Northern Ireland
Dail Éireann — 2026-10-01
============================================================

Sinéad Gibney (SD), Dublin Rathdown

I thank the Minister for outlining her position. I was on the Garvaghy Road on Sunday. I also met the residents last week. I was living and studying in the North during the last eruption of violence on the Garvaghy Road in the late nineties. The residents' message is clear and they are a genuinely dignified and clear group of people. We need to be careful about some of the messaging around the two sides in this debate because for me there is a clear act of provocation happening from one side, unfortunately, and on the other side what we have seen is compromise and work at peace and reconciliation over decades for their community, all of which is being undermined and torn apart right now. I urge the Government to engage with residents of the Garvaghy Road.
I do not know from the comments of the Minister if that has happened yet or if she simply described the engagement she has had with the Secretary of State. I have concerns around the time and space she mentioned in respect of finding a solution. I appreciate that has to be the case but, nonetheless, every day, minute and hour that this stand-off continues erodes peace in Northern Ireland. It erodes trust in the institutions from both communities, but I would particularly focus on those living on the Garvaghy Road right now.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-10-01/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-10-05T01:01:00+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-10-01