Lord John McFall of Alcluith:

I engaged in frantic gestures as a result. Brian Mulroney was the Prime Minister of Canada at the time, so I think Seán got my message and he said in a very slick manner, "Well, whoever you are, you are most welcome." Outside the venue Dick Spring passed me and bowed saying, "Good afternoon, Prime Minister." That time was my little bit of sunshine.

I know that the Houses of the Oireachtas are looking forward to hosting the 62nd plenary later this month in Cavan. I thank Senators and Deputies in the Oireachtas delegation for their contribution to the work of the assembly, including the Vice Chair, Senator Niall Ó Donnghaile, the committee Chair, Senator Emer Currie, the Co-Chair, Deputy Brendan Smith, and all of the Senators and Deputies who play such a valuable role in the delegation.

I was a member of the British-Irish parliamentary body from the 1980s. We did not have any substantial agendas but we spoke together and talked extensively. We enjoyed our social life together and I compliment you on having such a good social life here. What our meetings did when we came to the Good Friday Agreement and the peace process was to ensure we knew each other and that we had a level of understanding. I was the Minister of Education, Training and Health in Northern Ireland and the current Taoiseach was the Minister for Education in the South at the time, so we have known each other for quite a long time. This morning, I had a meeting with the Taoiseach and he gave me extensive time. The engagement I had with him felt like that of old friends meeting again, and that is what I am looking for in the future relationship between the Parliament in Westminster and the Houses of the Oireachtas.

I welcome the recent establishment of an Ireland-UK Parliamentary Friendship Group, under the leadership of Senator Lisa Chambers. I am sure this group will make a valuable contribution to strengthening Ireland-UK parliamentary links. Lisa has an open invitation to contact my office or come and see me any time.

I would like to take this unique opportunity to extend an invitation to Members of the Oireachtas, including the new friendship group, to come to Westminster for meetings with their counterparts. The informality of meetings is important; it is not the formality of them. When meetings are made formal, then there are rules and regulations and there are obstacles. I want to encourage that informal approach because I want to keep working to develop and strengthen the ties between our two Chambers. I hope these will become regular meetings.

Let me talk about the importance of community engagement. As important as contact between Parliaments is, we must never stop engaging with our communities. Even though this is necessarily a brief trip, I had a thoroughly enjoyable and interesting visit yesterday, as I mentioned, to University College Dublin's centre for peace and conflict research. I spoke to the students there, who are highly engaged and thoughtful about the roles of the House of Lords within the British Constitution. I look forward to my visit this afternoon to the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation because it is the community that matters very much and I want to understand that. When I visited Northern Ireland last year, I went to a community engagement. I visited the Shankill Women's Centre on the Shankill Road to engage with the people there, because if we are going to have solidity in our relationships, then there must be trust in the community. That is a non sequitur.

The close relationship between our two Parliaments is a reflection of the long-established social and family relationships between the people of our countries. There are hundreds of thousands of people who were born in Ireland and now live in the United Kingdom and UK-born people who now live in Ireland. These are people who enrich and enliven our societies and economies to our huge mutual benefit. My region in the west of Scotland has a long-established Irish community that has greatly influenced and enriched our cultural life. It would be wrong of me to get sidetracked at this point and highlight our close sporting connections just so that I could mention the result of last week's football match between Scotland and Ireland at Hampden Park. I shall avoid doing that.

Regarding reasons for us to work together, our bonds are strong and enduring, but I know the Cathaoirleach and Senators will agree that co-operation has never been more necessary. We live in difficult and very uncertain times. There are so many areas that require us to rise to the challenge and where we are stronger when we work together. One of my most vivid memories of my parliamentary career is the address to Members of both Houses of the UK Parliament by President Zelenskyy of Ukraine in March. I was similarly moved when I watched the broadcast of President Zelenskyy's address to this Parliament in April. As I said at the parliamentary assembly meeting of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, OSCE, when it met in Birmingham in July, there are some things about which we cannot and we must not be neutral. We must be resolute in defending democratic values and the fundamental importance of human rights, and responding to acts of aggression. I applaud the generosity and the famous hospitality of the people in Ireland in offering welcome and shelter to so many people from Ukraine and, indeed, to other refugees.

Energy and climate change are obvious critical areas where we must show leadership and continue to work closely together. We must listen to one another and we must hear what other people say, because the curse of modern society is that we hear people but we do not listen, which is exacerbated by social media. That listening and making time for other people is an essential characteristic of our relationship.

Although I am the first Lord Speaker to speak in this historic Chamber, I trust that I will not be the last. Let us build enduring relationships between our two Parliaments. Let us work together with energy and in good faith to build warmth and trust between our great historic nations.