[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 42 (Thursday, March 13, 2014)]
[House]
[Page H2365]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  WELCOMING ENDA KENNY TO CAPITOL HILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Messer). The Chair recognizes the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Neal) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. NEAL. Mr. Speaker, as the world prepares to celebrate St. 
Patrick's Day and this afternoon we welcome the Irish Prime Minister of 
the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, here to the Capitol, I want to pause for a 
moment to recognize the anniversary of a pivotal event in the peace 
process in the north of Ireland.
  Twenty years ago, against the advice of his own State Department, 
President Bill Clinton granted a visa to the leader of Sinn Fein and 
its president, Gerry Adams, to visit the United States. It was at the 
time an unpopular decision, but history has proven it to be a catalyst 
for the peace process which, again, has proved to be most durable. It 
helped to bring an end to the longest standing political dispute in the 
history of the Western World. Simply put, Bill Clinton took an 
extraordinary risk that has paid huge dividends.
  I was one of a handful of Members of Congress at the time who urged 
President Clinton to approve the visa. When Gerry Adams arrived in the 
United States after stopping in Boston, he made his way to my hometown 
of Springfield, Massachusetts, and addressed a core group of thousands 
at the John Boyle O'Reilly Club, and he thanked them for their support.
  During his campaign for President, we had urged then-candidate 
Clinton to make peace in the island of Ireland a top foreign policy 
priority if he was to be elected. After his inauguration, to our great 
and pleasant surprise, he sent his National Security Adviser at the 
time, Tony Lake, to Capitol Hill to tell us that they were to elevate 
Ireland to the same category of priority as the Middle East.
  A year later, on January 31 of 1994, the visa was issued to Gerry 
Adams, and the American dimension to the Irish peace process was born. 
Fourteen years later, the Good Friday Agreement was signed, and a 
society in the north of Ireland was transformed overnight.
  On the night that Mr. Clinton offered that visa--it was one of the 
more memorable events in my career--I defended the Clinton 
administration that night on the BBC's Newsnight Hour, which would be 
the equivalent of Nightline here in America. I debated the leader of 
the UUP, Ken Maginnis.
  Later today, I am hosting a briefing with Gerry Adams and the 
Congressional Friends of Ireland, and I urge our friends to visit with 
him if they can, and later on to meet the Irish Prime Minister at 3:30 
this afternoon.
  When we contrast where America and Ireland were in this special 
relationship that dates back three centuries, it is important to recall 
what it looked like in the north of Ireland 30 years ago. There were 
30,000 British soldiers in an area the size of the State of 
Connecticut. There was a police force that held the position that 
nationalists need not apply--the Royal Ulster Constabulary. The British 
soldiers are gone and the Royal Ulster Constabulary are gone today. The 
watchtowers that monitored the activities largely of the nationalist 
community have been taken down, and you can cross from Derry to Donegal 
without knowing that you have moved from the north of Ireland to the 
Republic of Ireland or through Newry and County Down, as well, without 
being stopped, searched, and, in some instances, being frisked by 
British soldiers.
  America's role in bringing about this success story provides an 
argument for the reach and the role of the United States in addressing 
some of the most difficult issues in the world. Ireland represented the 
longest standing political dispute in the history of the Western World, 
and America's role was pivotal to helping make that change. That model 
has become, today, something that could be emulated worldwide, and, in 
fact, the people who participated travel the world to talk about how 
they found common ground and a path forward.
  There is a representative democracy in Belfast today in what is known 
as Stormont, where parties sit some days in disagreement and other days 
in agreement, but always with the idea that they are in charge of their 
own destiny and their own future. That is the genius of representative 
democracy.
  I call attention to this issue today because of many of the stubborn 
problems that plague the world, with the understanding that men and 
women of good will in the crucible of politics can indeed chart a path 
forward, and not to miss the fact that it was still the risk-taking of 
the Clinton administration that took up the notion that the nationalist 
voice on the island of Ireland and in the north of Ireland and six 
small counties should be heard, and today the result is all around us.
  So as the political parties visit on the eve of St. Patrick's Day all 
across the island of Ireland, we can satisfy ourselves with this 
achievement: the notion, once again, that good will and understanding 
the other side's arguments can, in fact, be heralded in the sense of 
achievement, but also, again, in the Stormont government that has been 
duly elected.
  So, today, we in America take great satisfaction as to the role our 
men and women played in bringing about this success story and also to 
recognize something on a personal basis. I and many others here were 
allowed to participate in all of these ``it can never happen'' moments. 
Thanks, America, for help, once again, in leading the way.

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