Joe O'Toole (Independent)

As this year is the 90th anniversary of the 1916 Rising, it is worth discussing it. The year 1916 was a time of extraordinary change but there has been no acknowledgement of it. People are afraid of their past in that regard. There were decent people in the Royal Irish Constabulary as well as in the various volunteer forces. There was Tom Kettle as well as Tom Clark. Some people gave much to make this country what it is. It is only in recent years that I have read the statements taken by the State in 1946 from people who lived through that period. Those statements were taken in confidence and were locked away in the military history archives in Beggars Bush. When one reads them, one sees it was about ordinary people.

This is the year in which we should grow up, acknowledge our past and welcome the Queen of a neighbouring country. We should be grown up and developed enough to do that without trying to justify physical force or argue about who are the true successors of 1916. That is irrelevant. The successors of 1916 are all the people.

We have all come from a generation where Irish history at school finished in 1916. It is time we acknowledged it happened and its rights and wrongs. People were in favour of it while others were opposed. That is what people want to say. For me, however, it is not about that but about reading the fourth paragraph of the proclamation and the vision therein and about seeing if we have reached it yet and where we go from here. It is not about the rights and wrongs. It would be completely wrong to try to apply the views of today to that time. We should openly discuss 1916.