Niall Ó Donnghaile (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is something I and colleagues from Fianna Fáil have raised in the House. I have no doubt we will continue to raise it. I referenced it last week so I will not go into it in any great detail at this stage.

I note too, with regard to the broader issue of victims and where it sits in the current political discourse in the North, that the victims' commissioner in the North was on the BBC this weekend and restated that no political agreement per sefrom the latest round of talks was necessary and that an Executive was not necessary in the North for the legacy money to be released, for which the Lord Chief Justice in the North has been calling. I call, through the Leader, on the Irish Government to reiterate to the British Government that there does not need to be any delay in releasing the funds for legacy inquests and that the call from the Lord Chief Justice, who is impartial from politics and sits separate from everything else that is happening in the current context, should be heeded and fulfilled.

I welcome, and I am sure the Leader noted it also, the call from more than 100 voices from within civic unionism to come together in a space around equality and a discussion on equality and rights. Many of them are very eminent figures within the unionist tradition. They stated issues of rights and equality are not issues for nationalism or unionism, as they are just issues for all of us. We are here to try to create a space in institutions such as ours, and perhaps we should consider, through the Committee on Procedure and Privileges, creating space for representatives of that civic body of unionism to come to the Seanad and address us on some of the issues they raised.