Senator Murphy has 30 minutes and other speakers have 15 minutes.
Government Policy on Northern Ireland: Motion.
I move:
That Seanad Éireann calls on the Government to clarify its policy on Northern Ireland.
I move this motion in the depths of a winter that has seen the horror of Enniskillen but has also, thankfully, seen a widespread and welcome revulsion against that horror and all it stands for. There are unmistakable signs of political dialogue in the North — it is rather difficult to interpret them — whether they be the Unionist talks about talks or the controversial meeting of John Hume and Gerry Adams. On that matter I still have an open mind though I think most people find it very difficult to know what exactly was the point of the meeting, who stands to gain or whether the gain is likely to outweigh the damage it will cause in Unionist perceptions. I have an open mind on it. As a historian, however, I have some reservations about the symbiotic relationships between constitutional nationalism and physical force nationalism. These are not separate strands in Irish history; they are closely intermingled. Constitutional Nationalists have frequently lived off, lived by invoking the spectre of, physical force nationalism.
While keeping an open mind on the matter, I would not like to see the Hume-Adams talks resulting in some kind of reemergence of a Catholic front, a kind of pan-nationalist Catholic civil rights movement. If that happens the Government must not get involved in supporting that kind of movement. One of the implications of the Anglo-Irish Agreement is that ostensibly our Government are the guarantor of the Nationalists but by the same token they are committed to safeguarding the rights of the Unionists. There will be no solution in the North which involves a Dublin Government backing any kind of renewed Catholic Nationalist front.
Dialogue is taking place and has taken place before with abortive results. Hope deferred maketh the heart sick but hope also springs eternal. January, which is a month named after the god, Janus, is an appropriate month for looking backwards and forwards, which is what that god characterises. While not losing sight of the implications of Enniskillen we look forward, albeit with some apprehension, to the hopes of a new political spring. We are already on the home run to the end of the third year of the Anglo-Irish Agreement and to the review which that agreement envisages. Whatever defects the agreement had in conception, foundation and implementation it stays in place and is likely to endure.
Long before November 1988 the Government must be clear about the approaches they are to make to this review and that is one good reason for a debate of this kind. We should begin to initiate the debate which is a prerequisite for the review of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. It was suggested to me, when it came to my turn to propose a motion from the University Senators, that a motion of this kind would be a distraction from the compelling fiscal and financial problems the Government face but, I do not think that that argument holds any water. First of all, the Government, I am sure, would not like to be compared to a former undistinguished President of the United States about whom it was said he could not perform two very simple actions — one of which delicacy forbids me to specify — at the same time. I am sure that our Government can deal with these two problems.
In purely southern terms, the North is as great a malaise as the economy. It is a running sore in Irish life, even if we try to ignore it. Since the mid-seventies the South has undoubtedly wished the North would go away and I have been re-assessing my interpretation of that ostensible southern indifference. I do not think it is indifference. I do not think it is callousness or hyprocrisy or ambivalance. I think it is that the South has been absolutely baffled by what is going on in the North, as baffled as the average English, the average American and the average European citizen, and our ostensible indifference does come from a kind of despair, a characteristic nationalist fatalism that nothing could be done about it. But I think the post-Enniskillen mood is changing that. Enniskillen could not be put in the category of the politics of the last atrocity, something which would make a stir for a while and then disappear.
There is a tide of public opinion that cries out for new and imaginative political departures that will work towards peace. I think the South is in a mood which is saying for the first time since the troubles began, what can we do for the North? Tell us what we can do for the North. The public in the South are in no mood to reiterate the old stale clichés of our unattainable objectives. I am suggesting that this debate is appropriate not only because things are stirring, because we are on the run-in to a review of the agreement, but because the public mood is in a very unusual situation and is expecting a difference of approach.
I suggest that the North is as pressing as the economy and they are closely linked. At a psychological level if the people see our Government making some really imaginative moves on northern policy, then that in itself will help to combat the corrosive cynicism towards our politicians. It will suggest to the public that if our Government are serious, hard working and imaginative about the North, then perhaps the economic problems can also be solved. I think there is a psychological connection there. But more obviously we need a northern policy which will work towards peace and northern politics simply because we cannot afford the North indefinitely. We cannot afford the consequential security costs. We cannot afford the chronic deterrent to investment.
One of the great hopes of the economy in the future is what I might call cultural tourism. We have not even begun to tap the possibilities of this country as a kind of a new island of scholars. Island of saints, we never were, except in mythological imagination, and certainly never shall be again but we could be an island of scholars. The potential for cultural tourism is enormous but not as long as our resources are drained psychologically and economically in the northern problem. The matter here is of sheer self-interest as well as concern for the North. Finally of course it is sheer madness to think that we could take on the North in terms of unity and in terms of integrating it into our economy. Northern Ireland is a depressed area industrially, it belongs to an antiquated industrial economy. It survives only because of massive transfers from the British Exchequer which we would find it impossible to match.
