I move:
That Seanad Éireann notes the critical situation in Northern Ireland and requests the Government to outline its policy of reconciliation and the steps it intends to take towards a political solution.
I have great pleasure in proposing this motion because, as I pointed out in the debate on the Order of Business, I feel that we are failing in our duty if we do not, as the Members of Seanad Éireann, have frequent reviews of the situation in Northern Ireland and of our relationships with that part of the country. I find that the last debate on this subject in this House was in August, 1971. That seems to be too long a gap between these two debates. However I am grateful to the Leader of the House for arranging to take this debate and I hope it will be a worthwhile debate in which we look forward rather than backward.
The Dáil debate last week was indeed a worthwhile one. I would not agree with many of the commentators who felt that the same old shibboleths and myths were being trotted out. This was not the case. It gave a clear indication that we are moving away from the era of slogans for vote-catching, of words without deeds, and we are beginning to face the realities of the situation. We are developing a real sensitivity towards the difficulties of the Northern problem.
As I see it, the feelings expressed by the Government and Opposition reflect two strands of thought which are current in this country at the moment. The Government, through the Taoiseach and through the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, pointed out that Irish unity was at present out of the question and that moves or warlike noises made by the Republic in that direction could precipitate sectarian civil war. On the other hand, the Fianna Fáil Party, through the spokesman and Leader, Deputy Lynch, underlined the aspiration to Irish unity by consent— a non-violent aspiration to unity—and claimed that the Government were not doing enough to persuade the minority in Northern Ireland of the rightness of this aspiration.
My belief is that most people in this part of the country share both these feelings and the sum total reaction would be a combination of the proportions in which they hold both feelings. The debate has done something very important in that it has underlined a difference in emphasis which was blurred up to this. Most people have mixed feelings about the Northern situation. Most citizens of the Republic aspire towards Irish unity. I certainly do; I think most people in this House would like to see a united Ireland. But the Loyalist Ulster Workers' Council strike has sharpened our perspective. We now realise that a relentless pursuit of unity by any means whatever will inevitably involve Northern Ireland and the Republic in sectarian civil war.
The problem that the politicians face is the problem of formulating a policy— I am talking now about politicians in this part of the country—taking these aspirations into account and also facing up to the realities of the situation. The realities, of course, are the fall of the Executive, the collapse of Sunningdale, the temporary disappearance of the power sharing arrangement, resumption of direct rule from Westminster, the prospect of a further British election and further Assembly elections and the attempt to work out some new administrative structure for Northern Ireland. I do not intend to go into a detailed analysis of why I think Sunningdale failed but one of the clear reasons for its failure was the exclusion for whatever reason of Loyalist leaders like the Reverend Ian Paisley. It could be argued that he excluded himself but it is not as simple as this. Let us not feel that the Reverend Ian Paisley, for example, is the most intransigent of Loyalist leaders; I heard him in Westminster making a statement that if the South were prepared to change its Constitution he would look at the whole situation in a new light. It is interesting —talking about the Reverend Ian Paisley—to read of his violent interjection when the Minister for Foreign Affairs paid a visit to Northern Ireland to consult political leaders. Mr. Paisley felt that the Minister for Foreign Affairs should have worked through the British Foreign Office. Of course the Reverend Ian Paisley had been down here two days previously opening a church, participating in an all-Ireland organisation of which he is the undisputed leader. Presumably he did not consult the Hierarchy, the Church of Ireland bishops, or indeed our Department of Foreign Affairs. So, the Reverend Ian Paisley is a politician par excellence and he is prepared to negotiate when conditions are right. I am not so sure about other Loyalist leaders. Personally, I would not rule any of them out. The situation will be negotiable when the conditions are right.
Some of the other realities in the situation, in fact, have been spelt out by Mr. Paisley's erstwhile associate—I am not sure whether they are closely associated now—Mr. Desmond Boal. In various statements he has underlined very clearly the Northern majority's fear of the position of the Roman Catholic Church in the Republic, the fear of a takeover and the fear of ultimate Roman Catholic pressure on the Northern majority. In an article published in January, 1974, in the Sunday News in an interview with Stephen Preston he also predicted a break of the link with the United Kingdom. He was the first Protestant leader who put this down in black and white and said that they were faced with this situation; it was ultimately going to happen and they should be there to work out the best deal for themselves. That is the sort of negotiable attitude we should be looking for. In an interview in the Irish Independent—a two-day interview on May 10th and May 11th—Mr. Boal further outlined the fears that the Northern majority have of takeover by a Roman Catholic-dominated southern Administration. I think that most of these fears are groundless but that is not the point. The point is that they do have these fears and that we still exhibit great insensitivity towards the Northern majority feelings.
It was exemplified to me in an advertisement which appeared in the Sunday Independent of this week when readers were invited to subscribe to a Roman Catholic Church being built at Knock, which I think is a fine objective, but the church was being dedicated to the Blessed Virgin as Queen of Ireland. I think this sort of thing exhibits great insensitivity. I object to a Queen in this country whether heavenly or earth bound. I do not believe in that sort of royalty and a Northern Irish person reading this advertisement—a church being built to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Ireland—could not fail to be upset and disturbed by the fact that the Blessed Virgin was termed Queen of Ireland in this context. I complained to one of my Roman Catholic clerical associates about this and he said to me: “Do you think that before this church was opened the Blessed Virgin had been consulted?” I said: “Probably not” and he said: “In any case, if she had she probably would not be interested in the post at this present moment in time. Could you blame her?” This is just a point to illustrate our insensitivity to the feelings of the Northern majority and this is one of the things about which we must educate people in the Republic. The Northern Roman Catholics are well aware of this problem.
