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Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 20 Nov 1984

Vol. 354 No. 1

Anglo-Irish Summit: Statements.

I propose, a Cheann Comhairle, to make a statement on my meeting with the British Prime Minister, Mrs. Thatcher, in Chequers on 18 and 19 November. The meeting was attended on the Irish side by the Tánaiste, Deputy Dick Spring, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Peter Barry. The Prime Minister was accompanied by the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe, QC, MP, and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Mr. Douglas Hurd, MP.

Deputies have available to them in the Dáil Library a copy of the agreed communiqué issued after the meeting. The text of that communiqué summarises our conclusions.

At the outset I should say that I and my colleagues approached this meeting with the same seriousness of purpose and sense of responsibility which as participants in the New Ireland Forum we and the members of other parties brought to our joint efforts to promote peace and stability against a background of terrible human suffering in Northern Ireland, before which all party differences must in the common interest be set aside. It is in the same spirit, and with the same concern for national solidarity — so essential for any successful outcome — that I report to the Dáil today on this meeting.

Before going on to deal in more detail with the meeting I should, I believe, set it in context. That context is provided by the proposals for a framework within which a new Ireland could emerge set out in paragraph 5.2 of the Forum Report. That paragraph, containing as it does the only proposals in this report, constitutes the operational section of the report. It describes the fundamental criterion for any new structures and processes as being their capacity to provide lasting peace and stability. Having rejected violence it goes on to recognise that the new Ireland which the Forum seeks can come about only through agreement and must have a democratic basis and that agreement means that the political arrangements for a new and sovereign Ireland would have to be freely negotiated and agreed to by the people of the North and by the people of the South. There is no room for any ambiguity here as to the need for consent by the people of both areas to any change in sovereignty. The Provisional IRA thesis which denies this concept of consent is explicitly rejected once and for all by those who participated in the Forum and signed its report.

The Forum report goes on to assert that new arrangements must provide structures and institutions, including security structures, with which both Nationalists and Unionists can identify on the basis of political consensus; such arrangements must overcome alienation in Northern Ireland and strengthen the stability and security for all the people of Ireland.

The programme for action set out by the unanimous will of the four main constitutional Nationalist parties in this island in these proposals must provide the basis for any discussions or any negotations with the British Government or with the parties in Northern Ireland, as we pursue the fundamental objectives for which the Forum was established — the achievement of lasting peace and stability in a new Ireland.

In the preparations for this meeting with the British Prime Minister and her Cabinet colleagues and at the meeting itself it has been my purpose, and that of the Tánaiste and the Minister for Foreign Affairs accompanying me, to seek to establish common ground with the British Government on these objectives of the Forum.

A first step in making any progress in this direction must be an acceptance that the achievement of lasting peace and stability in Northern Ireland is not merely an Irish interest but is a major interest of both Ireland and Britain. Recognition of this is set out in the communiqué following this meeting.

Next, if progress is to be made, the divisions between the two communities in Northern Ireland have to be diminished and the two major traditions that exist in the two parts of Ireland have to be reconciled. This, too, is specifically recognised in the communiqué.

Next, it is necessary that the focus of chapter five of the Forum report on the need to accept the validity of both the Nationalist and Unionist identities, and on the need to give them equally satisfactory, secure and durable expression and protection, should be accepted as the only basis on which lasting stability can be found. This, too, has been given clear expression in the communique in which the British Government have joined with the Irish Government for the first time in recognising that here lies the fundamental problem that we both have to tackle in conjunction with the constitutional representatives of the people of Northern Ireland. It may be noted that at her press conference the Prime Minister referred to the equal respect due to these two identities.

All of us in this House are agreed that in the past the process of government in Northern Ireland has not been such as to provide the people of both communities with the confidence that their rights will be safeguarded; the minority community, in particular, has had bitter experiences in this respect. There can be no progress unless the process of government in Northern Ireland is such as to provide the people of both communities with the confidence that their rights will be safeguarded. Again this conviction, shared by us all, finds clear and unambiguous expression in this precise form in the list of points upon which the Prime Minister and myself agreed during the course of these discussions and recorded in the communiqué.

