Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have to concur with Deputy Brendan Smith's remarks about the quality of the conference in Queen's University. I extend my thanks and congratulations to those who organised it. I was only sorry I could not be here for the Wednesday, because of my responsibilities here, but I managed to get the read-out of Senator Mitchell's speech. The point Senator Mitchell made, as Deputy Smith said, was solid. The peace process, over the course of the past 25 years and more, has seen many great challenges around policing and decommissioning and those challenges were overcome. Those were much greater challenges than the ones we face now and we need to make sure we overcome the current challenges we face.

I join with Deputy Bacik in condemning the sectarian attack in Lurgan. We can all agree with that.

When it comes to restoring institutions in Northern Ireland, it is not quite as simple as saying that one party has a veto. Only two parties have a veto, Sinn Féin and the DUP, by virtue of the fact that they are the major parties representing unionism and nationalism. Both parties have brought down the Executive in recent years. If there is a time to review the Good Friday Agreement - it has been done before at St. Andrews - I do not think that time is now. The appropriate time for doing that and discussing any potential future changes is when the institutions are up and running and the mandate given by the people at the last Assembly election is honoured. That has to happen before any of those rules can be changed again. The British and Irish Governments are working together in our efforts to persuade the five parties to re-enter an Executive. So far, one party is not willing to do that. We hope further efforts can be made after local elections to change that picture.

I discussed the legacy Bill with Prime Minister Sunak and in my meeting President Biden. We are very clear as a Government in our opposition to the legacy Bill. We think it is the wrong approach. All five major parties in Northern Ireland are also against it. They do not always agree on everything, but this is one issue they agree on. It should not be imposed on Northern Ireland. As the Tánaiste has said, the Government is not ruling out taking legal action on this, but we are not at that point yet. Of course, others may take legal action. Even if it does become law - it will be interesting to see if it ever actually comes into effect - it has not become law yet and we have been very clear with the British Government in our views on that.

Abortion laws North and South were not discussed in any of my meetings. Laws in Northern Ireland are set by Westminster and Stormont; here they are set by the Oireachtas. We have different laws on different things. I do not necessarily think there is anything wrong with that, but I agree with the point on free contraception. We are expanding that at the moment and will do so further in the year ahead.

Regarding the monarchy, the United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy and that position is supported by the majority of its people. That is something we should respect. Monarchies sometimes become republics; Barbados was the latest to do that. They do it when their people want to change their system of government. The majority of people in the United Kingdom want a constitutional monarchy with a democratically elected parliament and government and I think we should respect their choices.

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