James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to have an opportunity to make a statement on New Decade, New Approach. I was recently in Northern Ireland and I found it extraordinarily interesting getting the different perspectives of people in the Northern Ireland business community through the Ireland's Future event which I attended. I also found it extraordinarily interesting how deeply felt the frustrations are among ordinary people, often outside of political circles, from the engagement I have had with people. New Decade, New Approach enabled the restarting of the Northern Ireland Assembly, which was also key.

As a parliamentarian in Dáil Éireann, here in the Republic of Ireland, while the goings-on in Northern Ireland politics are extraordinary complex and it would be unwise of me or anyone else here to underestimate those complexities, I find myself to a degree bemused at how often threats are put forward about pulling away from the Northern Ireland Assembly. That is no way for any political party to behave on an ongoing basis, but it continues to happen in Northern Ireland. I want to express that point, which may be welcome to some in Northern Ireland, but with many politicians elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly, that case is often ignored. It is important for that to be put forward by a politician here in the Republic of Ireland.

Something else that I feel deeply passionate about is the future of Northern Ireland and where it is going to be in a decade or two decades time. What I want to see is the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement and that the people of Northern Ireland and the Republic, as agreed through the Good Friday Agreement, have the opportunity eventually to vote on their own future and the future of this island. I feel very passionately about making sure that we enable that to happen. That is why the creation of the shared island unit is important in order to do a degree of work in regard to building relationships. As a state, we need to go a step further. As it stands, I feel hundreds of thousands of people in Northern Ireland are being denied the ability to live within the system that we have here in the Republic, which enables the pursuit of all opportunities, both economic and social. It has been a remarkable success story how well the Twenty-six Counties of the current Republic of Ireland have done and I am very keen to have that in the future for Northern Ireland. I wanted to make that point and I will leave the remainder of my time to Deputy McAuliffe.

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