Intimately connected with these issues is the question of security. There is at present no real security in Northern Ireland. The majority community are being subjected to an inhuman campaign of murder, which they cannot but see as having genocidal overtones. All of them have been put in fear of their lives. They know that they are never safe from the bullet and the bomb employed indiscriminately to murder people at worship, to shoot down judge's daughter on her way from Mass, or to blow to pieces innocent people just because they happen to be about their business in a place and at a time when terrorists decide to mount an indiscriminate explosion.

But what has needed to be recognised in Britain more clearly than it has hitherto been recognised is the fact that for the minority too there is no such thing as security in Northern Ireland. Many members of the minority live in areas which are not the subject of normal policing because the police force as at present constituted do not have the confidence of a substantial part of the population. People living in these areas have no protection against the violence and intimidation of the subversive organisations operating their protection rackets and threatening with mutilation or death anyone who does not go along with their campaign of murder directed against the majority community. At the same time, because the efforts of the security forces have been concentrated against the IRA and the INLA, more especially in recent years when these organisations have, overwhelmingly, been the source of violence in the community, the people of these areas are subjected to a degree of harassment by the security forces, which, especially in the case of the younger generation, has been eroding their confidence in any form of public order and their belief that their human rights will be safeguarded by the rule of law.

No community can survive if the system of security and, indeed, the judicial process itself lacks the confidence of a substantial part of the population.

These things must be changed if peace and stability are to be secured. A system of security must be provided deriving its authority from a political system with which those sections of the community can identify. It is about these grave matters, upon which peace and stability in this island ultimately depend that I, the Tánaiste and the Minister for Foreign Affairs have been conferring with the British Prime Minister and her Secretaries of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affarirs and for Northern Ireland.

Much remains to be done before the process thus commenced can be brought to a satisfactory conclusion, as it must be if our two Governments are to be seen to carry out their duty to the people of Northern Ireland, the victims of a history they did not write but the tragic consequences of which they read about day by day, day after day, or suffer in their own persons.

I am glad that in the discussions that we have had we have made progress in securing the acceptance by the British Government of those aspects of the Forum report to which I have already referred. I would add that I am also glad that the Prime Minister in the House of Commons this afternoon recognised the need for a stable political framework which will be acceptable to both communities. Similarly, at her press conference she also recognised the need for an improvement in security in Northern Ireland — defined by the Prime Minister as including the prison and judicial systems as well as policing — on a basis which in her words "must be very much better for all the citizens of Northern Ireland" than what now exists and which involves devising "a way that is acceptable to all the people there, and it must be acceptable" she added, "if it is to be improved".

We can, I believe, build something worthwhile on these principles. There would be little hope of building anything were these principles of acceptability of the political framework and the security system to both communities not to be part of the common ground between our two Governments.

Progress now depends upon the dialogue to which both Governments have publicly committed themselves as a preliminary to a further meeting between the Prime Minister and myself early in the new year. I can assure this House that in this dialogue we will not be found wanting in our openness to any ideas that may further the objectives of the Forum report as I cited them at the outset of my remarks. I hope that on the British side there will be a similar openness and that the British Government, like our Government, will place above any other consideration the objective to which the Forum parties set themselves — the achievement of lasting peace and stability.

As will be clear from what I have said, the outcome of the summit is not to be underestimated in the extent to which common ground now exists between the British Government and ourselves on a number of underlying principles raised in the Forum report. It is, however, necessary also to acknowledge frankly that important differences remain to be overcome between the British and ourselves and many difficult practical issues would have to be resolved before the objectives of a new political framework and new security arrangements commanding the assent of the minority as well as the majority community could be realised.

The dialogue in which we are engaged is but the latest of many efforts to find peace and stability in Ireland. The fact that the Irish Government are now involved with the British Government in a new, intense effort, based on the work of the Forum report, is in itself an achievement. If this effort is to succeed, generosity will be required on all sides. As we embark on the crucial and critical phase of the discussions, I ask for the support of all who wish Ireland well and who share our passionate desire for lasting peace and stability in the island of Ireland and for a relationship of friendship and trust between the peoples of both islands.

Listening to the Taoiseach at the press conference and to what he has said now, I wonder whether words mean anything. It is of crucial importance that we endeavour to assess the present position in regard to Northern Ireland, its status as an issue in Anglo-Irish relations and what, after Chequers, are the prospects for the future.

