Our thoughts are with the family of Councillor Manus Kelly as he is buried today. It is a tragic loss.

Tomorrow our thoughts should also be with the friends and family of Ivan Cooper, and on how we need men like Ivan Cooper today. Coming from a working-class Protestant tradition, he ended up managing a shirt factory. Championing the cause of the Catholic workers in his factory, he led the parades in 1968 and the famous Bloody Sunday parade in 1972, the source of so much of our Troubles. We are in trouble again.

After the murder of Lyra McKee almost two and a half months ago, Fr. Martin McGill asked why it had taken the death of a 29 year old woman for the parties of the North to come together again and commit to doing what they could to see a restoration of the Executive and the assembly in the North. It was hoped that this would be concluded by the end of June. I cannot see any sign of that eventuality whatsoever. I presume that such hopes will be put aside with the marching season. The difficulty is that when we return in September, we are likely to be in a most complex and fraught negotiating position with the UK Government over what is happening with Brexit. It is highly unlikely that restoration could be carried out in such circumstances. Then we will hit October. As the Taoiseach said yesterday in the national economic dialogue, a no-deal Brexit is now highly likely.

In advance of the first deadline in March, Mr. David Penman, the general secretary of the trade union representing public servants in the North, said that civil servants could not take the kind of decisions that would need to be taken in such a scenario. The British Prime Minister, Theresa May, said in the House of Commons that some direct application of powers would have to be put in place in those circumstances. We would be back to direct rule. The Good Friday Agreement would be in tatters and the environment which created the conditions for it would be gone. We would face a no-deal scenario with many differences between the jurisdictions in the North and South. We would have to manage that directly with Westminster Ministers with whom we would probably be in a very uncomfortable relationship. We have a big problem with the Brexit issue but we have an even bigger problem with our immediate relations in the North. As Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, this is the Tánaiste's responsibility. What in the scenario I have just set out is likely to change? How can we avoid ending up with direct rule in three or four months? What can we do about it? Will we slowly sleepwalk into an incredible political crisis on this island, as well as between this island and the neighbouring one? Is there any hope of restoration at all?

I would like to associate the Government and myself with the condolences on the death of the late Councillor Manus Kelly that have been outlined by others. I also pay tribute to and recognise the extraordinary contribution of Ivan Cooper, a civil rights campaigner who was an inspiration to many people in the work he did and the causes he fought for.

A process is currently under way to create a platform that all parties in Northern Ireland can buy into to re-establish devolved institutions and a functioning Executive and assembly. I have been deliberately low-key over the past eight weeks in relation to this process and I will remain low-key today. I will be in Stormont again this afternoon. On average I have been there three or four days a week, every week for the last eight weeks. It is important to maintain North-South and east-west relationships in the context of big and difficult questions around Brexit. However, working together and compromising with each other to create the conditions for devolved institutions not only to be re-established but to survive, function and be sustained in a way that is consistent with the Good Friday Agreement is not straightforward.

We are working hard to provide a basis for it and it would not be helpful if I were to make predictions or comment on the input or role of the different parties at this stage. There are sincere efforts being made on all sides and by all parties to make it work. We are very conscious of the narrowing window available to us before 12 July and what will follow from it.

I recognise that in the diplomatic world it is sometimes right to play things low key. However, I fear that we could be sitting here in three or four months' time, at which point it would certainly cease to be low key. It would be elevated to a political crisis, not only in the economic order but also in respect of the constitutional fabric of our agreements. In a no-deal scenario where direct rule returns and there is no prospect of that changing, the Good Friday Agreement will be gone. We could sleepwalk ourselves into it if we simply accept that people find it difficult to cross identity barriers. That is where some of the biggest issues seem to be, including the Irish language, same-sex marriage and abortion rights, and it appears to be the sticking point. Is it? If so, Ivan Cooper might be a good example. He found it difficult that sometimes people would not sit beside him in his own church because he was willing to give up some of these identity divisions. The Tánaiste is right that we need to be careful and avoid adding to it. However, the political reality of where we are heading-----

Time is up.

-----is direct rule and the end of the Good Friday Agreement. That is something we cannot ignore.

I am more than aware of the gravity of the decisions which may be made in the coming weeks in respect of relationships on this island and between Ireland and the United Kingdom and with regard to the protection of the Good Friday Agreement and all it has delivered in the past 21 years. In many ways I share the anxieties and frustrations the Deputy has outlined, but my job is to fix it, with others. That is what we are trying to do. My judgment is that the less I say about the detail for now, the better. However, that does not mean and the Deputy should not confuse it with an unwillingness to work to accommodate the different party positions. I note, in particular, that Sinn Féin is making significant efforts to find a balanced outcome which will allow for a restoration of devolution. I recognise this in the House. However, Sinn Féin has work to do, as do I, the SDLP, the Alliance Party, the UUP and DUP, to protect what has been created in the past 20 years, namely, a normalisation of relationships, a functioning all-island economy, North-South institutions which need to be reinvigorated and, of course, power sharing which is the basis of that balance at Stormont.

There are other connections.

We are well over time.

None of that is in place and we need to correct it, given the context of what is coming in the autumn. Everyone is well aware of the gravity of the situation.