David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and his adviser to the House, and I compliment him on the sterling work he continues to do. This undoubtedly is a day of celebration. I am old enough to remember the Troubles in Northern Ireland and the appalling violence that went on and I do not think it was justified. While there was discrimination, the lies that were told were completely obnoxious. I refer, for example, to the idea that there was not one man, one vote. Of course there was, except in the local authority elections, where there was a property qualification and that was exactly the same down here in the South. The tragedy was that those property qualifications roughly followed the line of the sectarian divisions in Northern Ireland and that made it really poisonous. There was also gerrymandering.

Another thing I would say is this. The Good Friday Agreement is wonderful and we do celebrate it. On the other hand, there is a great deal of black bitterness among some sections of the community in Northern Ireland and we must recognise that fact. We have to work to educate those people and bring them forward into a future that is not threatening. I recite today with great pride the names of some of those who were involved in the Good Friday Agreement, such as Seamus Mallon, who is often forgotten and sidelined nowadays. He may have been socially very conservative but was a real beacon of rationality, decency and good faith. John Hume took decisions, very courageously, to meet the IRA leaders and sacrificed his own political future in so doing. There was no doubt that one of the dividends of this agreement would be that the moderate parties would be greatly diminished in political strength. That was an act of great political courage.

On the other side, David Trimble often is not given credit. He took a very courageous decision in the Good Friday Agreement. Then there was Bertie Ahern. I remember that during a sensitive stage of these negotiations, his mother died but he continued. That was an act of great courage on the part of Bertie Ahern. Mo Mowlam, although sick, played a sterling role in this regard. Then of course, there was Senator George Mitchell. Tribute has been paid to the patience of the Minister but if anyone ever had patience, it was George Mitchell. One also must acknowledge the role played by Deputy Adams and Martin McGuinness. Interestingly, as I recall it - I am sure I am right - Mary Robinson actually argued against the Good Friday Agreement because of her sensitivity to the feelings of Northern unionists. That is a very curious little sidelight on history.

The position of the Good Friday Agreement must be maintained in the teeth of the disastrous decision of the British people to leave the European Union. If a Border comes back, with Border posts and the rest of that paraphernalia, it will be a magnet for the lunatic fringe of republicanism. I was in the North recently and went past Newry, where there used to be enormous fortifications, barbed wire, gun emplacements and so forth. All gone. Please God we will keep that gone.

I have to say that the Good Friday Agreement was a very useful fudge in many ways. It is not fully democratic. Let us be honest and open about it; it is not democratic. The d'Hondt mechanism, for example, flies in the face of democracy. However, it was necessary.I hope the stage will be reached where this sort of fudge of political reality will be unnecessary. We have a job to do on education also. I spoke about educating the people of Northern Ireland, but we must also educate some British Members of Parliament such as the Labour MP who said the Good Friday Agreement was nothing but a shibboleth. It is complete nonsense and ignorance. We had 30 years of violence which the younger generation does not remember. I remember it very well. I remember being a colleague in this House of both John Robb and Gordon Wilson who added a great deal to the proceedings of the Seanad.

The Republic of Ireland paid a price for the Good Friday agreement. We got rid of Articles 2 and 3 from the Constitution, which was a visionary thing to do. The process which led to the Good Friday agreement was an essentially democratic one. A referendum was passed in both parts of the island, the figures in respect of which I will place on the record. It was passed in the North of Ireland by a "Yes" vote of 676,966 votes, or 71% of the Northern community. The "Yes" vote in the Republic was far higher. Here, it was passed by 94.39% of the Irish population, which was absolutely overwhelming. It was 1,442,583 votes. More than 2 million people on this island gave their assent to the Good Friday Agreement. From this, we must continue on the construction of a new Ireland, whatever form that takes, which is in the interests of all the people of this island.