The summit, in particular the British Prime Minister's press conference following it, can only be seen by a reasonable person as a defeat for Irish nationalism of historic dimensions. The way the Forum report, its analyses and conclusions have been totally and completely rejected by the British Government is only part of the picture, only one element of what amounted to a complete disaster. The language used in rejecting the combined wisdom of Irish constitutional Nationalist politicians was of a brutality far beyond anything called for by the circumstances. Much more was said and promulgated at that press conference which will go down in history as one of the black spots in Anglo-Irish relations.

The Unionist position in Northern Ireland has been copperfastened in detail in a way that has not been witnessed in modern times. Nationalist hopes and aspirations of even the most modest kind have been trampled into the ground.

There was no mention of an Irish dimension to the problem of Northern Ireland, no mention of any role or part of any kind for an Irish Government in helping to find a solution. There was no mention of power sharing. Yesterday's summit between the Taoiseach and the British Prime Minister was one of the most depressing and humilitating meetings between heads of Government that I can ever recall.

The report of the New Ireland Forum, the carefully considered view of the democratic Nationalist representatives of three-quarters of the Irish people was unceremoniously and aggressively rejected by the British Prime Minister and this rejection was accepted without a whisper of remonstration from the Taoiseach. There can be no escape from the dismal fact that constitutional nationalism took a beating yesterday and the evasiveness and incoherence of the Taoiseach in his press conference afterwards served only to accentuate that humiliating reality.

When we recall some of the things that were assiduously fed out and canvassed before the meeting, we can begin to grasp the fraudulent nature of the Government, their propaganda and those who serve them. In an election speech on 18 November 1982 the Taoiseach proclaimed that a complete and radical rethinking of British policy was now needed, and needed quickly, if the situation was to be retrieved from a drift towards chaos. He said that it must be the purpose and prime objective of the Government elected to office on 14 December to secure from the British Government a recognition of the need for such a radical review of their policy while there is yet time to save the situation. It was evident from the whole tone and quality of the British Prime Minister's press conference that whatever rethinking has taken place it was not directed towards political progress or towards a solution of the Northern Ireland problem.

The Minister for Justice claimed at Béal na mBláth on 26 August 1984 that the present indications are that London has come to share our sense of urgency about this problem and that this sense of urgency must be transformed into a major Anglo-Irish initiative. A sense of urgency? A major Anglo-Irish initiative? We were told by the British Prime Minister that the situation was not new, that it had lasted for generations and centuries and that it would drag on. Béal na mBláth is clearly a long way from Chequers.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs claimed on 23 July that Britain is now more interested in solving the Northern Ireland problem than at any time in the past ten years. At the press conference yesterday such an interest was no more in evidence than the Minister for Foreign Affairs.

(Interruptions.)

The Taoiseach, in an interview with Newsweek on 24 September stated:

We have identified the problem as the alienation of the minority in Northern Ireland.

He claimed that for the first time the British now recognise the alienation of the minority so that we are now approaching the problem in the same perspective. However, Mrs. Thatcher explicitly rejected any such concept. She stated:

Well, this word alienation has come in somehow in the last year and I'm bound to say that as far as my information is concerned one could not find alienation... somehow this word alienation has crept into the vocabulary — I don't think it is a very good one.

Indeed, as late as 20 October in an interview in The Irish Times the Taoiseach claimed that the British and Irish Governments had a similar analysis of what the problem is. It is now quite obvious that there is no basis for that claim. It was fraudulent. The alienation of the Nationalist community, which was perhaps the basic premise of the Forum report, has been totally rejected by the British Prime Minister. Worst of all, the Taoiseach and the Minister for Foreign Affairs had claimed that there could be some dramatic breakthrough at the summit. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, at the British-Irish Association on 15 September 1984, claimed that one way or another our relations are about to be transformed. Transformed they have been — to the clear disadvantage of all the people in this country who want to see the problem of Northern Ireland solved.

Nor did the British Prime Minister hesitate to castigate those who roused expectations about the British response to the Forum report. All those media manipulators around the Taoiseach have discovered the hard way that floating stories in a domestic media can be counter-productive. The fostering of illusions about British interests, goodwill, receptiveness, 20 year treaties and personal preferences led to a cold, calculated reprimand by the British Prime Minister for master and servant.

