Many, many years, and met with Eric Trump earlier today, and he was taking me through his own experiences of Ireland and how familiar he is with Ireland, and their deep commitment and affection for this course.
I had lunch with President Trump, and Mary and I and the respective ambassadors. But it was a general lunch in respect of golf courses, and then he was curious about many issues in terms of Ireland, what economy, and also in terms of the north. And he was asking me lots of questions about north-south relationships and so on like that. But it wasn't a formal political meeting as such. We had that yesterday, and so, you know, we hope everything comes to the right conclusion now later this afternoon.
He spoke, the US President has talked extensively about a United Ireland during his Tuesday visit. Is this something now that you will go to Andy Burnham to talk about the possibility of a border poll and try and make him reconsider to have one?
Well, first of all, the President's remarks were not a particular surprise to me because I don't know whether some of you were with me in the mansion, Capitol Hill in Washington DC, and the previous year actually as well, when he spoke to some DUP members at that luncheon, asked, you know, was a merger on the cards. So he looks back, and even at lunch he would make the point: this is his view. He believes unity is the logical way for the island to be configured and organized. In terms of, I'm not going to preempt my meeting with Prime Minister Burnham, meeting at the end of next week. Clearly, legacy, which is a key issue for us, which would be a breakthrough issue if we can get the legislation passed in Westminster for Anne and Doyle and the Shannons, I think that would mean an awful lot to the families who lost loved ones during the Troubles. In fact, President Trump has memories of the violence of that 30 years and the extraordinary murder, mayhem, and killings that took place. So I think in that context, that would be an important part of our meeting with Prime Minister Varadkar.
I've already said on record the reform of Strand One of the institutions, the Good Friday institutions, are important as well. In my view, and most political parties known in the north are supportive of reforms. I will have broader discussions as well, but I'm not going to paint those.
Do you think there was widespread condemnation from the opposition in relation to how you handled this visit with the President? To what extent did you raise Gaza yesterday with him? And what was the nature of that conversation? What was his response?
Well, my main focus yesterday was in accelerating and getting more aid into Gaza. You know, President Trump had his peace plan, 20-point peace plan, which many people bought into, including representatives from humanitarian relief organizations, UN in particular. And I spoke with those, have been in touch with those for quite some time. I'm not satisfied that enough aid is getting into Gaza. That is the key issue now for Palestinians. In fact, I received a thank you message immediately afterwards from the Palestinian ambassador in respect to raising the need for humanitarian aid to get into Gaza. It's like with the children of Gaza. We have intervened in the South African case in respect of genocide in Gaza, and I took that decision with the government some time back. And we have been very consistent as a country in relation to the Middle East and in relation to the Palestinian question. I think sometimes some in the opposition are more interested in the campaign to denigrate the government's position on Gaza rather than the substance of the issue itself.
The United States government is probably the key interlocutor with Israel. Even we raised it constantly across the European Union, and Europe hasn't had the capacity to hold Israel to account. So I did deliberately focus in on the need to get aid, and he undertook, particularly in the context of any Irish aid, that it would get in. And we'll follow that through, because that is the core issue for the 2 million people living there, and also the settlers and the terrorist settlers in the West Bank, whose continuing activities on the West Bank are rendering unviable a two-state solution. We believe in a two-state solution ultimately. That will not happen if the settlements continue at pace, and certainly in the violent manner that they are at the moment.
And what was the response from the president when you raised those?
His response was he undertook to do everything he possibly could to get aid into Gaza, and particularly any Irish contribution in respect of that.
The Trumps, on several occasions, particularly Eric, have expressed his frustration about what the Trumps perceive as the slow planning permission process here. Was that something that was raised at the meeting with Eric today?
No, yeah, Eric, like I listened to his interview, and the government itself is very conscious of the last two years of the need to accelerate our planning mechanisms and procedures. To that extent, we have significantly enhanced staff at An Bord Pleanála. We've reformed it from the old Bord Pleanála to An Bord Pleanála. Much greater resources attached to it. And so we get that.
And there are now much better time managers now from An Bord Pleanála than there would have been.
As you know, on the broader infrastructure piece, we brought in the critical infrastructure legislation, which enables government to prioritize and say to agencies, we want specific projects such as the commuter rail project in Cork or the Dublin drainage scheme and others to be given priority. We can't impact on the decisions that independent agencies make, but rather that priority is given to what is critical in the country. So the debate about infrastructure has been ongoing for the last two to three years. We've taken steps in the last year of this government to change that story. Jack Chambers in particular to an excellent infrastructure delivery task force.
Taoiseach, unionists and British politicians have criticized Donald Trump's comments on Irish unity. Is the US president causing havoc, causing difficulty with relations on this island and relations between Ireland and Britain?
Well, I think some of the reaction is an overreaction. It shouldn't be a surprise. He takes a different sort of perspective on things. We know that, and certainly he's viewing it, from my conversations with him and even over lunch, he's looking at it from a perspective of looking in on the island of Ireland and logically saying, 'To me it seems inevitable that it should be unified.' Now, I went through how we got to the peace because we were talking about the peace process today and how, because he remembers the violence of the conflict, and we went through various things and how the British government, the Irish government working together, and enabled with all of the various traditions, and that was the genius of the Good Friday Agreement, that the two governments would be anchored and all the political parties came together to agree to the Good Friday Agreement. And no, I think if everyone keeps a calm perspective on things, you know, we will take it from there. As I say, I'm meeting the British Prime Minister next week. We have a lot on our agenda in terms of both the British-Irish relationship, but also in the context, as I said earlier, the legacy framework, which I think is very, very important. I mean, others are more interested in the campaign. I'm interested always in substance. I have a long involvement in Northern Ireland since the reason I came in and became involved in politics. So I don't take lectures from opposition or anybody on this in terms of the best way forward. And I'm very clear that our Shared Island initiative is having real impact on communities in Northern Ireland, on strengthening connections between north and south, both physically, through people. I was at Flax Hall in Herdon, at the traditional quarters, for the way they brought the musicians together, and it was wonderful to see that things are changing. But I think in the immediate sense, I have to meet with them next week. We're going to get on with the substance of what we have to do.
