Liam Fitzgerald (Fianna Fail)

My republican credentials are deeply rooted in the mountains of counties Limerick and Tipperary. I visited the Diplock courts, including the trials in the Harry Kirkpatrick case, the last of the supergrass trials to collapse. I witnessed at first hand the alienation of the people of west Belfast on visits to Ballymurphy, Divis flats and the Whiterock Road and viewed the peaceline at Belfast Flax Trust. Notwithstanding these facts, I have witnessed a creeping and sinister movement in operation on this island since the Good Friday Agreement was signed. Politicians are being continually blackmailed by the invocation of the Good Friday Agreement by democratically elected Members of Dáil Éireann and the Northern Assembly as a device to stay silent or else. We are being blackmailed by people whose long-term agenda——