A rebuff to the Taoiseach is one thing, but let us now look at the rebuff to the Forum. Yesterday the British Prime Minister rejected not merely the conclusion of the report and the other constitutional models outlined, but also every single thesis of consequence contained in the report. She also threw out the realities and the requirements which had been so often emphasised by the Taoiseach. The central thesis of the New Ireland Forum report was a rejection of British Government thinking hitherto that the risks of doing something to tackle the fundamental issues are greater than the risks of doing nothing. The British Prime Minister clearly refuses to accept that concept. She stated that the situation had gone on for a long time, that a solution could not be imposed from Westminister and that the situation would drag on. The Forum report adverted to the obstructive nature of the constitutional guarantee. In Chapter 4.1 it stated:

In practice, however, this has been extended from consent to change in the constitutional status of the North within the United Kingdom into an effective Unionist veto on any political change affecting the exercise of nationalist rights and in the form of government for Northern Ireland.

The British Prime Minister repeatedly emphasised yesterday that any proposal would have to have the agreement both of the majority and the minority. Any proposals, not just constitutional proposals, would have to be agreed by the majority. Yesterday, very clearly and explicitly, she expanded the constitutional guarantee in precisely the manner of which the Forum had complained. As I stated last night, this completely precludes any prospect of political progress.

Another fundamental thesis in the Forum report was that:

A settlement which recognises the legitimate rights of Nationalists and Unionists must transcend the context of Northern Ireland.

In an RTE interview on 6 May the Taoiseach agreed that an internal solution on its own was not on. He said:

I think at this stage the degree of alienation among the minority is such that it is difficult to see their coming back into the consensus and being willing to accept political structures and security structures if they are to be solely within the existing Northern Ireland area as part of the United Kingdom.

Clearly this has been rejected by the British Prime Minister who yesterday made it clear that her only interest is in the internal situation of Northern Ireland with no all-Ireland dimension of any kind. The communique, to which the Taoiseach has subscribed, effectively underwrites Mrs. Thatcher's position when it states:

The identities of both the majority and the minority communities in Northern Ireland should be recognised and respected, and reflected in the structures and processes of Northern Ireland in ways acceptable to both communities.

I want to accuse the Taoiseach of again misleading the House in connection with this matter. In his statement just now he said:

It may be noted that at her press conference the Prime Minister referred to the equal respect due to these two identities.

She did not. She did exactly the opposite.

She did. If the Deputy read the transcript of the press conference——

She did not. Unfortunately for the Taoiseach, we all heard the press conference.

The Deputy should not speak from ignorance.

That is a lie. That is not what the British Prime Minister said.

I ask Deputy Haughey to withdraw that remark.

The Deputy will withdraw that remark. I hope he will be required to withdraw it.

(Interruptions.)

I withdraw it.

The Deputy has withdrawn it. Please allow him to continue.

What the Taoiseach said is not true.

Out, out.

(Interruptions.)

The extraordinary thing is that the Taoiseach had the nerve to come home at all. The Taoiseach has subscribed on the dotted line——

You deliberately wrecked the Forum from the first day——

(Interruptions.)

I have no idea what that silly old geriatric is saying over there. The Taoiseach has subscribed on the dotted line to a renewed attempt by the British Government to achieve nothing more than an internal improvement without any reference to an Irish dimension. Neither is there any reference to power-sharing which has been regarded by this Taoiseach in the past as a minimum requirement for an internal solution. As The Irish Times cogently pointed out this morning:

... the communique does not say that the identities of both majority and minority communities will or shall be respected and reflected. It is a mere aspiration, not a binding political commitment.

When the British Prime Minister was asked whether the right of the majority and the minority communities should be recognised as equal she replied clearly and deliberately: "That is not what we said. We said `recognised and respected'." The passage in the communiqué about identities does not reflect, as is alleged, the thinking in the Forum report, which stated:

The validity of both the Nationalist and Unionist identities in Ireland and the democratic rights of every citizen on this island must be accepted; both of these identities must have equally satisfactory, secure and durable, political, administrative and symbolic expression and protection.

There is nothing there about them being acceptable to the minority. It is a tragic betrayal of the position of all the Nationalist parties in the Forum that the Taoiseach should have agreed to underwrite the vain search for another internal political solution. He knows it offends against the first two realities in the Forum report that "existing structures and practices in Northern Ireland have failed to secure either peace, stability or reconciliation" and, secondly, that "the conflict of Nationalist and Unionist identities has been concentrated within the narrow ground of Northern Ireland. This has prevented constructive interaction between the two traditions".

