Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I know the Cathaoirleach and the House will join with me in expressing sympathy to the family of the late Big Tom, as he was known. He was the king of country music and a legend in his lifetime. To his four children we express our deepest sympathies on his sad passing and on the passing of his wife, Rose, in January.

I am aware that we shall discuss the issue of the Good Friday Agreement, which is on the work schedule for the House this week. In the context of the Border, the report of the House of Commons Select Committee on Northern Ireland stated, "We have had no visibility of any technical solutions, anywhere in the world, beyond the aspirational, that would remove the need for physical infrastructure at the border." In other words, there is no solution beyond the theoretical that would keep open the Border between the North and the South of Ireland.We all know that at the height of the Troubles, of the 275 Border crossings between the North and the South only 20 remained open. Between Norway and Sweden there are only ten border crossings across which goods can actually go and only 40 border crossings in total. Much praise was heaped on the Government when the backstop was announced but it now seems that the British Government is backsliding on it. It is quite clear from all the negotiations that there is no clarity on what it actually means. Until such time as that is clarified, there is great jeopardy that the Border will be reimposed as a result of the British refusal to honour their commitment that there would be an open border between the North and the South. I ask the Leader to outline what the Government intends to do in making sure the Border remains open for goods and services.

I ask the House to support the motion we will be bringing forward in respect of the Pulitzer Prize which was won by a small newspaper, TheStorm Lake Timesin rural Iowa. That newspaper has only a circulation of 3,000 and a catchment population of 10,000. Its editor won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 2017, and the new Pulitzer Prize round is being announced this week. The family running this business are the Cullens, originally from Kilkenny, five generations back-----