Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail)

For all of the speakers on both sides this is an important debate and I applaud Sinn Féin for having tabled the motion. The current debate about the presidency is timely in that the addition of a Sinn Féin candidate has opened up the entire debate and reopened the debate on Northern Ireland. Those of us who live in the South, and particularly those who live in the Border counties, held the view that their were three different strands of opinion on the approach to Northern Ireland. One was the obvious reaction and response of those who lived within the Six Counties, depending on which side of the tribal divide shaped one's opinions and influences and, perhaps, one's prejudices. Then there were those of us along the Border counties who regularly traversed North-South, such as my own family who have family connections in County Fermanagh. The same would be true of a large majority of people across the six southern Border counties. We were constantly travelling over and back and much dialogue took place at that time. Our perceptions were shaped by that experience. The rest of Ireland, to a large extent, appear to have effectively ignored Northern Ireland. During the period of the Troubles from 1969 onwards there were references to the effect that one could be towed out to the North Sea and dumped and forgotten about. There was a very strong partitionist view which had been shaped by successive Administrations, which had consolidated what had happened post treaty, the late Seán Healy used to refer to them as verbal Republicans, they paid lip servive to and spoke about a united Ireland and the restoration of the fourth green field. Within Fianna Fáil itself, a view was often expressed that Eamon De Valera, despite his rhetoric, through legislation, consolidated the situation, in other words, "We have what we hold or we hold what we have", while at the same time hoping that something positive would develop. This did not happen until the Lemass years. Senator Barrett is absolutely correct. If we have learned anything from the peace process it is the re-establishment of dialogue between both sides. I do not want to use up my time going into history but I must put on the record what appears to be a revisionist approach to the recent history of Northern Ireland and the troubled history of relations between Unionists and Nationalists and between North and South.

This morning I listened to two journalists both from Northern Ireland and obviously from the Nationalist tradition, Martina Devlin and Justine McCarthy. Both said that Martin McGuinness of Sinn Féin had brought peace to Northern Ireland. I have not heard any public references to the role that John Hume, Seamus Mallon and the SDLP have played.