By the way, I think it is historically proper that the British Exchequer should continue to shore up the northern economy. Perhaps I should make an important distinction here. I do not think it is in Britain's competence to solve the problem of Northern Ireland — at least certainly not on her own — but it is Britain's historical responsibility to carry the major share of the burden, what I might call the British lion's share of the burden. I see nothing wrong with that. We must insist that the British continue to alleviate the worst effects of the northern problem.
My purpose in initiating this debate is two-fold. I want to elicit information from the Government — eternal optimist that I am — and I want to hear my colleagues' views on this crucial national topic. My own views are evolving all the time. I cannot say that I held the same views for very long since the northern troubles broke out. Some people might regard that as a sign of a very unstable temperament but I would like to think that it is an attempt to respond to a situation that is constantly changing. Later this month, I hope to develop these views in detail in various fora. Today I simply want to sketch the main outlines of what I think.
Not surprisingly my views are rooted in historical realities. The orthodox nationalist thinking about the North, whether it is constitutional or physical force tradition — and this includes Fianna Fáil thinking as well as Provo thinking and Fine Gael thinking — rests on historical fallacies, mythologies. The first thing we must do to have a correct analysis of where we are going is to set the historical records straight. Thus the Provisional propaganda to which we will be increasingly subjected I predict in the coming year, according as they try to retrieve their losses after Enniskillen, and anyone who reads what they have to say will realise that they are now aiming at minimising the post-Enniskillen damage and at winning the hearts and minds of young people by appealing to them meretriciously and spuriously but appealing to them on an insidious propaganda basis.
One of the pseudo historical points which the Provos make is that partition is the cause of all the trouble: Partition is the great injustice, according to them, committed against the Irish people; the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, must be repealed; that way lies the undoing of the injustice. The other cliché or cant phrase they use — and again it is not only the Provos but also the mainstream consitutional Nationalists — is national self-determination. I suggest that there is no basis for these twin concepts of self deception. There is no proper historical basis for either the idea that Partition was an injustice esssentially or that we were denied national self determination. Partition was inevitable from 1912 or 1913 onwards. There is the faint possibility that had Irish Nationalist leaders taken any notice of Unionist resistence to home rule in the period betwen 1886 and 1912, and God knows that gave them plenty of time, if they had taken on board Unionist objections to home rule, and if the third Home Rule Bill had incorporated safeguards for Ulster Unionists, it is just possible that Irish unity might have been preserved in the 1912 Home Rule Bill. However, it was impossible after that. Certainly, the 1916 rising made partition even more inevitable.
What happened after 1920-21 was that the kind of partition which was created, the extent of the partition, the way in which the boundary commission was handled and the maximising of Unionist control over Six Counties became confused in people's minds with partition itself. While they were right about the cynical way in which the Government of Ireland Act, 1920 came about I think that blinded them from seeing that partition was actually a condition of Irish independence, not a flaw in Irish independence. That is an unpalatable fact and we have to face up to it. The injustices of the Stormont regime compounded the sense of grievance but, nonetheless, the basic point is that some kind of partition seems to have been inevitable from a very early stage.
So it was with national self determination. In most statements issued these days by the Provisional mouthpieces, Gerry Adams and Danny Morrison, you will find repeated again and again the phrase that national self determination has been denied to the Irish people and that this must be restored. You can have national self determination only where there is a real consensus, only where there is an agreement, not just a majority view, and only where there is a real consensus as to what the nation is. The essence of our continuing problem in the North is that there is no agreement as to what the nation is. Therefore, it seems that you cannot have a concept of national self determination where a substantial minority denies that it belongs to the nation and thus the results of the 1918 General Election are invalidated as an assertion of national self determination.
There is another element which has further confused the issue. We assume that because Ireland is an island it is entitled to independence and that the geographical shape of the country is divinely ordained, in other words, what God has ordained geographically, let no man put aside. There is no basis for this argument. It is a purely sentimental argument which rests on an aesthetic concept of the island and it is a further flaw in the a priori assumption that the whole island is entitled to self determination. I suggest, therefore, that the premises on which the Provos argue are suspect but they are also the premises on which most of our constitutional Nationalists base their case.
The Fianna Fáil claim and the Fine Gael claim to unity is no different from that of the Provos. Of course, they abhor the methods of the Provisional IRA but they pursue the same aim. In my view, the aim is spurious. The claim is phoney and should be rejected just as much as the methods. There is no historical justification for asserting that the national territory is the whole island. Articles 2 and 3 make this assertion and, disappointingly and illogically, the draft constitution of the Progressive Democrats asserted the same thing last week. Nor do I think there is any point in replacing a territorial claim by a quite pointless and arguably insincere aspiration to unity.