To suggest lines of action for our Government I would like to divide the political and other aspects of our life into three spheres—the political sphere, the economic sphere and the cultural and educational sphere—and regard them as non-overlapping spheres of activity, although of course they certainly do overlap in many ways. The first thing to do is to recognise the current impossibility of constructing all-Ireland political institutions. Since direct rule is only an interim procedure and integration with Westminster has been ruled out by the majority of the British people and the British Parliament, we are faced with the remaining alternative which means giving some degree of autonomy to Northern Ireland. There is then the question of degree. How much autonomy does Northern Ireland get? I would argue that Northern Ireland should get a considerable degree of autonomy and I would say more autonomy than it had under the Stormont regime but that this autonomy should be underwritten with guarantees to both communities by the Westminster and the Dublin Governments.
There should be joint responsibility for any new Administration in the North. We should press for this. There are many times when the interests of Westminster and Dublin coincide. There are many times now and there will be many times in the future when the interests of Westminster and Dublin will diverge and I worry that our Government do not put their case sufficiently strongly when this happens. We have only to think back to the previous Government's problem when Mr. Heath told Deputy Lynch that the Republic had no business interfering in Northern Ireland affairs. That was ridiculous and the previous Government, to its credit, had that situation rectified and got a recognition by Westminster of the fact that we are involved.
There are two dimensions to the Northern Ireland problem. There is an Irish dimension and there is a British dimension. But there is a very crucial difference in these two dimensions. The difference is that while Britain wants to lessen its responsibility for Northern Ireland we should be working to increase our responsibility. I do not necessarily mean political responsibility, but of course we hope that political responsibility will also ultimately come. We should press for considerable autonomy including a governmental setup in Stormont with control over security for the North. I would give them security provided this is underwritten with guarantees to both communities in the North and these guarantees would include guarantees on civil rights, on the system of power sharing, and there would be the right of joint intervention by the UK and the Republic if these guarantees were not fulfilled.
We should go further than this. One of the great fears that Northern people have—and quite rightly—is the withdrawal of British financial support. Financial support should come jointly from both Governments and the respective proportions should be phased over an agreed period. At first I would just make it a strict proportion. I would not talk of a phasing out or of a phasing one way or the other; but if we are going to talk about Northern Ireland in any realistic way, then we should crudely put our money where our mouth is. We should bear some of the subsidy to Northern Ireland and we should also then have a right of economic sanction. Economic sanction is one of the most important and obvious ways of bringing a recalcitrant North to heel if that is necessary. It is interesting that the Ulster Workers' Council strike inflicted a most serious defeat on the British Government. Probably this could have been avoided if the British Government had acted quickly enough, certainly after a few days. It is well known that in the early days of the strike and when the strike was being mooted most of the Northern politicians, the Loyalist politicians who later on jumped on the band wagon, were opposed to the strike. If at that stage the British Government had acted with some spunk the strikers would really have been put to the test. This strike, when it succeeded, represented a considerable victory for the Loyalists over the British Government. It indicated a clear rise in the temperature and extent of Ulster nationalism on the Protestant side. This rise in nationalism, I believe, is just a reflection of a true situation because the Ulster working-class Protestants have an Uncle Tom attitude to Westminster and this is not just my own observation. Considerable bitterness is expressed by working-class Protestants towards the British, much more than towards the Republic in the current situation. I think this Ulster nationalism is a true reflection of a feeling that has been there for some considerable time.
I have proposed that a considerable degree of autonomy, including control over security, should be given to the new Northern Administration provided that the Administration is underwritten by both our Government and Westminster. Many people have talked about the possibility of sectarian strife and calling the United Nations into the conflict. To me that would be the ultimate defeat. It would mean that we had a conflict between two groups of Irish people in which Britain was also involved and that the British and Irish Governments and the Northern people could not sort the situation out for themselves. Once you bring in the United Nations they are there "for keeps". I believe that while Britain is there, there is always a chance of improvement. It is most important that our Government press the British Government, not for a statement of intent to withdraw so much as for a statement of her long-term aims. We should press Britain for a declaration of her long-term aims on the Northern Ireland situation. That is very important and I believe it will put the whole situation in a new context.
I feel that Britain is withdrawing gradually, by stealth, as Mr. Boal calls it. We should press hard for such a statement. We should state our aims clearly. One of the important things in the Dáil debate was that our aspirations and the differences of opinion came out absolutely clearly. We should press the British Government hard for a long-term declaration of her aims in Northern Ireland. Once this has been made it would help to put the new Northern Administration in its proper context.
When one advocates a policy which one hopes the Government will follow, it is also worth while reflecting on what we have done in the last 50 years that has affected the Northern situation. The two most important things we have done are that we have created a stable political system here and developed our economy to an extent that without subvention from Britain we can say we are on a par with the economic state of Northern Ireland. I think these things should be put clearly because there is a myth in Northern Ireland that people in the South are poorer, less well-off, less well cared for than they really are. This gap has been closing swiftly in recent years. We should not be afraid to blow our own trumpets on these achievements. They are very considerable achievements but we should spell them out clearly.
There are some important things we have not done: we have not really exorcised the fear in Northern minds that the Roman Catholic Church exerts a pervasive influence in southern society. The Legislature and we in this House are to be blamed for this situation. If one looks at the three important moves —and legislation is involved in all these moves——