The quality of this debate has been most marked. Having had the occasion to attend the debates in both Houses I will make no comparison because comparisons are invidious and would be, I think, out of order. All I can say is that this has been a remarkably fine debate. What criterion do I apply to it? In a way the underlying criterion I apply is that I look on these debates, and indeed on all that has been said here, from a curiously ambivalent viewpoint as someone half-Southern and half-Northern. All my life before I entered politics I suffered the frustration of hearing people wholly Southern talk of Northern affairs with what seemed to me to be a total lack of understanding of them and in a manner that continually gave offence to Northern Ireland and which widened the gap which was created in 1920 or 1922, according to one's historical perspective.
I went into politics with several ideas in mind and one of them was to make some contribution to the changing of public attitudes here. I do not think I have achieved anything in that, but the attitudes have changed, changed indeed because of the tragic situation, and changed enormously. This is visible in the debate here today. How little of the debate here today could have taken place five years ago? How few of the things would have been said? Let us be honest with ourselves. How few of us would have made the speeches we are now making? Would I have made the speech I am making now? I doubt if I would have spoken then in the terms I intend to speak in now. I think this is true of many others.
Somebody during the debate talked about recent change of policy or suggested that there was a recent change of policy. There has not been a recent change of policy but there was a fundamental change of policy in 1969 initiated in my own party and in the Labour Party at that time which joined with us and, I think, influencing the attitude of the Fianna Fáil Party, which for historical reasons had more difficulty in re-evaluating their policies but which over this period have tried to do so and have done so under the leadership of the present leader of the Opposition, then in Government and more recently in Opposition, with great courage.
That change of policy is the one thing that makes possible a solution of the Northern problem—that change of attitudes, the recognition that the old idea that it was Britain's duty to hand over the North to us whether the North wanted it or not was a disasterous, imperialistic, colonialistic type concept which could only produce the kind of reaction that one produces in countries where one tris to colonise or threatens to colonise.
That, thank God, is gone. Now we are facing these issues realistically. Because of that realism, expressed so well by so many speakers in this debate, there is hope and there is not the need for the total pessimism that some of us almost have been tempted to feel in recent weeks because of the turn of events at the end of May in Northern Ireland.
Senator Robinson stressed the need to see all this in a wider context. I thought that a very valuable point and I think it is one about which we need to think further. We tend to think very much in introverted Irish terms, but of course the problem of Northern Ireland is the problem of the whole of Ireland. The problem of the whole of Ireland is a great problem for the United Kingdom as a whole and for the British Government. The problem of these islands, posed by the situation in Northern Ireland, is a major problem for the countries of Europe and is seen as such. I know this because I have been talking to my colleagues who are the Foreign Ministers of other European countries. It is one which threatens European peace and which could become a very serious danger indeed and is seen as such in European terms.
It is right that we should look at this wider context. It is right that, as Senator Robinson said, we should consider how British policy is likely to evolve, given Britain's economic situation, given Britain's political situation. We should not look at our own affairs in isolation. We should try to see them in the wider context.
Senator Harte, I think, put the question of policy very clearly and pointedly. He spoke of the difficulty of simply producing a policy to order as if all we had to do was to announce a policy and all would be well. He pointed out that the situation is not one under our control. Therefore to suggest that all that is necessary is for us to have a policy as if there were no impediments to its execution, as if we could then go ahead blandly having announced and assumed that that would settle everything, is nonsense. This was a very realistic point and one which I think needed to be said.
There have been accusations of lack of positive thought but those who have spoken of that, in this House or the other House, have not validated their criticisms by importing into what they said very much positive thought. I would exempt from that criticism the Leader of the Opposition who in the other House endeavoured to put forward a number of constructive ideas, although, as I pointed out gently in replying to the debate there, the constructive ideas he put forward are ones which unfortunately are not likely to yield results in the short or medium terms. Meritorious though they were, and most of them were worthy of great support, they did not produce a positive policy likely to yield immediate results.
Therefore whatever criticism there has been of the Government in this respect is misconceived because in fact the Government have had the duty to give very serious and deep thought to the present situation, have thought out what they intend to do and how they intend to proceed in the interests of Northern Ireland and in the interests of Ireland and are clear on the line they must take.
There has been, I think, among the Government's critics an unfortunate confusion between three different things which are treated as if they were all one. First are the aspirations that we all hold; second, the objectives we pursue for the foreseeable future; and third, the presentation of our policy and the tactics to be employed. These are all put into one. Speakers in both Houses have talked as if the expression of an aspiration is a policy, whereas the presentation of a policy and the way it is put or not put at a moment in time is itself the whole of that policy. We must clearly distinguish between these three different things.
On the question of aspirations, all of us share an aspiration to Irish unity. Few of us perhaps could express in specific terms what the core and centre of that is. Few of us now, especially after the events of the past five years, are sure enough of what our considered aspiration is to put it in concrete terms, to say precisely what would constitute the kind of unity we regard as the ultimate objective. But we all share the feeling that in some form, at some time in the future, the relationship between the people North and South must be differently organised in a way that will be more harmonious, and that will mean we will be working for common objectives. Those who try to express this in constitutional terms have thought up different solutions. I do not think it is helpful to think in constitutional terms about unity at the present time.
Clearly what people envisage is a situation in which there will be great potential for common action—at one level perhaps common action outside this country in the joint interests of North and South; at another level common action at home in solving problems that are jointly North and South. I do not think we should go beyond that, as our aspiration. I do not think we can go beyond that. But that aspiration in some form we all share.