Most of the evidence we now have from the polls is that more and more people in the South are not aspiring to unity. I suggest we should renounce not only Provo methods but Provo objectives. We should liberate ourselves from the will-o'-the-wisp of territorial unity. It can be said that the Provos, after all, ruthless as they are, have the courage of our convictions though they are not really convictions. Our attitude to the national question can be compared with how Matthew Arnold described 19th century Victorian religion: we are half believers in a casual creed. This is what the Provos are taking advantage of and what they are saying to our young people is that they are only acting on what we profess to believe.
My argument is that we must stop believing those basic premises because they cannot be sustained. We have no moral claim to unity. Apart from anything else, we forfeited our moral claim to the unity of this country again and again since independence when again and again we refused to modify the Catholic nature of the State. Catholic bishops and politicians who worked for the retention of a Catholic clause in the Constitution — some of those politicians professing all the while to be neutral — have no moral right now to wring their hands over community divisions in the North because they helped to perpetuate the image of the South which is in large part responsible for community conflict in the North.
I would like to see political arrangements in the whole island which would be a long step from the shibboleths of territorial unity. I believe the Anglo-Irish Agreement should be seized upon as the framework of opportunity. It is not perfect. It has not been implemented like Christianity, it has not even been tried. The Unionists consider they have a grievance because they were not consulted though that is largely their own fault. Article 1 says that the constitutional position will not change until there is a majority in the North in favour of unity but that does not help us very much either.
I am not sure whether anyone has really pointed this out but how can our case be improved if, instead of a 60 per cent Unionist majority, there was a 49 per cent Unionist minority? It might change the statistics but it would not make the problem any easier to solve. I am not starry-eyed about the Anglo-Irish Agreement but I do think it provides the framework. What I think our Government should be doing is aiming for a situation where we would withdraw the territorial claim and thus reduce pressures, where we would liberate ourselves from mythology and reduce pressures on the North. It would mean, for example, that the Anglo-Irish Agreement would be a far less threatening document to the Unionists because they would have no grounds for seeing it as a stalking horse for Irish unity. They have good reason for seeing it in that way now. All that having been done, we would be in a strong moral position to say to Great Britain that we are not interested territorially but that we are certainly interested as Irish people and as guarantors and that now the onus is on them to really satisfy the aspirations of the Nationalists while at the same time telling the Unionists they are not constitutionally in any fear.
What Ulster Unionists want is the assurance that their British identity will be preserved outside of a united Ireland. It baffles me to hear, for example, the Minister for Foreign Affairs repeating again, against all the evidence, that we can satisfy the Protestant ethos of the Ulster Unionists within a united Ireland and that we will give them assurances. That is not what they want. They want the assurance that their British ethos will survive outside a united Ireland. I see no reason that there should not be imaginative political structures in the North of a kind not yet envisaged, it is the kind of situation which cries out for these complex structures. Here is a situation where we all have to make compromises. This will be our historic compromise. We will withdraw our claim to territorial unity; the Ulster Unionists will be told in no uncertain terms by the British that they are not going to be thrust out of the United Kingdom but they are not going to re-assert their ascendency and they will have to share power.
There is no reason why Ulster Nationalists, such of them as are Nationalists because it would seem now to be increasingly clear that many Northern Catholics are satisfied to be in the United Kingdom as long as their own self-esteem and self-respect is protected, should not have the same cultural fulfilment as, let us say, Welsh people have under a different kind of political agreement. You do not have to be a member of a nation state in order to have your personality fulfilled, your cultural traditions respected. There are other ways of doing it. They are the feelings I have and this is the kind of imaginative political arrangement I would like to see.
I am not suggesting that it can be done overnight; what I am arguing for is a suggestion to our people that they should have a new way of thinking about these things. Part of this deal would be that the SDLP would stop talking in nebulous and sinister terms. I am a supporter of the SDLP in many respects and a great admirer of them. In fact, I am a member of a group called Friends of the SDLP but, if I were a Ulster Unionist I would feel very uneasy at words like "process", "framework", or "stage" which are used by people like Seamus Mallon, Brid Rogers and John Hume. The feeling there surely must be that this is simply a milestone on the road to a united Ireland. A new Ireland is another of their code words.
