difficult circumstances by the newly restored Executive and Assembly to hold the ship steady through it and try to keep people safe.

The key to keeping that ship steady through future storms, big and small, is ongoing delivery on all of the commitments made by us collectively in the New Decade, New Approach agreement and previous agreements, right back to our shared foundation of the Good Friday Agreement.

The Taoiseach has spoken in detail about the work we are doing to deliver on the commitments of the Government for greater connection and deeper reconciliation. The shared Ireland initiative is an ambitious and inclusive framework for our commitment to strengthen the North-South relationship, work together to face major strategic challenges, develop our shared island's economy and invest for the benefit of Border regions. These are areas of common ground. They are practical, positive and are rooted firmly in the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement.

As we look ahead, it is vital that we all keep making progress towards the full realisation of the New Decade, New Approach agreement, NDNA. That means delivery across the board, from both Governments and the Northern Ireland Executive. Some of the hardest things to find agreement on in the endless hours of negotiation were around issues of language and identity. However, we eventually found a detailed compromise and way forward through a balanced package of legislation and, as with all of the New Decade, New Approach agreement commitments, it is vital that this is taken forward now as agreed. Recognition and respect in the areas of language, identity and diversity are core to building and maintaining trust between communities and political leaders. Follow-through on commitments made is important in that regard.

Deputies have raised today the lack of progress in addressing the legacy of the past. Most, if not all of us, have sat with families of those who lost their lives in the Troubles. All of us should feel an obligation to respond to the legitimate pleas of victims and their families but also to help all of society address the legacy of the past in a way that fosters reconciliation and, we hope, new and stronger relationships.

When the New Decade, New Approach agreement was reached last year, the Irish and British Governments separately reaffirmed our commitment to the Stormont House Agreement. The British Government made a specific commitment to introduce legislation that would see it fully implemented. It is not about whitewashing paramilitary violence or state collusion or endorsing one or other narrative of the conflict. Rather, it is about investigations, information recovery, oral history and acknowledgement of the truth for all victims, communities and all of us.

In March, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland announced new proposals for dealing with the legacy of the Troubles in Northern Ireland which departed from the framework. In the months since then, I have engaged regularly with him to underline the clear and consistent position of the Government that the Stormont House Agreement is still the way forward and we will continue to engage and reaffirm this commitment.

The provisions of the Stormont House Agreement were not easily agreed, but they were agreed collectively. It is our responsibility now to see it implemented and not allow wounds to be reopened or pain to be passed on to a new generation. The new agreement was called the New Decade, New Approach agreement for a reason. The title was intended to reflect the demand from ordinary people across Northern Ireland in particular, that politics work better for them and that, while acknowledging very different political views and aspirations, we still demand that political parties do not let debate slide into stand-off or disagreement into breakdown.

We must not easily forget the intensity of public frustration at the absence of the Executive and Assembly for over three years. I remember vividly that moment in St. John's Cathedral when Fr. Martin Magill spoke for many when he asked why in God's name it took the death of a special young woman, Lyra McKee, for political leaders to come together.

The NDNA is not a dry list of promises. Rather, it is an expression of determination by political leaders on behalf of their constituents to make politics work. While it is not directly the subject of today's debate, it is important to recognise that the events of the past few weeks with respect to the protocol have been difficult and have caused understandable frustration and angst. I have seen the concerns raised about the impact of the protocol and its implications for the Good Friday Agreement, and it is important that I take a moment to address them directly.

We must not, and have not, dismissed the genuinely held fears and concerns of any community in Northern Ireland. We also must be clear and honest, however, about the situation. Nobody, be they unionist, nationalist or any other constituency, wants politicians to promise solutions that do not exist, cannot be delivered or would make things worse. Brexit is a policy that was, and was intended to be, profoundly disruptive. There is no scenario that delivers Brexit while life and business carries on precisely as it did before. We know that.

The protocol is a carefully constructed and good faith effort by the UK Government and the EU to try to ensure that the disruption for Northern Ireland is the least impactful it could be, preserving the delicate balance that the Good Friday Agreement established. It does not conflict with the Good Friday Agreement; it is there to protect it. It does not change the constitutional position of Northern Ireland; it explicitly reaffirms it and explicitly affirms the principle of consent as laid out in that agreement.