The Forum report had important things to say about security as an acute symptom of the crisis in Northern Ireland and that the Nationalist community will not accept the security forces without a change of political context. The Taoiseach knows that is what the Forum report said. All parties have insisted that a new political framework is required, that existing security policies simply amount to crisis management that contribute nothing towards a solution. Yet, in paragraph 4 of the communique the only role envisaged for the Irish Government is one of security. It states:

Co-operation between the two Governments in matters of security should be maintained and, where possible, improved.

Apparently this is the only role the Irish Government are permitted to have. Once again the communiqué reflects an object capitulation to a new British intrasigence and a craven desertion of the principles of the Forum report.

There has been no acceptance by the British Government in any significant way of the realities or the requirements laid out in the Forum report. They have not been accepted as a basis of discussion or negotiation. I invite Members of this House to go through the ten realities and the 11 requirements and to see in the light of the communiqué and the comments of the British Prime Minister whether there has been any significant acceptance of them. The answer must be no. In my view, they have been simply brushed aside and ignored.

I was alarmed to hear the Taoiseach suggest last night that the four points in the communiqué will be substituted for the realities and the requirements contained in the Forum report as a basis for further discussion. In my view the statements of the British Prime Minister yesterday constitute a flat and comprehensive rejection of the entire report of the New Ireland Forum. It is no good the Taoiseach deluding himself by saying, "We had a considered reaction, but by no means a complete considered action". What does that mean? What does it mean in the light of what the British Prime Minister said: United Ireland, out; confederal solution out; joint authority proposal, out. "We had a considered reaction, but by no means a complete considered reaction".

Nobody is taken in by the suggestion that something of more significance is to come. After all, what is left of the Forum report when every proposal, conclusion, argument or idea of any consequence has been rejected? The new secretary of State, Mr. Hurd, spelled out the British view when he said that no amount of summit meetings would solve the problems facing the parties in the North. Why have them then? Where do we stand now with 2,500 killed in Northern Ireland since 1969? No agreement of political structures in Northern Ireland is even remotely likely. Now the British Prime Minister has announced a policy of attrition, of trying to wear down the communities in Northern Ireland until they agree on something within the present British context. The people of Northern Ireland have been callously condemned to more bloodshed, more violence, more misery indefinitely. The Northern Ireland economy is in a state of decline and stagnation with the highest unemployment and some of the worst social conditions existing there. There is no hope of recovery in investment without peace and stability. No hope of any kind is offered except to continue in the same old rut for ever. Constitutional nationalism, the democratic voice of three-quarters of the Irish people as presented in the New Ireland Forum report has been rejected by the British Prime Minister and that rejection has been acquiesced in by this Taoiseach. This could have the gravest consequences on the ground in Northern Ireland, and everybody must be very much aware of that fact.

The Taoiseach was pathetic in his unconvincing talk about a new framework and process. Giving a complete veto to the majority has effectively rules these out. What is the point of another summit if the Taoiseach is to be walked all over once again? Is there any point in summit meetings if we cannot be reasonably confident of contructive results? Why should the Taoiseach pretend that there is Anglo-Irish harmony and agreement when all can see that they do not exist? This Government are trying to force us all to live a lie.

One appalling aspect of yesterday's proceedings was that the general public could see clearly that one or other of the two principal actors in that drama was trying to mislead them. When the Taoiseach claimed, "We have got down to discussion in earnest, to brass tacks" the British Prime Minister stated that yesterday they were discussing only generalities.

She said the opposite.

(Interruptions.)

We were looking at you. The country was looking at her.

I was not looking at her.

(Interruptions.)

Deputy Haughey without interruptions, please.

(Interruptions.)

Order, please.

Wrap the green flag around me.

Deputy Sheehan must remain quite.

(Interruptions.)

When asked about alienation and this was probably the theme that most people noticed most specifically and directly in the two press conferences, the Taoiseach endeavoured to mislead everyone concerned. He conveyed the impression that the British Prime Minister had been discussing alienation with him and also some security arrangements which would help to alleviate or reduce alienation, but everybody looking at the televised press conference knew that there was no doubt whatever that the Prime Minister had rejected totally any idea of alienation. That was one thing that we could all hear loud and clear, but why did the Taoiseach attempt to mislead the people in that very important respect about what was discussed?

