asked the Taoiseach if he was correctly reported in a daily newspaper of the 30th June as declaring at Nenagh that as a first instalment of our rights we demand the return of Tyrone and Fermanagh, those counties in which a majority of the people was severed against its will from this free and independent part of Ireland and is still coerced under the jurisdiction of the Stormont Parliament; if he realises that such a declaration may be interpreted as a demand for less than our rights; and, if so, whether he will now make it clear and specific that nothing less than our full claim to every inch of Irish soil will satisfy the Irish people.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Taoiseach's Nenagh Statement.
I was accurately but not completely reported in the statement to which the Deputy's question refers, but I cannot agree that that statement is capable of the interpretation he suggests. The same newspaper report quoted me as saying, in reference to the Counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh:—
"We demand the return of these counties, not merely as the first instalment of our rights, but as a demonstration of the facile sophistries by means of which the supporters of Partition attempt to justify their attitude on grounds of applying democratic principles."
Another newspaper report of the same speech quoted me as adding:—
"No Irishman, no supporter of national self-determination admitted the right of any Irish minority to secede from Ireland."
As the Deputy well knows, a claim for a first instalment of a debt could not possibly be construed as acceptance in full discharge of the entire debt. In fact, acceptance by instalments makes easier the discharge of the residue of the entire debt.
While the newspaper reports generally of my speech made it abundantly clear that our claim extends to every inch of Irish soil and that nothing less will satisfy the Irish people, I suggest that my remarks also served to demonstrate that when apologists for the unnatural division of Ireland invoke, however speciously, democratic principles to support their spurious claim, they are obliged, by the valid application of the same principles, to admit the justice of our case for the immediate return of the counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh, the majority of the population in which were severed against their democratically-expressed wishes from the rest of Ireland and still remain coerced within the partitioned area.