He said: '... it would be fair to say that Ireland as a whole, as other noble Lords have said, has had a turbulent history and that fact has been emphasised by its continuance in Ulster. There are a multiplicity of reasons for that phenomenon, although some try to award part of the blame to the equivocal manner in which Ireland has been treated successively by England, Great Britain and the United Kingdom. I would not subscribe entirely to that view, although I believe that, in establishing a link between England and Ireland, fundamental mistakes were made at the start which are taking many centuries to resolve ... here is no doubt that the joint declaration marks a sea change in contemporary Irish politics. The opportunity it affords for all who hold both the Province and Ireland as a whole most dear they will ignore at their peril.'