It does not seek to achieve a united Ireland by stealth or to add new areas of North-South co-operation. It simply allows existing co-operation to be maintained and protected. Crucially, it is also subject to periodic consent by the Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly, starting in four years' time. While cross-community consent mechanisms under strand one of the Good Friday Agreement are applicable only to matters of devolved competence for the Assembly, this periodic consent provision will ensure that every Assembly Member from every community in Northern Ireland will get an equal say in the continued application of the protocol.

I recognise that none of that assuages the real concerns in unionist communities. I recognise that none of that answers the real issues businesses are experiencing. However, the answer cannot and will not be to throw away the protocol and start again. That is in no one's interests, above all of those of Northern Ireland businesses looking for trade certainty and economic opportunity and the citizens of Northern Ireland who are seeking stability, prosperity and a reconciled society.

It is in everyone's interests that the protocol works sustainably for all communities and that the unique benefits for businesses in Northern Ireland of having unfettered access to Great Britain's internal market and to the European Union's Single Market are fully realised. We will continue to engage and listen to concerns. We will seek to address them through the protocol, a solution and hard-won compromise that provides stability, legal certainty and flexibility and is subject to democratic consent.

There is a process and framework for finding workable solutions on the ground, through the work of the specialised committee and the joint committee which is meeting today. That is the way forward. We will continue to advocate for flexibility and generosity in terms of the solutions that are necessary to real problems.

I feel sure that it will be put to me again by people speaking on behalf of the unionist community that neither I nor the Government is properly listening to the depths of their concerns. I take that seriously. We can all do better at listening to each other. For my part, I will continue to engage as much as possible with all parties on these issues, as well as those most impacted by Brexit in all communities, North and South, and those businesses experiencing real problems.

These are relationships that matter to us, not just now in the heat of Brexit but because they are relationships that are essential to our current and future well-being on this island.

This year, Northern Ireland will have existed for 100 years. In December, together with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Brandon Lewis, the First Minister and the deputy First Minister, I addressed an event, virtually of course, to mark the centenary of the Government of Ireland Act 1920. It was hosted by Queen's University Belfast. As I said on that occasion, this centenary of partition and the foundation of Northern Ireland is an opportunity to listen to each other about what it means for each of us, in the spirit of what Seamus Mallon called A Shared Home Place. The Good Friday Agreement calls on us to respect and ensure equality for the identity, ethos and aspiration of unionism just as it does for nationalism. President Higgins has spoken of the need for a hospitality of narratives. This year, even with everything else that is happening, I hope we will have an opportunity to learn from each other, acknowledging that we can have, at the same time, a shared history and a diversity of memory, as well as a common story and a very different experience of it.

In those 100 years, we have faced much darker times than we face today. We have overcome them. Through the Good Friday Agreement we have built a new beginning together and we have made it last, so that a generation of young people in Northern Ireland today has come to adulthood free from the shadow of violence and intimidation. We built that beginning on a commitment to better relationships within Northern Ireland, on this island, North and South and between the islands, east and west. The Government will do everything it can to make all those relationships succeed and prosper. The New Decade, New Approach agreement is a demonstration of that determination. It restored power sharing in Northern Ireland. It opened the way for the North-South Ministerial Council to resume and many meetings have flowed from that. It was made possible by British-Irish partnership and it shows what can be achieved by Dublin and London working together in close co-operation with all political parties in Northern Ireland. Its commitments now must be realised, even more so its commitment to making the relationships based on the Good Friday Agreement work into the future.

Finally, along with others, I condemn the intimidation and the threats that have been made to politicians from all parties and journalists in Northern Ireland in recent times. Most recently, it was Alex Maskey of Sinn Féin and Nichola Mallon of the SDLP, but it also occurred in unionist parties to multiple DUP MLAs and UUP MLAs. I have in mind Doug Beattie and others. In the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, Naomi Long, Stephen Farry and others have received threats in recent times. This is because they are democrats and are speaking the truth. We all should condemn the intimidation of people in public life and those who write about it in journalism. I hope it can be a reminder of where we do not want to go in the context of politics and democracy in Northern Ireland and, indeed, on the entire island.

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