The expression of that aspiration, even the attempt to clarify it, is not a policy to solve the present problems in Northern Ireland. Indeed if we were to spend our time dwelling on this subject and discussing academically what we mean by unity and what kind of unity we envisage eventually, we would impede the achievement of the objectives that lie immediately ahead of us. No one, I think, believed that the achievement of unity is any of the senses in which people use that term is a policy objective attainable in the foreseeable future, and it is the foreseeable future we have to deal with at this stage.
If dwelling on these aspirations or defining them will stand in the way of achieving immediate policy objectives of vital interest—in the literal sense of the word "vital", life and death interests to the people in this island—then we should not dwell on them or spend our time promoting them or announcing that we hold particular attitudes in regard to this question of unity. Our job is not to satisfy ourselves and not to satisfy even the people who elect us by saying things we think may be popular with them on this subject. Our job is to say or not say just what will be conducive to achieving the immediate objectives that lie ahead of us of securing the peace of this country and the lives of people. Already lives have been lost in great numbers and will be lost in still greater numbers in the future if we do not tackle this problem constructively.
One of the speakers remarked that everything we say is parsed and analysed—parsed and analysed in a manner which would do justice to the text of scripture at times, rather than to the passing utterances of politicians. I am sure that all of us, speaking as we all speak ex tempore—we do not read out our speeches having written them out carefully and examined every word—must at times use phrases which in some way could be criticised by people who analyse them as closely as some of this analysis is carried out. But I think most of us are clear on what lies behind what has been said. Most of us know that it is not particular words that matter —it is the thought and intent behind them.
Let me now say what are these objectives which we are pursuing and in the expression of which pursuit we may not always manage to convey sufficient precision in our throughts. One of the difficulties in setting out these objectives and geting them across to people is that so many people, in the desparate situation in which they live in Northern Ireland, read what they expect to read and hear what they expect to hear. I have noticed, in listening to the account given to me in Northern Ireland about what people have said down here, that the account involves some kind of substitution of quite different words.
I have had to point out that so-and-so did not in fact say that, he said something else. "Oh, yes. I know that," and then they revert to using the words alleged to have been used, because in the situation the people are in, they have such preconceived ideas of what our attitudes are that even if one says and means the opposite to what one is alleged to hold, nobody will listen. It is very hard to communicate through this kind of barrier. Sometimes we fail to do so. Let me try to communicate now.
Our primary objective is peace. Our primary objective in Northern Ireland is the preservation of peace there, the return of peace. And because in Northern Ireland, and above all in east Ulster, those most at risk are the minority, our primary aim is the protection of that minority who are most at risk. Everything we do, say and do not say is directed towards that aim. There should be no question of abandoning that aim, no question of setting it to one side. On the contrary, recent events have convinced all of us that this aim is one in which we must be totally involved. No other consideration can stand in the way of this. Our whole hearts and minds and efforts must be given to trying to restore peace and trying to ensure the protection of lives in Northern Ireland —lives of Protestants and lives of Catholics. Because the danger is greatest for the Catholic minority in east Ulster, our particular concern must be for them, not necessarily because we share religion or particular philosophies with them, but because their lives are most at risk. As far as I am concerned, if the problem were one of a Protestant minority in Belfast surrounded by Catholics, I would feel just as desperately and just as strongly and be just as concerned as I am about the Catholic minority in Belfast at this time.
I recognise that in concerning ourselves with this problem, in deciding what we will say and what we will do and must say, at times people who are living in a state of almost despair may misunderstand our motives or our intentions. At times it is perhaps hard for us to convey our motives or our thoughts. Indeed there are times when, if one said everything one felt, one might do more harm than good. That has to be recognised.
Our objectives, given that situation and danger, are, first, to ensure that British policy keeps a steady even course and that it is not deflected from that course by recent events— that the aims of British policy as set out two years ago are maintained, that Britain's involvement is fully maintained with a view to achieving the twin objectives of power sharing in Government and an Irish dimension. That is the primary aim of Anglo-Irish policy at this time.
What of the North itself? Our primary aim there must be to seek to persuade the majority in Northern Ireland that this is the only solution that will work, the only one which will bring back peace to them and give them, again, the full share in Government which that majority are entitled to, just as the minority are entitled to their share. Our job is to seek to persuade them of this. This persuasion involves direct communication with them.
I think it was Senator McGowan who said that the Government should not send Ministers to the North to undermine the minority. An interesting concept, one fortunately not held by the minority, as he would know if he had had any acquaintance in the last few days with Northern politicians or indeed read papers or heard the Irish news. The fact is that the minority in Northern Ireland do recognise that it is only by our action with the British Government and by our attempts to get across our true policies and attitudes to the Northern majority that we can help to secure that position. We have to clear misunderstandings and reduce fears among the majority. That cannot be done except really by direct contact.
I know that our media of communications, newspapers and television, and occasionally The News-letter, may print a few sensible words from a Southern spokesman, but not terribly frequently. At times word can get through the media in that way. Frequently we can get through on television, The Belfast Telegraph and other papers. You can get your words across, but I do not think they carry the full conviction. That can only come from personal contact. Personal contact is something which we, with all our talk of a united Ireland, have sedulously avoided in the South in the last 50 years. Because of my own personal contacts and connections, constantly moving between North and South during much of that 50 years, I have always been conscious of that and frankly bitter about it.
