North-South Implementation Bodies
Dail Éireann — 2023-01-31
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Paul McAuliffe (FF), Dublin North-West

On the shared island civic society fund, I was 20 years of age in 1997 when the Good Friday Agreement was signed. The majority of people on this island have adult memories that do not involve the Troubles. That is a positive thing. However, it also means that we must make sure we do not forget the lessons that were learned from the Good Friday Agreement, namely, ideas around parity of esteem and a shared space. The civic society fund is an important way of getting people to engage with one another. I wish to talk about young people in particular in this regard. In the past, we had programmes, such as those operated by Boston College, Co-operation Ireland, etc., that did this regularly. I hope we can work with young people at the civic society forum to encourage them to understand one another and why their communities come from different places, but also to understand that they often come from similar circumstances. The political and religious context shapes their perception of one another rather than the circumstances in which they live from day to day.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2023-01-31/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:43+00:00
Sitting date: 2023-01-31