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22 July 1999 Edition

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Dúirt siad...

Peace in tatters

Headline in last FridayÕs Irish News

 


The legislation was not required, it is a sop to unionism and we are seeing the Orange Card being played.

Gerry Adams on the `fail-safeÕ legislation rushed through the British parliament last week

 


Many young people who are at university or working in England and Scotland, mostly young unionists, will decide not to come home when they see what happened here today.

Gerry Adams addressing the Assembly

 


Today has been a good day for Northern Ireland. Democracy has triumphed. There are no IRA men in government.

Ian Paisley after last ThursdayÕs Stormont farce

 


The Ulster Unionist Party uses this crisis to bleed more concessions out of the governments - to bleed this very process dry.

Former Deputy First Minister Séamus Mallon during his resignation speech last Thursday

 


I am sure on a personal level that Dr Paisley is a nice man. I am sure as a husband, a father, a grandfather and even with his colleagues that he can be charming, affectionate and funny. But here in terms of his leadership of a section of our people, and of the type of climate and the politics he has been involved in for the last 30 years, he has been disgraceful.

Gerry Adams

 


He [David Trimble] was in Glengall Street today, tomorrow he will be in Downing Street and the day after heÕll probably be in Sesame Street.

The SDLPÕs Mark Durkan last week

 


Stormont goes green for ten minutes in midsummer pantomine.

Headline in last weekÕs Irish Times after the setting up of the `ten-minute Executive

 


This Assembly is now adjourned.

Assembly chair John Alderdice last Thursday at 1.25pm

 


Ken Maginness is a malign version of the late Brian Lenihan, who famously was sent out whenever Fianna Fáil needed to bluster its way out of some chicanery. After ThursdayÕs debacle, MaginnessÕs incessant appearances on the media practically turned the meaning of the letters BBC into Belfast Blustering Corporation.

Tim Pat Coogan, writing in Ireland On Sunday.

 


The unionist position on the issue of decommissioning has been to prevent the process from moving forward. It makes it very difficult for all of the participants - and that includes us - to meet that deadline, given their ability to walk through every other deadline at will.

Gerry Adams last Monday

 


Northern IrelandÕs democratic credentials have always been fatally flawed; from the outset, it was a political entity carefully constructed so that, no matter how its inhabitants voted, power could in fact never shift between the two communities.

Ronan Fanning in the Sunday Independent, 17 July

 


I honestly believe that if they [the IRA] had rolled up in lorries outside Stormont it would not have made a difference because David Trimble is not interested in sharing power.

Fianna Fáil TD Marian McGennis, Questions & Answers, RTE, 19 July

 


Gerry Adams didn't sound as bad as you last week

Fellow guest, revisionist Eoghan Harris in reply

 


Up to the weekend, Mo Mowlam had to go appease the unionists. You cannot appease them. They cannot be appeased. And they have to realise that no just ain't good enough anymore.

Marian McGennis

An Phoblacht
44 Parnell Sq.
Dublin 1
Ireland