Some people for different motives have sought to find some encouragement in paragraph 2 of the communiqué. Let me quote paragraph 2:

The identities of both the majority and minority communities in Northern Ireland should be recognised and respected, and reflected in the structures and processes of Northern Ireland in ways acceptable to both communities.

Of course, the key words in that paragraph are: "in ways acceptable to both communities." In other words, in so far as the minority are concerned, there can be no recognition or respect or reflections unless they are accepted by the majority, and we know what that means. We know what the spokesmen for the majority have said about anything of that nature. That paragraph is of no benefit or significance whatever in so far as the Nationalists in Northern Ireland are concerned, because it means that the recognition of their identity depends totally on the consent of the majority to any such recognition. That is the basic problem in Northern Ireland since it was founded 60 years ago.

The official voice of Nationalist Ireland was so muffled yesterday as to be almost inaudible. The British Prime Minister was direct, intransigent and brutally frank. Let me also be direct and frank. We who represent Nationalist Ireland will not accept the rejection of the New Ireland Forum report and with it all the hopes and aspirations of the majority of the Irish people. We will continue to fight at home and abroad for the only solution that will bring lasting peace and justice to this land of ours.

On a previous occasion in this House I sought to warn the present Taoiseach about the danger inherent in his approach and attitude to Anglo-Irish relations in both its personal and official aspects. My warning had no effect and the Taoiseach continued along his foolish way until it brought him finally to yesterday's humiliation. The timing of the two press conferences in London yesterday and their content must surely by now have taught this Taoiseach the most bitter lesson of his political life. For many months he engaged in an exercise of accommodation, undertaking a series of steps designed to inculcate an atmosphere of personal friendliness, helpfulness and acceptability. Events have shown this behaviour to have been damaging and detrimental to a deadly extent. International relations, international discussions, international negotiations are not kindergarten matters nor are they conducted as if they were some kind of amicable parlour game. The humiliation inflicted on the Taoiseach yesterday could and should have been foreseen, if not by him at least by his advisers if he was prepared to listen to those among them who have some experience of these matters.

It is difficult to comprehend why the outcome of yesterday's summit took the brutal form that it took. Unfortunately, there can be only one explanation. The British Prime Minister and the British Government have settled on a clear, definite policy with regard to Northern Ireland and the position that Northern Ireland's problems will occupy in Anglo-Irish relations. They have gone right back to the old position that the Six Counties of Northern Ireland are to be regarded as an integral part of the UK, a territory over which British sovereignty is to be maintained, and that the Unionist position is inviolate and untouchable. After all the comings and goings, the accommodating statements and actions, after all the ingratiation, we came right back yesterday to the old, sterile, negative policy. To this Taoiseach I say, "You have led this country into the greatest humiliation in recent history. You have failed ignominiously in an area of vital national interest. Because of your incompetence, misjudgment and ineffectiveness you have done grevious damage to our national political interests and our national pride. History will tell us——

(Interruptions.)

A Deputy

Did you forget your teapot?

History will tell us that it would have been better if your journey to Chequers and to London had never been made".

(Interruptions.)

I think we were all somewhat embarrassed at the Taoiseach last night in his press conference as he attempted to put words together in some coherent fashion, and his inability to give a direct reply to any question put to him at the press conference. It was obvious that he had got nothing from an intransigent Mrs. Thatcher and therefore he had nothing to say. His statement here today, although put together in a much more coherent fashion, still has nothing to say from his meeting with Mrs. Thatcher. It seems that we cannot avoid the conclusion that Mrs. Thatcher is far more interested in her efforts to smash the NUM and the miners' strike than she is to bring peace and progress to Northern Ireland.

The Forum was long dead before Chequers and effectively it was buried there. In correspondence with the Taoiseach in March 1983 at the time he was inviting parties to participate in the Forum I pointed out a major defect in the proposals and I said in behalf of my party that we were disappointed at the haste with which the Taoiseach had acted in establishing such a Forum. I told him that we had expected from our meeting with him and with Deputy Barry on 4 March that discussions would first take place between interested parties in the Oireachtas to see if agreement could be reached on the best method of proceeding to broader discussions. It was certainly our opinion that fairly long and patient negotiaions would be required in order to broaden the scope of discussion beyond the Nationalist-Catholic base of the SDLP. I added that in view of the hurried and public nature of developments so far and the declared intention of the Official Unionists, the DUP and Alliance not to take part in the Forum I must now consult as to whether there was any value in participating in such a narrowly based forum. The Taoiseach replied that participation would be open to the OUP, DUP and Alliance parties. I pointed out to him on 18 March:

If you were anxious for such participation, surely the way to go about achieving it would be to approach these parties through their own democratically elected political forum, the Northern Ireland Assembly. The fact that you totally ignore the existence of this Assembly, and that you have publicly supported the SDLP boycott of it casts doubt as to the seriousness of your intentions.