I am putting myself on record as saying that now I totally reject the concept of a united Ireland and I am suggesting that my position is as patriotic as those who prattle empty rhetoric about a united Ireland. It is patriotic to recognise that our territorial claim is unsustainable, that it is morally and historically unsustainable. It is, moreover, patriotic to recognise that the best interests of Ireland, the best interests of peace, the best hope of containing violence, is served by the proper working of the Anglo-Irish Agreement and by the continuance of British power in the North as long as that is necessary. The real danger, and the real nightmare we should have, is that the Brits will go unexpectedly. If the truth were told, instead of talking about Irish unity, meaningless prattle about Irish unity, we should be making novenas, or whatever the secular equivalent is nowadays of novenas, that the British will stay in the North indefinitely.
I cannot expect that Fianna Fáil will be converted to my point of view, at least not overnight. I now move to the main reason why I moved this motion; I want to know what the Government think about the North. A friend of mine has described the characteristic style of the Government as rialú gan míniú, Government without explanation. Admittedly, they have kept their nose to the grindstone and they may decide that they have no time for giving elabororate explanations but it is not good enough that there has been no major statement from the Government on their Northern policy.
I can, in a way, understand their traumatic attitudes about the North given the origin of the party's foundation and given the anguish and the angst of the arms trial in 1969-1970. But what now is Government policy? Do they really mean the official aim of the Fianna Fáil Party which was laid down at their foundation? Does Michael O'Kennedy still believe there should be a British withdrawal, as he did in 1975, or has that rush of blood to the head now receded?
Is the Taoiseach really serious that a unitary state is the desirable outcome of our present problems? If he is still insistent that Northern Ireland is a failed entity, what realistically has he got to suggest in its place? When he says that he is accepting the Anglo-Irish Agreement because he is bound by his predecessor's contracts, is that a real and sufficient and satisfactory reason to be acting on the most crucial issue in Ireland today? That would be all right for some marginal external treaty. What do the Government have to say about Peter Barry's allegations of 8 January, that the Government are dragging their feet on the Agreement and the workings of the Agreement? Finally, what does the Taoiseach mean when he said in a recent radio interview that Anglo-Irish relations will never be correct as long as the Northern Ireland problem remains unresolved? What does he mean by that?
They are the questions I would like answered as this critical year unfolds, as we prepare for the first review of the Agreement in November. The House, and the country, are entitled to know what the Government policies are on those crucial issues.
I wish to second the motion. Like Senator Murphy, I make no apology for bringing the issue of Northern Ireland back to the fore front in the Seanad today. I was delighted to hear his renewed challenge to the preconceived ideas in which many of the people, and many of the political parties, in this country believe. I particularly think it is relevant that we should discuss the Northern Ireland problem in a week in which a very dramatic event occurred for which we have still had no reasonable explanation. That was, and I think it is relevant to comment on it, the meeting between John Hume and Gerry Adams.
John Hume has, quite rightly, earned the respect of politicians of all parties in Ireland, and abroad, for his tireless work for peaceful constitutional nationalism in Northern Ireland but I do not believe that, first of all, he should be allowed to loftily explain his meeting with Gerry Adams by saying that he would talk to anybody at any time. That is not an adequate explanation. Nor do I believe that the Government, and politicians here, should continue to give him the sort of blanket pardon they have given him for this meeting in media interviews and in public statements since it happened. Both parties owe it to us to tell us why this meeting took place. I feel that this House should condemn that meeting as not helpful towards progress in Northern Ireland, not helpful to this State and as giving Mr. Adams a credibility and a stature which he has not earned and does not deserve.
That meeting has thrown a lifeline to the IRA, and to Provisional Sinn Féin, a distinction which I do not wish to make, at a time when they were on the rack after Enniskillen. It is quite inexplicable to me that Mr. Hume, a man of international stature, should give Mr. Adams, a well known terrorist, a lifeline at a time when his public support must be failing and has faded recently. It would be far more helpful if Mr. Hume were looking in the other direction, towards the Unionist community, and talking to them about co-existence and peace, formations of government, internal formations of government and structures in Northern Ireland at this time. It is a pity that he did not.
This motion is broad. It is not, as far as I am concerned, meant to be an expression of approval or an expression of condemnation of the Government's record on Northern Ireland. To me it is asking a question, because I am particularly confused about the Government's policy on Northern Ireland. I feel that the less we interfere in Northern Ireland affairs the better and the more useful role we will play. Nevertheless, while I welcome some of the moderation which has marked this Government's term of office — and I differ with Senator Murphy in that I welcome their volte face on secion 31 — while I welcome their implementation of the Anglo-Irish Agreement and their belated deathbed conversion to extradition, I do not see in these piecemeal moves any overall conversion, any turning of their backs on the constitutional element about which the Government have always been suspect for historical reasons. This Government's policy on Northern Irleand has been marked purely by one thing, that is pragmatism. It has not been marked by any consistent attitude of any sort. In a very welcome response to Loughgall we saw a strong statement from the Minister for Foreign Affairs in May and I wish to read into the record a small section of that statement. He said that the Irish Government reject utterly the warped policy of the Provisional IRA, that it is the leadership of the IRA who trap young people into the cycle of violence that has brought so much suffering to Nationalists and Unionists alike; that it is that leadership who are responsible for putting those young lives at risk. That to me was a very welcome unequivocal condemantion from the Minister, squarely placing the blame for the trouble in Northern Ireland on the IRA and nowhere else.
