Records ``anger and frustration'' of nationalists

Sinn Féin TD Caoimhghín O Caoláin recorded the ``anger and frustration'' of nationalists and republicans at the non-implementation of the Good Friday Agreement when he spoke in the Dáil on Wednesday. The Cavan/Monaghan TD withheld support for a government bill to allow the extension of the time period during which the government can declare that the Agreement has been implemented and that therefore the amended Articles Two and Three would remain in the Constitution.

When people in the 26 Counties voted to amend Articles Two and Three of the Constitution last year they also adopted a wording which provided for the eventuality that the Agreement might not be implemented. In that event, the changes to Articles Two and Three would lapse.

The bill passed on Wednesday extended the period after which the changes lapse from one year to two, bringing it up to May 2000.

O Caoláin put down an amendment to the bill which sought a time period up to 30 June this year - the latest deadline set by the two governments for progress on implementation of the Agreement. Speaking on the bill, O Caoláin told the Dáil:

``This time last year a tide of hope and expectation swept our country in the wake of the Good Friday Agreement. Having watched with baited breath the tortuous progress of negotiations, there was a huge sense of achievement when those negotations concluded on Good Friday, a sense that a new era had begun. A year later the Good Friday Agreement is stalled and its entire future is in question.

``The process of stalling began soon after the conclusion of the Agreement. Once the referendums and the Assembly elections were over the Ulster Unionist Party dug itself into a trench from which it has yet to emerge. Indeed it has kept digging. The UUP has successfully blocked the implementation of the Agreement.

The context in which the Good Friday Agreement has been allowed to wither could hardly be worse.

``The siege of the Garvaghy Road community has been continuous and unrelenting since last summer. There has been a long series of attacks by loyalist paramilitaries, including the murder of solicitor

Rosemary Nelson, the legal representative of the Garvaghy Road community. The latest was a bomb attack last week on a pub on the Falls Road which could easily have caused multiple deaths and injuries. There is no doubt that sectarian loyalism is poised to fill the political vacuum caused by the failure of mainstream unionism to implement the Good Friday Agreement.

``It is absolutely vital, therefore, that what was agreed on Good Friday is put in place. Sinn Féin continues to deal in good faith with all the parties and both governments to find a viable way forward within the terms of the Agreement. This we will continue to do in the days and weeks ahead.

``I have put down an amendment which seeks to delete the cited period of 24 months and substitutes `up to and including June 30 1999'. That is the deadline now set by the governments for definite progress on the implementation of the Agreement. I do not agree that the period during which the government's declaration can be made should be extended beyond that date. The amended Articles Two and Three were adopted by the people in a referendum last year on the basis that the Agreement would be implemented in due time. Are we to wait two, three or four years for that to happen?''

While proposing his amendment, which was not adopted, the Sinn Féin TD did not oppose the unamended Bill but abstained. He said he did this because ``I recognise, in common with the rest of the Sinn Féin leadership and activists at all levels, that we must proceed at all times in a spirit of political accommodation.''