Michelle O’Neill, the recently elected First Minister of Northern Ireland, said on Thursday that Hamas will eventually be regarded as the future partner for peace in the Middle East in an interview on LBC.

Pivoting from discussions on Irish neutrality Marr asks her “A long time ago the IRA was seen as a terrorist organization, the British Government and everybody else could not ever talk to. Do you think that Hamas, although regarded as a terror organization by many people around the world, is going to eventually have to be a partner for peace?”

“Yes,” says O’Neill, “I think you only have to look at our own example to know how important dialogue is and that’s the only way you’re ever going to bring an end to conflict.”

“If republicans didn’t talk to the British government or the British government didn’t talk to the republicans, in the past in Ireland we would not be in the scenario we are in today, enjoying a peaceful and far more equal society today.”