Keith Swanick (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday was the 25th anniversary of the Warrington bombing. Two bombs, placed in bins, were exploded without warning by the Provisional IRA on Bridge Street, Warrington. Three year old Johnathan Ball died at the scene, 12 year old Tim Parry died five days later from his injuries and 54 others were injured. Nobody was ever prosecuted for these murders and this barbaric incident shocked our two islands. It perhaps brought a renewed focus on peace. I worked in London and then as a GP in Wales and when one said one was from Ireland, the atrocity of Warrington was often mentioned.

Colin and Wendy Parry, the parents of 12 year old Tim Parry, established the Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace, which works nationally and internationally for peace and non-violent conflict resolution. In 2000, on the seventh anniversary of the bombing, a peace centre was opened and I am sure people like Colin and Wendy Parry never imagined the tragedy visited upon them. When violence and death arrived at their door, however, they chose to make a difference for others. I salute them and every other victim who had the courage to stand up and say bombings never bring people together.

Mar fhocal scoir, ba mhaith liom cúpla focal a rá faoi Chomhaontú Aoine an Chéasta. B'ócáid stairiúil é agus táim i bhfabhar díospóireacht a reachtáil sa Seanad maidir leis an bpróiseas síochána agus Comhaontú Aoine an Chéasta. The Good Friday Agreement will be 20 years old in a few weeks and it is timely that we should have a debate on it in the Seanad. The agreement was overwhelmingly approved in two referendums in both parts of Ireland in May 1998, only the second time in a century that the people of Ireland voted on the same issue on the same day on their constitutional status, the first being the election of the first Dáil in 1918.