We also got a piecemeal response from the Government regarding Enniskillen, the response being that the Government changed their mind on the extradition issue. While I welcome that change of mind, I think it is dangerous that atrocities of that sort should make such fundamental differences to policy on Northern Ireland. There was immense confusion over extradition and the Government appeared to be speaking with two voices on that issue as they do so often on Northern Ireland. I suspect that at their next Árd Fheis the Fianna Fáil Party will make different noises from the ones the Minister for Foreign Affairs makes to the British Government. That is understandable and we can forgive them for it, but it is very confusing if on such an important issue of extradition, which should be an issue of principle, it takes an atrocity like Enniskillen to change the minds of a Government.
I agree with a great deal of what Senator Murphy said about the issue of a united Ireland. So little is known about what the Government and those within it who portray, urge for and continually pay lip service to a united Ireland, envisage as the sort of united Ireland we are going to get afterwards. It is a sort of Utopian myth, a dishonest Utopian myth, purely for the faithful and for rousing the faithful. The Taoiseach, the Minister, the Cabinet and every single Member of this House know what Senator Murphy said is true, that there is not a hope in hell of a united Ireland taking place in our lifetime or in the lifetime of anybody in this House. That is the reality. If we want to delude a few people who know no better or who have some belief in a romantic myth with rabble rousing speeches, let us go ahead, but it is dishonest; it is unhelpful and it drives the fear of God into the Unionist population in Northern Ireland.
It is probably time that the territorial claim embodied in Articles 2 and 3 was challenged in a serious way by the authorities here. I do not see why we should necessarily have a referendum in the Republic purely on Articles 2 and 3. If we are going to challenge the idea of unity we should challenge it throughout the whole island. It would be far more sensible to have an all-Ireland referendum on unity. If the cost is spelt out, if the type of Ireland is spelt out, if what it would cost people in their pockets is spelt out, that might result, in a very uncomfortable outcome for those who have championed this myth for so long. I urge the Government to consider the possibility of getting together with the authorities in London and holding an all-Ireland poll on unity.
A notable omission — not just under this Government — from those who shout loudest about unity is that they have absolutely no understanding of the Unionist population in Northern Ireland. I hear, and have heard in recent years, very little about the role which Unionists would play in this so-called united Ireland. It is a territorial claim which is made in the Constitution, but the one million Protestant Unionists in the North are ignored because it is impossible to accommodate them. This is where I agree with Senator Murphy. We have been through too many levered red herrings on the issue of a united Ireland. We have too often said that if we gave them divorce or a new Constitution or extradition and if we abolished Articles 2 and 3 maybe that would convince them that they could come in with us in a united Ireland. It does not matter what concessions we give to them, they are not interested in coming into a united Ireland with us on any terms whatsoever. As Senator Murphy so eloquently said, if we were to accept that, and that was a precondition for talks and for negotiations, then progress of some sort could be made, because so long as the threat of a territorial domination from this part of the island is there we are certain to drive the majority in Northern Ireland back into their ghettos and the problem will become worse rather than better.
The best thing this Government can do in relation to the present problem is to interfere with what is going on in Northern Ireland as little as possible, to issue as few public statements as possible, to be as unprovocative as they can be in the circumstances, not to rattle sabres and to mention unity as little as possible. We can possibly use our influence to encourage the Nationalists — because that is the only place that we have got influence — to stretch their hands across to the Unionists to produce an internal solution to the problems there.
I would like to hear from Fianna Fáil once again as to whether they believe that a unitary State is the only possible solution or the best solution. Do they expect us to believe that a unitary State is a runner? They know perfectly well that it is not a runner. I ask them to come clean and tell us what the practical immediate future is. Do they really believe that British withdrawal is a practical alternative at the moment? Do they really believe that talking about a unitary State is anything but pie in the sky? It is not. What I should like to see them doing is simply keep as low a profile as possible to encourage the Nationalists to make the Northern Ireland State work and to condemn and root out from our midst the IRA and any of their propaganda organs and covers.
