Northern Ireland
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-29
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

I thank all the Deputies who have spoken. Deputy Paul Murphy spoke first. Some people may have used that term "mob" but the vast majority of people have not. The vast majority of people realise the enormous generational trauma that people in Garvaghy and Drumcree have gone through over the past three decades in particular. That is the motivation to prevent us having to go back to that type of trauma ever again.
We have engaged with the British Government. We have let it know our view as to what has happened but also how we can perhaps move forward. If we look back over the past number of decades there has been significant advancements in a lot of community relations. The Department of foreign affairs - I have been there on a number of occasions - over 30 years, and before shared island funding, administered the reconciliation fund, which has been particularly effective at interface areas.
We have supported a lot of working class, sporting and cultural organisations, with a view to breaking down barriers in various communities that hitherto would have had significant issues and tensions. That work has been ongoing. In many ways, what the last number of days reveal is complacency but also the fragility of that and how things can reverse very quickly.
To everybody, yes, we, in this House, find it incomprehensible how the Parades Commission took the decision it took. I have made that clear. What I am focused on now is how we try to collectively mediate our way through this because ultimately the resolution of this has to involve all sides for it to be sustainable.
Deputy Boyd Barrett spoke about Síle Carson and that she said that we had failed to recognised sectarianism. No, we have not. The Irish Government has never failed to recognise sectarianism. The Irish Government and, in fact, the party I lead and other parties, were central to the Good Friday Agreement, which was to create parity of esteem between all traditions, between British and Irish citizenship within Northern Ireland, as well as the North-South Ministerial Council and so forth. I do not accept that assertion by Deputy Boyd Barrett at all, or by anybody in that respect. I do not believe the phrase the Deputy used. Nationalists are no longer second-class citizens in Northern Ireland.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-29/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-10-05T01:00:59+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-29