11 December 1997 Edition
We must do better this time
Forum report by Micheál MacDonncha
Two gatherings were held in Dublin Castle on successive days last week. The juxtaposition has been little noted but it was heavy with irony. On Friday 5 December Taoiseach Bertie Ahern convened the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation. The next day he hosted a reception on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the foundation of the Irish Free State.
Significantly, the invitation to the latter event (from which Sinn Féin invitees absented themselves) did not use the word `celebrate'. It was a very muted anniversary - a reminder that the `official' birthday of the 26-County state is fraught with memories of Civil War and the present reality of partition.
``This [partition] arrangement has been a disaster for all the people on this island. We must do better this time.'' So said Sinn Féin's chief negotiator Martin McGuinness in his speech to the first meeting of the Forum since the end of the first IRA cessation in February 1996.
Speaking to journalists McGuinness criticised the calls for Articles Two and Three to be amended and the unionist identification of them as a cause of conflict. The real cause has been inequality and repression in the Six-County state, he asserted.
In his contribution Bertie Ahern still spoke of changes in the Articles but said, ``we are talking about the amendment or deletion of Section 75 of the Government of Ireland Act 1920 which explicitly states that the sovereignty of Northern Ireland is vested in Westminster without any reference to the principle of consent''.
There was more fall-out from Foreign Minister David Andrews' statement on executive powers for cross-border bodies ``not unlike a government'' which he later amended after unionist hyterics. This embarrassing semi-retraction was bad enough, but was it really necessary for Bertie Ahern to say at the Forum:
``I am glad that the clarification was speedily accepted and that people did not dwell on it''? This sounded like thanking the unionists for not carrying on their tantrums.
In the main part of his speech Martin McGuinness said it was ``time the British forces called a cessation''. He called on the Dublin government to ``show greater initiative in releasing political prisoners in Portlaoise jail, as to date only seven have been released, extradition proceedings are continuing against four republican prisoners and there has been no serious attempt to address the circumstances of the 40-year men.''
McGuinness asked: ``The continued vindictive detention of Roisín McAliskey must concern us all. Is Roisín to spend a second Christmas in detention - this time with her infant child?''
•The Forum is not due to meet every week as previously, but every two to three months. Caoimhghín O Caoláin TD who was a member of the Sinn Féin delegation, repeated his party's call for meetings of the Forum to be held outside Dublin.
Two gatherings were held in Dublin Castle on successive days last week. The juxtaposition has been little noted but it was heavy with irony. On Friday 5 December Taoiseach Bertie Ahern convened the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation. The next day he hosted a reception on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the foundation of the Irish Free State.
Significantly, the invitation to the latter event (from which Sinn Féin invitees absented themselves) did not use the word `celebrate'. It was a very muted anniversary - a reminder that the `official' birthday of the 26-County state is fraught with memories of Civil War and the present reality of partition.
``This [partition] arrangement has been a disaster for all the people on this island. We must do better this time.'' So said Sinn Féin's chief negotiator Martin McGuinness in his speech to the first meeting of the Forum since the end of the first IRA cessation in February 1996.
Speaking to journalists McGuinness criticised the calls for Articles Two and Three to be amended and the unionist identification of them as a cause of conflict. The real cause has been inequality and repression in the Six-County state, he asserted.
In his contribution Bertie Ahern still spoke of changes in the Articles but said, ``we are talking about the amendment or deletion of Section 75 of the Government of Ireland Act 1920 which explicitly states that the sovereignty of Northern Ireland is vested in Westminster without any reference to the principle of consent''.
There was more fall-out from Foreign Minister David Andrews' statement on executive powers for cross-border bodies ``not unlike a government'' which he later amended after unionist hyterics. This embarrassing semi-retraction was bad enough, but was it really necessary for Bertie Ahern to say at the Forum:
``I am glad that the clarification was speedily accepted and that people did not dwell on it''? This sounded like thanking the unionists for not carrying on their tantrums.
In the main part of his speech Martin McGuinness said it was ``time the British forces called a cessation''. He called on the Dublin government to ``show greater initiative in releasing political prisoners in Portlaoise jail, as to date only seven have been released, extradition proceedings are continuing against four republican prisoners and there has been no serious attempt to address the circumstances of the 40-year men.''
McGuinness asked: ``The continued vindictive detention of Roisín McAliskey must concern us all. Is Roisín to spend a second Christmas in detention - this time with her infant child?''
•The Forum is not due to meet every week as previously, but every two to three months. Caoimhghín O Caoláin TD who was a member of the Sinn Féin delegation, repeated his party's call for meetings of the Forum to be held outside Dublin.