Jordan Moates: Simon Coveney lacking nerves in completing bomb alert disrupted speech

The security was tight, lessons were learnt from the last time.

Simon Coveney arrived in north Belfast under the watchful eye of the PSNI helicopter.

PSNI officers were keeping a watchful eye on the ground.

When his cavalcade swooped into the Houben centre there wasn’t a hint of nervousness from Ireland's foreign affairs minister.

He greeted organisers at the door and walked in to finish what he began over six months ago.

The last time he attempted this speech close protection officers interrupted him.

A van had been hijacked and abandoned outside. Inside was a suspected bomb. It turned out to be a hoax.

Moment Simon Coveney was told of bomb threat during peace-building event in Belfast.

At the Houben Centre the Fine Gael TD began with an apology.

"Thank you for coming back. I didn't get a chance to say it in person when we last met but I do want to say that I'm genuinely sorry that my presence here on the last occasion at the Houben Centre ended the way that it did.

"An innocent man, a working electrician called out on a job was hijacked at gunpoint and forced to drive his van here, thinking he was carrying an explosive device.

"A family funeral next door at Holy Cross was disrupted also.

"That was a futile, cowardly exercise in community control.

"It serves no-one, no good purpose, except to drag the reputation of this decent community backwards to darker days.

"The only outcomes - a man living with the trauma of being forced to drive what he thought was a bomb and a grieving family forced to pray for their loved ones on the roadside and in a car park, instead of the sanctity of a church."

Mr Coveney added: "For God's sake, in this day and age we should be beyond having to call out paramilitarism and its role in society in Northern Ireland.

"There is no excuse or justification for such violence, threats, coercion.

"Nobody, no matter their allegiance or identity, or indeed their grievance, has the right to threaten anyone for holding different views.

"To the groups who cling on to the use of violence as a means of controlling and threatening their own communities and those who encourage them, I say this very directly - your communities need uplift and investment and you scare that away.

"Your communities need a political voice and you stifle it. Your communities deserve a safe environment to raise their families supported by effective policing - your actions undermine their safety, their wellbeing and their future.

"Take a look at the children in your community and ask yourself if you want them to turn out like you.

"Every positive, progressive aspiration held by your community for a better future, you are holding it back."

Mr Coveney noted that the theme of the John and Pat Hume Foundation event was "building common ground".

"It is the opposite to what we experienced the last time we met," he said.

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