Niall Ó Donnghaile (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I condemn last week's bomb alert in Belfast that saw the Minister, Deputy Coveney, having to be evacuated from an event that was organised by the Hume Foundation at the Houben Centre in north Belfast. A funeral that was taking place at the nearby Holy Cross Church was disrupted as well. Indeed, the alert caused a great deal of fear and unsettlement in the local community not least to the van driver who was caught up in it all.

The alert comes as a small merry band of mostly unelected and unrepresentative people conduct small and sporadic protests across the North. These people are unrepresentative of the broader society and, dare I say, broadly unrepresentative of the wider unionist community. We have seen a number of alerts. We have seen an upsurge in quite unnecessary and hostile rhetoric towards the Irish Government, which is to be condemned as it is extremely unhelpful. I use this platform today, and will use it at other time that I need to do so, to call for that rhetoric to be dialled down.

I wish to reflect my deep disappointment at yet another failure by the British Government to fulfil a commitment, and again it relates to Acht na Gaeilge. Since the St. Andrews Agreement in 2006 Irish speakers in the North have waited for the same rights that are afforded to people in this part of Ireland. These are the same rights that are afforded to Welsh speakers in Wales and Scots Gaelic speakers in Scotland. Also, the British Secretary of State has refused to commission abortion services for women in the North thereby letting them down and leaving them having to wait further.

Finally, when one couples all of that with the position concerning legacy and that around the UK's Nationality and Borders Bill one can see that one supposed agreement after another has been walked away from. Therefore, the Irish Government and State must up their work rate to ensure that those promises and commitments are fulfilled.