Reading between the lines of the communiqué, and the Taoiseach's statement in the House, it now seems that both the British and Irish Governments accept, however reluctantly, that the State of Northern Ireland exists and must develop political institutions which have the support of all its people. In view of this, is the Taoiseach prepared to recommend to the SDLP now that they take their seats in the Assembly and make it the base for their political campaign for power-sharing or whatever other political policies they wish to promote? An opinion poll published in October 1984 showed that 89 per cent of Protestants and 53 per cent of Catholics felt that the SDLP should enter the Assembly while 33 per cent of Catholics felt they should not.

There are strong arguments to support Deputy Haughey's thesis that the Northern Ireland state is no longer viable. Indeed, the British Government regarded it as politically non-viable over a decade ago when they introduced direct rule, abolishing Stormont, but the State is still there. Since then that State has become economically non-viable and is supported only by a massive subvention of between £1 billion and £2 billion by the British Government. But then one could argue also that this State is economically non-viable also and must similarly be supported by massive loans from world banks of the order of almost £10 billion. Politically it is also rapidly losing credibility and quickly becoming just as non-viable as the North but there is always a way around non-viability such as direct rule in Northern Ireland or military dictatorship and US aid as in El Salvador. Non-viable states can always be maintained.

Viable or non-viable the State still exists in Northern Ireland and the bombings, killings and general terror continue also. Despite all the condemnations of these killings we still appear to view them and report them in the media with a biased Catholic mind. Every killing of a Catholic is reported in the press, on radio and TV as a sectarian murder while killings of Protestants are always related to the former connections of the person concerned with the security forces. Any Protestant farmer killed on his tractor, or urban worker, or milkman doing his rounds, who was once a member of the UDR or police reserve, even ten years ago, is somehow accepted by the media as a legitimate target and not a sectarian assassination.

That is not true.

It is a fact that sectarian assassinations are only apparently the assassinations of Catholics while every former member of the UDR or police reserve killed — one of whom was 12 years out of the force — is accepted as having been a legitimate target and not a sectarian assassination

That is not true.

Accepted by whom?

Does the Deputy talk like that when he goes to Moscow?

In some cases such people had left the security forces because of a disagreement with the methods used in those forces but such people are considered legitimate targets because they were once in it.

That is not true.

Does the media never question why former members of the British army are not assassinated? Is it not because they may well be Catholics or even Provos? Only Protestants are legitimate targets because the Provos are engaged in a dirty sectarian campaign against the Protestant people and they are doing it in the name of Theobald Wolfe Tone.

The Deputy is letting everybody in this House down.

The Deputy's Taoiseach said, "hear, hear".

To that statement.

I am surprised if I am letting Deputy Kelly down but that is his opinion. Surely the parties to the Forum must realise that the immediate problem is in the North and that is where it must be solved first. Northern Ireland is urgently in need of a period of peace and democracy. It needs:

(1) An Assembly and a government with limited but gradually increasing powers,

(2) Democratic reforms built into a Bill of Rights as a constitutional framework under which an Assembly or government would operate. This must have the fullest guarantees by the British and Irish Governments and by the UN and the EC. The Bill of Rights must cover repressive laws, courts, discrimination, police, and so on.

(3) Demilitarisation which should be begun unilaterally by withdrawal of British army to barracks, thus undermining the paramilitary base in Catholic communities. There must also be a review of the role or existence of the UDR.

(4) A much more rapid reform of the RUC, including civilian control, and an independent complaints procedure.

(5) Dismantling of sectarian institutions and habits and traditions, especially in the area of education and youth services. A poll taken in August last showed that 74 per cent of the people of the North favoured integrated education and only 21 per cent opposed it.

(6) Heavy investment in job creation, laying the basis for a new industrial take off.

These are the immediate issues that must be tackled for the next meeting if there is another between the Taoiseach and Mrs. Thatcher.

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