It is a fact that policy on long-term illness medical cards has been changed. Very sick citizens, including very sick children, should have the right, without equivocation, to a medical card.

I wish to raise a different issue with the Taoiseach. As he knows, US diplomats Richard Haass and Meghan O'Sullivan are conducting intensive discussions on outstanding aspects of the Good Friday Agreement and other agreements. They include legacy issues arising from the conflict. Anyone with an interest in building the peace knows that these legacy issues of the past cannot be allowed to be an obstacle in building the future. Therefore, we need to have a measured and inclusive debate on all of the issues involved. This morning the Taoiseach may have heard that the Attorney General in the North, Mr. John Larkin, had put forward his ideas for dealing with one aspect, the issue of prosecutions. He has expressed the view that there should be no prosecutions for incidents that occurred before the Good Friday Agreement. He has also said the current position favours non-state forces, but that is not the case. We know that the British Government is in breach of a number of international agreements, including some with the Irish Government. There is also, to all intents and purposes, a virtual amnesty for British forces and their allies, while thousands of republicans and innocent Nationalists have served lengthy prison sentences.

I have not yet had a chance to read the Northern Ireland Attorney General's full submission, but I intend to do so. It is good that the Haass talks have encouraged people to make submissions and that he wants to hear the voices of the people, including the voices of victims. Mr. Haass has received a few hundred submissions. Our society needs to have this debate. Can we have some understanding and some measure of reasoned, rational, intelligent and sensitive debate on these issues that will recognise that any mechanism put in place must be victim-centred and on the basis of equality? We have proposed that there be an international independent truth recovery process. Others have different ideas, which is fair. We need to take the opportunity to discuss these matters in order that we can move forward in a way which looks after the victims but also builds a future for the survivors.

I am very conscious, for example, of the upcoming official visit of the President to Britain and all of the other seismic changes we have seen in our time. These need to be measured and discussed, not just in palaces but on the streets, in the laneways and on the hillsides of this island, most particularly in the North. Will the Taoiseach encourage a debate on these matters in the way I have outlined and will he set aside time here to allow that to happen?

I will. Both the Tánaiste and I met Dr. Haass recently in Dublin. He was invited to come here by the Executive and look at the question of flags, parades and the past. He has gone through a listening process and hopes to conclude his engagement, discussions and recommendations by Christmas. It is only appropriate that there be rational and appropriate discussion. It may well be that at the end of the day there can be some movement on the issue of flags and parades. There is certainly a possibility of movement in that regard.

The question of the past is different because it deals with victims on all sides of the atrocities committed. It would not be helpful for me to comment on the personal submission made by the Attorney General in Northern Ireland. I must respect his views as the holder of a statutory office in that context. It would be difficult for families on either side in what was a dark time in Northern Ireland if we were to follow that advice and put in place what the Northern Attorney General has recommended and were to find, subsequently, incontrovertible DNA evidence of the involvement of a person or persons in a killing on either side. As the Deputy knows, families want closure and there is always a yearning to find out what happened, who gave the instructions and why it was done.

I do not object to having a proper debate in the House or at the Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement on these matters. We have given Dr. Haass our full support in the efforts he is making following the invitation he received to deal with the issue of flags, parades and the past. I have offered him every assistance the Government can give him in his work. I offered the same to the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister at the North-South Ministerial Council in Armagh recently.

I thank the Taoiseach for his reply. I heard Margaret Irwin from Justice for the Forgotten give her view on this matter. She more or less expressed the same view as the Taoiseach on the different impressions victims and their advocacy groups have on these matters. Of course, there are many matters, including the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, where the British Government has been indicted but not come forward. There is no single voice across the victim community. Some want the truth and some a judicial process.

It is really important that we get to a point where we recognise there are different narratives. I am an Irish republican and I believe the partition of the island and British involvement in our affairs are at the core of this, but Unionists have a different view and Fine Gael may have a different view. All of these views and narratives have their own truth and we must get to a point where we lay the narratives side-by-side and respect them all. This does not mean the Taoiseach, Unionists or British Ministers have to change, but that we recognise somewhere in the totality of these narratives lies the truth. All of the different perspectives of what happened, who is responsible and what caused it are useful only if we can plot a way forward. Otherwise they become debilitating, negative and totally and absolutely frustrating, particularly for victims.

How do we encourage and set out such a debate? We must first of all recognise it is a crucial matter. The Government is not a junior partner, but a co-equal guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement and other agreements. It has responsibility to look after everyone in the North, including our Unionist neighbours, and to plot a course forward, in the way described by the Taoiseach, in dealing with the First Minister, the Deputy First Minister, Dr. Haass and others. I thank the Taoiseach for his answer but I would like to see him facilitate here in the Dáil the type of joined up inclusive thoughtful discussion aimed at unshackling us from the past so it never repeats itself and aimed at forging a more hopeful future for the people who have survived the conflict and for our children and grandchildren.

The House has united on a number of occasions in respect of matters in regard to Northern Ireland. Since the Good Friday Agreement, when people North and South went to the polls and we had validation from the vast majority of the people of the island, this template still stands. However, it might be appropriate if we were to wait and see the recommendations Dr. Haass will put together following his analysis, and his listening and engaging with various elements in Northern Ireland, and see what he puts on paper for consideration by the Executive. If we were to have a debate before this happens it might be interpreted as trying to influence what recommendations he might want to make. When we see the conclusion of his work I am quite happy that we have such a debate here, one of many, where the narratives can be laid out side-by-side and we can see whether there is a conclusion that might move this forward.

It is quite right of the Deputy to refer to the invitation from Buckingham Palace and the Queen to Uachtarán na hÉireann to visit officially. It will be the first State visit by an Irish President since the foundation of the State to Britain. In this sense it speaks for itself in terms of its significance and importance.

The Deputy can take it the Government is quite willing to engage. As I stated to Dr. Haass and other members of the party, it is in everybody's interest that we should be able to bring closure where we can and we should be able to deal with the contentious issues of flags and parades, and hopefully, in the broad spectrum of the families of the more than 3,000 were murdered, killed or maimed South and North, that we will be able to move this on in some fashion. I am up for this, as is the Government. It is the way we do it which is important in the sense of people understanding we are serious about moving Ireland and the island of Ireland to a new place in the time ahead. I suggest we see what recommendations Dr. Haass makes. He is there at the invitation of the Executive. The House is willing to respond appropriately.