Emer Currie (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I was a little concerned that this motion might go in the direction of heaping pressure on the DUP at this moment in time, but that is not what this is about. We recognise we have to give them a little bit of space, but also there is an urgency about this. I think the motion gets that across.

From the activities over the last couple of weeks, hope is now back on the table in a way that it has not been for over a year. What I welcome about this motion is that it gives us the opportunity not just to talk about the last year, but to talk about the last 25 years and to focus on the points that have been raised not just about Brexit but also about the Good Friday Agreement and what is and is not working. We have been at the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, BIPA. We have listened to our colleagues from both islands and others. We have heard them speak before the Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement as well. That is what I reflect on this evening.

There have been seven years of uncertainty because of Brexit. Let us remember that 56% of people in Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU. There have been seven years of instability in Northern Ireland, not just because of Brexit, but also because there were three years with no Assembly between 2017 and 2020 following the "cash for ash" scandal when Sinn Féin resigned in 2017. Then there was a caretaker Government as part of New Decade, New Approach, NDNA, in January 2020. There were Covid-19 lockdowns and there was a Covid-19 government for two years. Then the DUP pulled out in February 2022. There have been seven years of instability. The overall collective feeling is that the paralysis in power sharing has led to constant crisis management. This has had an effect on confidence in politics.

I was canvassing in the election in May of last year. You can really sense the frustration that is putting people off politics. At the same time, it is not putting them off the Good Friday Agreement. We need to live up to the Good Friday Agreement and bring confidence back to power sharing and politics. The Good Friday Agreement, as we have seen in the architects' reports and in our work, is masterful, but it was miraculous at the time, and people accept that.While there is the three-strand framework from Mr. Hume, there are also all the other elements that fell into place, including the relationship between the two sovereign Governments, the international element, the years of effort that went into building up relationships and trust with everybody along the way, and the view that terrorism was going nowhere. We had the Sunningdale Agreement, the New Ireland Forum, the Anglo-Irish Agreement, the Downing Street Declaration of 1993, the Framework Document of 1995 and the Peace and Reconciliation Forum. So much work led to the Good Friday Agreement. There was the ownership of the people, from community leaders and women's groups to church representatives and youth organisations. The Good Friday Agreement was masterful and miraculous. It took bravery on all sides and on the part of all politicians to sign up. We need to see some more of that bravery now. We still have two opposing political traditions and objectives. So much of the Good Friday Agreement is about compromise, dialogue and working the three strands. The day-to-day work has to be done, and we really do need to see bravery and risks taken by leadership to see the Good Friday Agreement upheld in the way people talk about.

It is not all about strand one; it is also about strands two and three. Strand two has not evolved in the way I would like. There are so many more opportunities for the North–South bodies. With strand three, we need the relationship between the two sovereign Governments to work harder, especially because of Brexit and the lack of meetings involving the EU.

The North is suffering. Like the rest of us, it is struggling with homelessness, the health service and day-to-day issues such as childcare. People need to get back to work. The Windsor Framework puts hope back on the table. It entails a joint set of proposals. It demonstrates the flexibility needed and that when people step away from brinkmanship and unilateralism, we can find agreement. I hope the Assembly can now get back up and running, but once that happens we will need to review some of the internal mechanisms of the strands to make them work as hard as possible. I would go back to the St. Andrews Agreement, the changes it makes and the effect it has had on creating more adversarial politics, dominated by the two bigger parties. It would be good to re-examine this.

My last point is on the European Convention on Human Rights. Senator Ó Donnghaile is absolutely right that we had so much to lose with the legacy Bill. We need to put victims first. This is a core part of the Good Friday Agreement and must be upheld.