I am disappointed at the way this debate has started. It is quite obvious that both the proposer and seconder of this motion do not have very much interest in what is happening either in this part of the island or the other part of the island. It is clear they have no belief except in themselves and when they spoke of the SDLP they spoke about talking in "nebulous and sinister terms". They used the words "prattle" and "empty rhetoric" for anybody who has any aspirations to a unity of minds in this country. The suggestions of both people are not suggestions that would find very much popularity either in the North or South. It appears that Senator Murphy thinks that anybody who disagrees with him is either a fool or a knave.
The claim by Senator Ross that we should dump the territorial claim is the kernel of the argument that was raised by both Senator Ross and Senator Murphy. I can assure both of them that this claim will not be dropped by Fianna Fáil, either in or out of Government.
Fianna Fáil stand today, as they have always done, by the principle that we must secure the unity and independence of Ireland as a republic and as true republicans we believe in the achievement of this aim by peaceful means. We cannot divorce ourselves from the territory of people of the northern part of this island nor would we ever wish to.
They do not want anything to do with you.
We, as a party and Government, firmly believe in the values as stated in Articles 2 and 3 of the 1937 Constitution which has served this country and its people well for over 50 years. It is our wish that the sound, enduring institutions of this democratic State should be extended to the part of this country from which we are still politically separated.
We are proud of the Constitution and there is no doubt that it is the foundation for sovereign political independence and a guarantee of our fundamental rights and liberties. That guarantee embraces all the people of Ireland and places a special responsibility on the Government. We have a moral obligation to do whatever we can, using the instruments now at hand, to secure material improvements in the situation of all the people of the North not alone bearing in mind the position of the Nationalist population but bearing in mind also that any improvement in their position will make things better for everybody else.
There is no doubt in my mind or in the mind of the members of my party that violence is counterproductive, brings nothing but misery and that the continuance of violence will no doubt delay the day when all the people in this island can live in peace, harmony and unity. My party have always condemned the use of force for political purposes. We will use every means possible to defeat and bring the perpetrators of violence to justice.
The Forum report sets out our fundamental position on Northern Ireland. This problem can be resolved only within the wider Anglo-Irish framework developed since the 1980 Dublin Castle Summit. The Forum report states that, "a settlement which recognises the legitimate rights of Nationalists and Unionists must transcend the context of Northern Ireland." While we would, of course, welcome agreement between the political parties within Northern Ireland, that will happen only if it includes a wider Irish dimension, and the Anglo-Irish Agreement contains provisions for both. Unionist participation in the political process is an important missing element at present.
Fianna Fáil are the republican party and have always had a pragmatic approach, based on achieving progress by every means available. Even though Senator Ross mentioned that we are a pragmatic party, he suggested that there is something wrong in being pragmatic. I do not see what is wrong with taking a pragmatic approach on any issue. Fianna Fáil were founded in 1926 as a means of getting away from a rigid doctrinaire abstentionist position. In the forties and early sixties Fianna Fáil took strong measures to stop campaigns of violence.
The aim of a united Ireland can only be pursued using political means by a sovereign Government representing the Irish people. If we can establish real equality for Nationalists in the North of Ireland, then much of the rationale for a separate Northern Ireland state would disappear. Re-establishing our own economic strength is the first priority if we are to be in a position to contribute constructively to a long term solution. The Enniskillen bombing has shown the disastrous impact of violence. We would like to see violence cease before there is another such disaster, which experience has shown sooner or later cannot be avoided. The campaign of violence is totally repudiated by the vast majority of the Irish people.
A very high priority must be given to the improvement of the economic and social situation of the people of West Belfast, with a contribution from the International Fund. More progress and fair employment is also required. The administration of justice and the question of the UDR must also be examined. The practice of Irish Governments is to honour and operate agreements entered into by their predecessors. We are not alone in doing that in the case of the present Anglo-Irish Agreement which seeks in every way possible to improve the situation of all the people of Northern Ireland and especially that of members of the Nationalist community.
Progress has been made over the past few years. Last year's marching season was the quietest on record according to the Chairman of the SDLP and that is undoubtedly due in some significant way to the work of the Tánaiste, Deputy Brian Lenihan in the Ministerial conference and through the Belfast secretariat. At this stage I would like to send Deputy Lenihan our best wishes and I hope to see him back in harness again in a very short time.
Senators
Hear, hear.
We have moved fair employment on to a new priority base and this is perhaps the single most important issue of practical concern to Nationalists at present. As a result, we expect the British Government to introduce new and effective fair employment legislation in the next session of Parliament. We would have liked to have seen much more rapid progress in a range of areas, including the rate of accompaniment of the UDR by the RUC, and in regard to relations generally between the security forces and the Nationalist community and in the administration of justice. We have actively made known to the British Government our concern at the inadequate progress in these and other areas and will continue to do so.
