Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge the Fianna Fáil Party. I am not scoring points here. I just want to make the point that when we came together, we achieved something fantastic. That is the best way to make politics work. I am thinking of those people who have been campaigning for years and for decades. I was involved in that first campaign in 1983. I made reference in the Oireachtas committee to the fact that back then in Ireland, children on buses just disappeared. There were girls that we never saw again and who were never spoken of again. That is in our lifetime. After 35 years, thanks to the tremendous work of these people I have mentioned, in particular, and thousands like them across the country, we have now made a step towards a real republic. Today is a day of which we can all be proud.