Ned O'Sullivan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. I will put a few brief points on record. The Good Friday Agreement was a watershed in the long and troubled history of our country. We have failed to deliver on the full potential of the Good Friday Agreement and that is highly regrettable and frustrating for those of us who invested heavily in a peaceful way forward and in new relations between nationalists and unionists. Nationalists and unionists are both victims of their history and experience. As a young man from a republican household, I saw only one side; green was right and orange was bad. Thankfully I grew in maturity and came to realise that unionists do not have horns on their heads and that nationalists are no angels either. Some people, alas, will never be able to escape from that outdated tribal mindset and the failure of the Good Friday Agreement is that to date, it has not been the catalyst for the normalisation of society in Northern Ireland.

The shared island initiative is the most significant attempt to break the deadlock. An Tánaiste's vision of the future is generous and non-threatening. It offers real paths to progress and I am proud of the major investment the Government is committing on a yearly basis towards meaningful cross-Border and cross-society relations. The biggest mistake nationalists can make is to bully and threaten those who have no interest in a 32-county Republic. Thirty years of paramilitary slaughter failed to achieve this outcome. The biggest mistake unionists can make is to give the back of the hand to overtures such as a shared island initiative just because it came from the south of the Border.

It is my personal opinion that there will not be a united Ireland in my lifetime or for many decades to come, if ever. Neither can the political stand-off that has stagnated all chance of progress go on forever. We need to use the next few decades to start creating normal conditions, which might eventually lead towards a unity of minds and perhaps a unity in other ways eventually. In that regard, calls for a border poll or to prepare for a border poll are most unhelpful and irresponsible. Equally unhelpful is the trivialisation of the Northern Ireland Assembly, which we have seen from both the DUP and Sinn Féin. When the DUP is not in the Assembly, it is the villain but when Sinn Féin brought down the Assembly for three years, that was a fine thing. The partisan use of human rights campaigning and political journalism, where each side only has an interest in the rights of their own side and denies the legitimate rights and grievances of the other side, is also to be condemned.

I appeal to all right-thinking people to step out of the straitjackets of their birth and work for a new Ireland where we can all live in peace together. That is not an easy thing to do. I decided I would try to do it, it has not been easy for me and I am getting plenty of abuse about it. I believe in the truth and justice of my approach and more people on both sides of the divide should take that approach and decide to speak out on what they think is right, not what their father, grandfather or next-door neighbour thinks is right. There will never be change if we go on like that forever. I want to say to unionists that they have a friend in me and that they have a lot of friends in the South if they only reach out to them.