Top Issue 1-2024

13 November 1997 Edition

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Dúirt siad...

In France, the goal - forcing employers to honour commitments made a year ago, raise salaries and decrease working hours - was seen to justify the extreme means. The Jospin government openly sided with the truckers. Mr Jean Claude Gayssot, the Communist Transport Minister, warmed his hands around a camp fire with trade union activists at a Le Mans barricade.

Lara Marlowe on the French truckers' victory, Irish Times, Saturday 8 November.

 


The bedrock upon which the nationalist community has endured 75 years of bigotry and injustice.

Sinn Féin chair, Mitchel McLaughlin on the Six-County judicial system. The Irish News, Saturday 8 November.

 


There is quite simply a massive military presence in South Armagh, the like of which does not exist anywhere else in Ireland or Britain or anywhere else in Western Europe.

The SDLP's Séamus Mallon. Irish News, Saturday 8 November.

 


Would it be too much to ask of these bridge saboteurs to have the decency and dignity to respect the wishes of the majority by laying down their poison pens and calling a ceasefire in their mean-spirited campaign against their fellow citizens north of the border.

Letter to the Irish Times, Saturday 8 November, on some sections of the `neo-loyalist' media in the South.

 


If the talks are going to move up a gear, that's OK. But if there's a flat on the car, it won't make any difference. We think the unionists are the flat tyre.

Senior republican source on the Stormont talks. Ireland on Sunday, 9 November.

 


Just as in the Assembly, they have been abusive, obstructive, name-calling and generally behaving like cornerboys.

Tim Pat Coogan on the unionists in the Stormont talks. Ireland on Sunday, 9 November.

 


There can be no rest until the harsh gap between the comfortable and the struggling has been bridged.

Mary McAleese at her inauguration. Irish Times, Wednesday 12 November.

 


Unless there is a swift change of attitude then the talks will flounder on the rock of nationalist intransigence.

Peter Weir of the UUP talks team at Stormont.

 


Either to continue to prop up Sinn Féin, or to try to agree a constructive relationship with their fellow countrymen in Northern Ireland.

Peter Weir again on the SDLP.

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