Peadar Tóibín
Question:234. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs the number of times he has visited the North of Ireland since he assumed office. [49270/23]
View answerThursday, 30 November 2023
Questions (234)
Written answers
Engaging with Northern Ireland's political and civic leaders, and with my counterparts in the British Government, has been a key priority since my appointment as Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs in December 2022. This has been a consistent theme throughout my parliamentary career and is one that I take particularly seriously in the context of the Government's responsibilities as a guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement.
Against the backdrop of the very regrettable blockage of the Strand One and Strand Two institutions since May 2022's Assembly elections, I have prioritised efforts to get the institutions back up and running. This has involved frequent contacts with counterparts in Northern Ireland, in the British Government, in the EU and indeed with our partners in the US, who Deputies know have a particular investment in the success of the Good Friday Agreement institutions.
Since my appointment to this Department I have made 7 visits to Northern Ireland. These visits have allowed to me to hear, face-to-face, from political and civil leaders their views on a range of issues. It is invaluable to hear directly their thoughts on how we chart a way forward on a broad range of issues from restoring the institutions, to dealing with the legacy of the past, to how this Government can best support civil society organisations in our shared efforts to achieve genuine reconciliation.
I have greatly appreciated the warm welcome and rich exchanges with diverse interlocutors. I have met with Northern Ireland’s party leaders, with organisations supported by my Department’s Reconciliation Fund, with victims and survivor groups, with PSNI leadership, with business representatives, cultural institutions, and academics. I am determined to engage openly and honestly with voices from right across the community. In recent months I have appreciated being welcomed by the Orange Order and East Belfast GAA.
Most recently, in September, I attended the Northern Ireland Investment Summit dinner, together with business leaders from across these islands and the US, giving me the opportunity to underline Northern Ireland’s enormous potential. This potential can best be unlocked with the Executive and Assembly back in place and the North South Ministerial Capacity operating at its full capacity.
Making this a reality continues to be a focus of my engagements , including at meetings at political level of the British Irish Council last week and the British Irish Inter-Governmental Conference earlier this week which the Government hosted in Dublin. This meeting of the Conference was the third held at political level this year, following a meeting in Dublin in January and another in London this June. The urgent task of restoring Northern Ireland's power-sharing institutions was a focus of my discussions with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland at this week's Conference. I was glad also this year to host the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in Iveagh House in Dublin, and indeed to meet him again in the margins of a an event we both attended held by the British-Irish Chamber of Commerce in October.