Time will tell if coalition was 'right decison' for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael - Humphreys 

Justice Minister Heather Humphreys was speaking during a virtual event commemorating Michael Collines. File Picture: Gareth Chaney/ Collins Photos

The coalition between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will redefine Irish politics but only time will tell whether it was "the right decision" for both parties, the Justice Minister has said.

Delivering the Michael Collins Commemoration speech, Heather Humphreys admitted that the Government has made mistakes in the past year, but they also have taken ownership of those mistakes.

"The new Government has not got everything right over the last year. We have made mistakes.

"We must own those mistakes, hold our hands up and learn from them," she said.

However, pointing to the vaccination programme she said the Government has delivered on the "things that really matter".

Describing the formation of the current coalition as "a significant moment" in Irish politics she said the coming together of the two traditional large parties, who between them have led every Government since the foundation of the State, will "redefine Irish politics".

"Time will tell if it was the right decision for either party electorally.

"One thing I am absolutely certain of however is that it was the right decision for the country.

In a veiled attack on Sinn Féin, Ms Humphreys said that "when others shirked their national responsibility in favour of political opportunism", it was Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and the Green Party who stepped up to the plate.

Ms Humphreys said that like Collins, she believes that we should respect the past, but we should not hide behind it to evade responsibility for our own decisions and their impact.

"It is a lesson that some political parties on this island still have to learn, parties with an emotional reverence for the atrocities of the past.

"They attempt to weaponise history and in some cases re-write it entirely to suit their own political narrative.

"In 2016, one party, in particular, tried to stand apart from the State and conduct their own parallel events.

"A real reverence for the past respects its messiness and its complexity, it does not commandeer or hijack it for political gain," she said during the virtual Beal na Bláth event.