Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I do not often agree with the Progressive Democrats Party — politics would be the poorer if I did. During the past 25 years, when I have been in and around the House, I have in many cases taken a quite different view about the best way to move us away from the apparently perpetual middle level violence that had become almost endemic in this country until the beginning of the 1990s. Many Members here, and many others in Irish democratic politics had differing views on the best way forward. I have said on a few occasions I do not believe "republican" is a word we should hand over to one particular party — there is nobody in the Houses who is anything other than republican.