Frank Feighan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish yourself, a Leas-Chathaoirligh, and all my colleagues and the staff a happy Christmas and a prosperous new year.

Senator Craughwell outlined the housing issue. It is an issue that needs to be dealt with. I was in Leitrim last Monday. The Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, opened or turned the sod on 53 new homes in four different developments to the tune of €12 million. A great deal is being done. I was delighted to see all the young couples and people getting the keys to their houses and moving in. It was a joy to see the Christmas tree in the houses. We need to do more but the personalised attacks on the Minister have been most unfair. Some people say that because he is from Dublin he knows nothing about the west of Ireland. However, he was comfortable and very much at ease. If I was the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government the same question would be put to me. I would be asked what could I know about housing in Dublin. We get personal about it, as when discussing health or housing. We have to be careful that we do not personalise it too much. That does not take away from the suffering of the many thousands of people who are without a home. We have to work. We are doing our best. We are putting serious money into this issue. There are some positive aspects of the delivery of housing.

I have talked about the UK election. It is obvious that Scotland is going in a different direction to England. Northern Ireland will be using Dublin and Ireland as a base to work through the EU. This opens up extraordinary opportunities for us. Mike Nesbitt, the ex-leader of the Ulster Unionist Party and a member of the legislative assembly, said something profound. He said all his life Northern Unionists were looking over their shoulders at Irish nationalists. However, the people they now need to fear most are English nationalists. This is very symbolic.

I want to thank Fianna Fáil. In fairness, people in Fianna Fáil have been great advocates of the Commonwealth. Yesterday, Deputy Stephen Donnelly and Deputy Malcom Byrne said that what we need to do for a united Ireland was to rejoin the Commonwealth and celebrate 12 July. They were following in the footsteps of de Valera when he met Churchill in Westminster in 1953. He said that if he had been Taoiseach in 1949, Ireland would not have left the Commonwealth. We burnt down a potential bridge with our neighbours. In 1999, 20 years ago, the then Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, addressed students in UCD. He said that leaving the Commonwealth in 1949 was particularly clumsy and that we succeeded in cutting off most of our English-speaking friends around the world. I am absolutely delighted and I hope my colleagues in Fine Gael can be as forthright in their thoughts as those in Fianna Fáil on the Commonwealth. I thank them very much. It is a wonderful idea and I am with them on this one.