Frank Feighan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I give my condolences to the people of Christchurch in New Zealand on the shooting in the mosques during which 49 people were killed. It was very sad. We are seeing a lot of extremism from the far right and far left. The Prime Minister of New Zealand summed it up with her own words.

I mention also the tragedy at the Greenvale Hotel in Cookstown and the three young teenagers who died on that horrific night. Our thoughts and condolences are with the friends and families of those three teenagers.

I was at the Fine Gael national conference last Saturday and we had the honour of the attendance of Mr. Jeffrey Donaldson, MP. I agreed with some of the comments he made and disagreed with others but it was wonderful to see somebody like him coming to address the conference. It should happen more often across parties and across parliaments. Things like that open up lines of communication.

Mr. Donaldson spoke about Ireland in the Commonwealth which is an issue dear to my heart. I welcome the fact that Deputy Mary Lou McDonald said the debate about the Commonwealth should happen at the same time as a debate about Irish unification. I do not like the term "unification", I prefer "one Ireland" or an "agreed Ireland". If we were to have an agreed Ireland, aspects of Ireland's relationship with the Commonwealth will be a part of that. Every dog in the street knows that. Everybody from Sinn Féin to Fianna Fáil to Fine Gael knows that to be true. Some people say we should not put the cart before the horse but I believe we need to be imaginative. We can use sport in that regard.

Let us consider the Commonwealth Games. If I am a citizen and a nationalist from Northern Ireland, I can compete in the Commonwealth Games. If I am an athlete from the Republic of Ireland, despite the Good Friday Agreement and parity of esteem, I cannot compete in the Commonwealth Games. It is a simple thing that this is a narrative that exists deep down. The United Kingdom accounts for 2% of the Commonwealth but there is an anti-Britishness at play. We can pretend there is not but there is. Ireland would join the Commonwealth tomorrow morning if it comprised only Australia, New Zealand, Canada and new, high-tech countries such as India and Pakistan.Sometimes we must address our own failings. The Republic of Ireland will play Georgia tonight in Lansdowne Road. If we do well, everyone will ask why we do not have an all-Ireland soccer team. People will say that if those boys in Northern Ireland joined up with us, we would beat the world. We would not beat the world. We should have an all-Ireland soccer team but we should do what we did when we had an all-Ireland soccer team between 1882 and 1924. This team played all its home internationals in Belfast. Would that not be a great compromise? Unification or an agreed Ireland is not a one-way street. Rather, it is a two-way street and we must be prepared to roll up our sleeves and compromise if we want to achieve that which people talk about, which I believe is an agreed Ireland where everybody on this island, unionist or nationalist, is a citizen.