Danny Healy-Rae: Urges Unity, Warns Against Reduced Living Standards

Thank you very much. First of all, I was in the north today and I travelled through four countries early in the morning. And it's a grand place, grand people. And like Deputy Collins, I want to thank the people, the consultants and the staff in the Kingsbridge Hospital for the great care they've taken. And of all the patients we've sent up for catholics removals and hips and knees and all the other things. And they're very careful and have treated our people that we've sent up with great respect. And I want to thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward this motion here this evening. And I've been here for a long time listening to it. And it's great to have this debate because we think of all the battles and all the trials that our people went through back the last couple of hundred years. But I suppose mostly what I can remember is the troubles that took place from 68 to 98. And I suppose all of us can remember when certain things happened in our lives. We'll say when the Twin Towers were blown up. I can remember where I was. I can remember exactly where I was when the Good Friday Agreement was announced. And I want to thank the people that took place and secured that agreement. Because there was give and take on both sides and there was a lot of give on both sides. And we want to thank everyone. And I'll just name a few. Paisley, Trimble, Adams, McGuinness, John Hume, Bertie, Brinners, Charlie and Garrett, Bill Clinton and Charles Mitchell, John Major, Tony Blair and many more. For giving such great attention and securing that we moved away from that bloodshed. And there are often times that the people mainly in the six counties suffered over that period of time. And it's grand to see that people can get up in the morning, go to work and live normal like they are now. And we don't want to go back to what was when I went to the north today. There was no checkpoints. We see northern buyers coming down even before cattle got good, before we started getting good prices for cattle. The northern buyers were coming down and boosted the marks in Castle Island and McCroom and all the places. We appreciate that very much and they're very, very welcome. And what we must ensure for all the people in the island, that if we do merge together, and it's my ambition as much as anyone else in United Ireland, that we must have the same, that there won't be a reduction in standard of living for anyone in any part of the country. And certainly we need to have the debate and have many debates and we must appreciate all the people in each side, whether to the units, whether to the hard Republicans, all sides must be heard and listened to. All the communities must be listened to. And we don't want to be, like, I don't know how to say this, but we can't roast it. We must be fairly sure that what we're doing is going to work and that we won't antagonize or push the thing back any further. We see, it was mentioned, what happened in Scotland. And we, surely, we need to be sure about all of that and that we'll all work jointly together. I thought, four minutes. Four minutes is up. Yeah, all right. All right. Look, Carhella, thank Sinn Féin very much and thank everyone for debating here tonight because if we're not united ourselves in this, we have no hope of going any further. Dr. Crowe. Thank you.