There is a need for dialogue between constitutional politicians right across the political spectrum. There is no way the political problems of this island can be permanently resolved without the input of every section of the Irish people, including the Unionist community. The real test for Unionists today is that they enter into the search for stability and real peace on this island. This will not be achieved by hiding behind slogans, outdated rhetoric and unrealistic pre-conditions: the way forward must be through honest and direct dialogue.
I must pay tribute to the board of the International Fund. It is hoped that the fund will be actively used to fund imaginative and substantial cross-Border projects and that it will respond positively to the needs of those areas which have been most affected by the instability of recent years. Approximately one-eighth of the unemployed in Northern Ireland live in West Belfast and the fund must respond creatively and effectively to this challenge.
The Fianna Fáil Party, either in or out of Government, will continue to take initiatives and create structures for the political resolution of all the problems of all of this island. We will not hesitate at any stage to do pragmatically whatever is necessary to achieve the aims for which the Fianna Fáil Party were originally set up namely — to create on this island a unity which would be a unity of mind as well as unity of territory. The Fianna Fáil Party have not, and will not, abandon that principle. The Taoiseach being a pragmatist, will do everything possible to ensure that the aims of the Fianna Fáil Party will be progressed, so that in the not too distant future, we will see unity between every section of society, unity not alone of territory but a unity of purpose, to ensure that everybody on this island will have the opportunity to live in peace and harmony.
I thank the Independent Senators for having chosen this topic today. I regret that the time available, of necessity allows one only to skim the surface of this problem. I, too, am looking for answers to questions similar to those raised by Senators Ross and Murpny who, coming at the problems from very different starting grounds, seem to be in general agreement as to the nature of the questions which are disturbing many people about the Government's attitude to Northern Ireland.
Before coming to those questions, I would like to return to another more immediate aspect of Northern Ireland. This debate today is taking place overshadowed by the apparent confirmation yesterday of what had been suspected for such a very long time, the persistent running of guns on a massive scale from the Government of Libya to the Provisional IRA in this country. The scale of this operation is extremely frightening. The list of weapons include surface to air missiles, mortars, high velocity rifles and so forth. Already, we have been told and apparently it is confirmed, that four shiploads of these armaments have come through. What we saw on the Eksund is merely the tip of the iceberg. What is truly frightening is the claim which has been made persistently and with authority that these armaments are here.
I am sorry we did not have the opportunity today to have the Minister for Justice here to tell us with authority what the actual situation is. If that situation is, as we are now being told, and as Garda sources confirmed today, as reported in The Irish Press, then some very serious questions need to be answered very quickly.
First, there is the question as to how all of this happened. How did these armaments get through? Four boatloads got through and one boat was caught, not by our people but by the French authorities. Are we going to see an immediate review of security methods and procedures as is so badly needed? Can we be told the result of the nationwide search, a very justified search it was? Has it been called off or will there be a follow-up? If these arms are here no effort should be spared in tracking them down. There should not be financial cutbacks and cutbacks on overtime, and a lack of effort should not hinder this exercise in national survival. There is a need immediately to allay the public disquiet which follows from this apparent confirmation yesterday of rumours which had been persistent.
The second question raised by this is a question from which this Government persistently shy away. That is the question of our relationship with Libya. There was a full debate in Fine Gael time on this before Christmas. The Government on that occasion, and the Government's spokespersons, were apologetic and defensive. Yet the evidence is clear, and has been clear for a very long time, that Libya has been interfering on an unprecedented extraordinary scale in the internal affairs of this country, breaching our sovereignty in the most blatant way imaginable. It is doing this, by providing the material of war, material which gives the possibility of death and destruction on a massive and hitherto unimaginable scale. We are it appears, a pawn in Ghadaffi's ongoing struggle with Britain, a pawn which is allowing the enemies of the Irish poeple, the Provisional IRA, to be armed in a way which has never happened before. The evidence that this is happening is clear. The evidence is that the enemies of the Irish people are being armed by another sovereign state to carry out warfare against the people of this island, the very people whom all parties claim to want to see united together in some form of political and fraternal union. How much more evidence do we need before our Government take action on this matter? It was embarrassing to sit through the debate here before Christmas when the Government refused to make clear their attitude to Libya in explicit terms. Mealy mouthed, unworthy excuses were trotted out by people who should and did know better, as they made their lame excuses here that evening.
