One of the harshest critics of Sinn Féin in the past, Senator Eoghan Harris, yesterday shook hands with the party's first Seanad member Pearse Doherty when they met on the plinth of Leinster House.
Mr Harris - one of the Taoiseach's 11 nominees to the upper house - said he had had a rule that he would only shake hands with Sinn Féin after they signed up to policing.
"I must have been one of the last people in Ireland to shake hands with Sinn Féin. I didn't like even sharing public platforms with them. I just always wanted to make it clear to them my extreme disagreement with them and I didn't like this palsy-walsy, false air-kissing, that went on with them until they signed up."
Mr Harris - a columnist with the Sunday Independent - was walking across the plinth before the opening of the new Seanad when Mr Doherty and Sinn Féin TDs Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, Arthur Morgan and Aengus Ó Snodaigh approached. He shook hands with all four. "I wouldn't have shaken their hands if they hadn't called off the armed struggle and if they hadn't signed up to the peace process." Mr Harris said afterwards.
He revealed that he had also shaken hands with Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams at a festival in west Belfast last month. He said he was impressed with Mr Doherty's full speech in Irish during yesterday's Seanad session. "I liked the fact that it wasn't literally the cúpla focal."
Twenty five of the 60 members of the 23rd Seanad are new members.