Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the Senators for their varied contributions. I may not be able to get through every contribution in my reply but there are common thematic elements to the debate to which I can respond.

Quite a number of Senators spoke about the broader issue of this island and its future. I think Senator Doherty started off in that vein when she referred to the shared island initiative and the importance of listening. That is a skill set we could all do better with and one I could improve on. It is the most fundamental skill set in respect of reconciliation on the island. At the core of the Good Friday Agreement were three sets of relationships, namely, the British-Irish relationship, the North-South relationship and the relationship between the two traditions on the island, specifically within Northern Ireland. Irrespective of whatever happens into the future, those three sets of relationships, no matter their configuration, must be an integral part of the future.

I was invited to go on a journey in respect of the Good Friday Agreement and I have been on that journey for a long time. When I look back on the 1940s and 1950s, I see that the anti-partition movement, specifically the Irish Anti-Partition League, was quite sterile in the end. It achieved absolutely nothing. It took Lemass to go across the Border and to shake O'Neill's hand, the first move from the South, for engagement to take place. That was considered at the time to be something that should not be done, was against all principles, etc. Then, when I was eight or nine, the North erupted. Most my adult life was a daily diet of bombs, murder and mayhem. I thought I would never see the end of it. I never thought I would be in government actually presiding over the Good Friday Agreement. I recall the cessation of violence and the Downing Street Declaration. What that took was that listening skill of putting ourselves in what we perceive to be the other side's position, understanding where they are coming from, they, too, understanding where we are coming from, and being able to work out a shared future. That should be at the core of everything we do. If we start putting forward timelines and saying, "It is now or never: you must come on board", we just re-embed the trenches, it seems to me.

I recall that way back in 1992, I went to Corrymeela for a weekend with 11 other Senators and Deputies. The former Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, was there. We were all backbench Deputies at the time. There were 12 unionists and loyalists at the Corrymeela event. The DUP was going to participate but the late Ian Paisley, God be good to him, pulled his party members out at the last minute in order, as we know, to undermine the official unionists who were there. While I was in Ian Paisley's constituency, he was thundering on "RTÉ News at One" about the disgrace that Dermot Ahern and Micheál Martin were in his constituency. I will not take him off, but it was quite interesting. The point I am making is that, during that weekend, we learned so much about one another. I will always remember - I have said this before - that we were asked by the facilitators, who were Quakers, I think, to put up on a blackboard everything we thought about unionism. What we put up was not good. I remember one person quipped, "Just give us five minutes to get out of here before they see what we have written about them." The unionists and loyalists were doing a similar exercise in another room. We compared notes. They thought the parish priest wrote my speeches. That is not true, by the way, just to make that clear. That was their perception of the politics in the South. One of ours said unionists do not smile. The gap in understanding was so wide, but over time we gained confidence. A citizens' assembly can happen any time, but that is about frameworks and saying what model would work. That will not achieve a whole lot in the short term. It is the kinds of meetings to which I have referred that achieve things. I know that individual Senators and Deputies have been up and down meeting different groups of people, not only gaining confidence in one another's company-----