Robbie Gallagher (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to this very important debate. I compliment my colleagues, Senators Blaney and McGreehan, for tabling the motion on behalf of Fianna Fáil. We in Fianna Fáil, like all Members, are delighted to reaffirm our total commitment to the Good Friday Agreement, which was so hard-won back on 10 April 1998. Everyone that was involved in that agreement deserves huge credit. Senator McDowell, Minister for Justice back in the day, also played his part and I acknowledge that, and everyone else who played a part. However, one man stands head and shoulders above all others and deserves huge credit for the peace process and the Good Friday Agreement and that is John Hume. No man did more for peace on this island than John Hume did. We must never forget that the Good Friday Agreement was hard won. We should owe a great deal of gratitude to everyone on all sides who helped make the agreement happen.

As President Michael D. Higgins said of John Hume, "He created a light of hope in the most difficult of times". Sadly, John Hume is no longer with us having passed away last August. I wish to take this opportunity, I am sure on behalf of us all, to pass our deepest sympathies to his wife Pat and the entire family as we did not have an opportunity in the House to do so. It is important we acknowledge that. John Hume saw the big picture. He talked about respect for difference and diversity. He said our differences were nothing more than an accident of birth. John Hume knew that bombs and bullets did nothing to bring our people together; in fact it only drove them further apart. The divisions cut deeper and the problems got bigger.

I stand here this evening among my colleagues as a proud republican. I look forward to the day when our people, all our people, will be reunited on this island, when it will be so obvious to all of them that there is no need for a border poll because people of all traditions will see this island as their true home and we will respect their diversity.

I am saddened that more peace walls are separating the two communities in certain parts of Northern Ireland than there was when the peace agreement was signed in 1998.The Good Friday Agreement has silenced the guns and the bombs and for that we are extremely grateful but now we move on to the next phase when we can get to a point where there is no longer any need to have a peace wall dividing the two communities. Perhaps then the time will be right to have a conversation about our future together on this island.

Unionism is at a very difficult crossroads at this particular time and we have to be very sensitive to the unionist community which finds itself at this time, and particularly after what happened in Brexit, with a British Prime Minister, although not the first to do so, who threw them under the bus when it came after looking after their interest during the Brexit negotiations. We have to be sensitive to how they feel at the moment - how they feel isolated and alone. Many in the nationalist community can relate to that. This problem of Northern Ireland will not just be solved in Northern Ireland. Dublin is involved and, indeed, so is London. We need to get to a point where we work all the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement for the betterment of all our citizens in this country.

I will finish with a quote from John Hume that I respectfully suggest my colleagues in Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland and, indeed, the unionist parties take on board, that politics is about finding solutions, not just about winning seats.