Rebecca Moynihan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

We welcome our distinguished guests and friends from the United States, in particular the ambassador, H.E. Ms Cronin, and Congressman Neal's words of solidarity. In 1998 when the Good Friday Agreement was signed everybody knew it was not an end game. What it did was provide a framework for a bigger job of a peace process. It may have been Sunningdale for slow learners, in the immortal words of Séamus Mallon, but unlike 1973 when the trust between the two Governments was low, the trust had been built over the course of the previous decade and the peace process. That trust had space to grow because they had allies in the US to act as honest brokers when issues or conflicts arose. The Good Friday Agreement was based on the assumption that Ireland and the UK would both be members of a wider European Union. It did not anticipate Brexit but, more importantly, it did not anticipate a sovereign Government acting in bad faith. That is what we have now. It is heartening at such a delicate phase of the peace process, post-election and protocol negotiations, that we continue to have friends in the EU and in the US who are clear in their assertions that no government can act unilaterally on an issue which has the potential to undermine much fought-for and actively protected peace.

The issue is not the protocol; the issue is a Brexit which was built on a bed of lies and which was enthusiastically supported by those who have now zoned in on the protocol to deflect from the consequences of their own actions and stances. As a result of their intransigence, they are threatening the future of a generation. We now have Brexit and we are going to deal with it but we will not deal with it at the expense of protecting the integrity of the Single Market or protecting human rights, which the EU guarantee, and at the expense of the protection of peace.

"Derry Girls" finished last week with the hope that the Good Friday Agreement represented. There is a generation of people on this island who do not remember the days of bombs and guns. There is a generation born since then who have families and jobs and who contribute as members of society but who, in another twist of history, might have had a very different life. They have that because of the Good Friday Agreement. This needs to be protected.

The arc of history is not guaranteed to be a straight line of progress. As events in Ukraine show, we must be vigilant in defence of democracy. To do that, we need to have friends, honest brokers and allies. We thank Congressman Neal for being that friend to us.