Sinn Féin can prop them up afterwards.

Ba mhaith liom tacú leis an leasú atá moltha ag an Seanadóir Warfield don Ord Gnó. I formally second the amendment to the Order of Business moved by Senator Warfield.

As we are having statements from the Minister later, I will not dwell too much on the theme of the Good Friday Agreement but I wish to respond to some of the remarks made earlier. I was somewhat amazed to hear Fine Gael Senators laud the advice of the former Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, notwithstanding how he entertained us greatly at the celebrations of the Good Friday Agreement. However, I want to continue to challenge the narrative that has crept into this Chamber and elsewhere that the current situation in the North derives from two problem parties or parties not getting on-----

It does.

It does.

-----or it would be as simple as going in and sorting it out.

It is.

It is not quite that simple, and the Minister, Deputy Coveney, who is a very nuanced, considered and thoughtful man when it comes to the North, unlike some of the Members here, conceded that it was much bigger and broader than that and much more complex. As we mark 20 years of the Good Friday Agreement, it lays out the path of what should happen in instances such as this, namely, for the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference to be convened.

When people make assertions that two parties need to just get on with it-----

Hear, hear. They should do.

-----I wonder what exactly that means, when we had an agreement only a few months ago. Two parties did not walk away from that agreement; only one party did so. It is easy for people to fall into the lazy narrative of playing politics in here but sometimes we must deal with the facts. That draft agreement was a compromise agreement. Republicans in Sinn Féin compromised in respect of that draft agreement. It was not a case of two problem parties that could not get along or sort it out, it was one party which walked away from it. As Senator George Mitchell and President Bill Clinton said as recently as last week in Belfast, the onus falls on the two Governments, as is laid out in the Good Friday Agreement, to be more directly involved, to assert themselves and convene the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference. That is a much more considered, necessary option available to us. I want to see the Executive back up and running, I would have liked to have seen this some months ago, but in the absence of that, the onus falls on to the Leader's colleagues and the British Government also.

There is a two-hour debate this evening. People raising this matter will have ample time to speak later.