I am asking now that we do either one of two things, but let us not have this ambiguity, this so called pragmatism which seems to dominate all Government thinking at present. Either we, as all groups, except Fianna Fáil, called for in this House before Christmas, break off diplomatic relations immediately with Libya as an indication of the revulsion and the disgust of the majority of people in this country over that country's continuing interference or else, if we have a special relationship with Libya, which some people seem to think we have, or if there is some sort of friendship between the Leaders of the two countries, then let our Government mount a diplomatic onslaught, straight away, aimed at persuading Colonel Gadaffi from his murderous ways as far as this country is concerned, and aimed at reversing the policy of that Government towards this country. For a sovereign proud independent State, as we claim to be, it is intolerable that there is this continuing persistent murderous interference in the internal affairs of both parts of this island.
The third consequence of what is happening, however, is the most frightening of all. If these arms are here and if they are not apprehended, the whole scale of our political problem changes. We will then be in a situation of almost total warfare in at least one part of this island but possibly over the island as a whole. We will be in a situation where internment may be the least draconian of the options open to the Governments North and South. We will be in a situation where no type of political dialogue or progress of any sort is possible. That is the enormity of the threat which now faces the authorities and the people in both parts of this country. In speaking as I do, I am not being alarmist. I am voicing the very real fears of a large number of people who are asking for Government clarification on this matter.
On Government policy, over the past year or so since the Government took office, in the short time available to me I would like to come back to some of the points which were made by the first two speakers in this debate. As things have operated on a day to day basis, this Government have done very little that is wrong, as far as the carrying out of policy in relation to Northern Ireland is concerned. The problem with this Government is that their whole position lacks any bedrock of credibility or any sense that the Government actually believe in the principle underlying the carrying out of the present policy. This is a serious flaw. It is evident to the most hardline groups on both sides in Northern Ireland who do not see the same level of commitment to the present policies that was there in the time of Dr. Garret FitzGerald and Dick Spring during the last administration. The Leader of the House talked with a certain amount of pride about Fianna Fáil's pragmatic approach. That is exactly what is wrong. Because, for pragmatic, one can write "flexible" or "ambiguous." In Fianna Fáil speech what pragmatic means is that they have the capacity to oppose in Opposition, policies which they will then take up and seek to apply in Government. Over the last few years, Fianna Fáil took a number of very definite stands on Northern Ireland. They attempted to hijack the majority report of the New Ireland Forum. They opposed, and opposed vehemently, the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Fianna Fáil had no dialogue over the last number of years before they came to power with the mainstream political parties in Northern Ireland. They had ceased to speak to the Alliance Party, they had ceased to speak to all but one section of the SDLP, they were not speaking to the Unionists. They was no dialogue whatsoever during all that time.
Over the past two, three or four years it has been clear that whatever conviction there was in Fianna Fáil on Northern Ireland was an adherence to the old ways, to what others of us would see, and see with sincerity, as being the old shilboleths, the old clichés, the old slogans, which served well in the past but which never had to be put to the test of analysis, which never had to be subjected to ways and means, which never reached forward to ask the question, "What do you mean by Irish Unity? How do you, in reality, accommodate the new minority groups? How do you guarantee you can safeguard rights? How do you spell all of this out?"
These hard questions, such as even the costing of Irish unity, were all skipped away from and we were told blithely that all would be well on the day, at this great All-Ireland Constitutional Conference where all sides would sit down. At that stage, Fianna Fáil would put everything on the table. That was, I am afraid, a cop-out. It was a substitute for a hard thought out policy and it gave that party the luxury and the option of using Northern Ireland as a pawn in the domestic politics of this State, where every single initiative over the past four years was fought and opposed tooth and nail.
Now we find Fianna Fáil, in Government, seeking to put into effect the very policies they so vehemently opposed. In Government, Fianna Fáil have worked the Anglo-Irish Agreement, though with none of the passion or the commitment of Peter Barry, Garret FitzGerald, Alan Dukes and Dick Spring. They have worked it, not out of conviction but simply because there was no alternative, because public opinion would be outraged if the Anglo-Irish Agreement were interfered with or an attempt made to scrap it. They had to work it because their parliamentary support would collapse. It is one issue which would unite all of the Opposition groups in the other House if there was any attempt made to collapse the Anglo-Irish Agreement but it has been worked without generosity or without conviction.
There is a very strong feeling among many people who do not want Northern Ireland to be an issue of party politics in either Houses in this State, who want as far as possible to get as wide a degree of consensus as to what needs to be done in Northern Ireland as possible, that it is no longer a matter of importance. There is a strong feeling both in this House and outside it that once again — and indeed much was tacitly admitted by the Leader of the Government in this statement — that the Northern Ireland question has once again been put on the back burner, that it is no longer a matter of immediacy or importance, that containment, pragmatism or whatever, is the name of the game. If that is so, then I believe that this Government are being not just cynical — that we could live with — but they are losing a great opportunity to make progress.
I believe that, as never before, the vast majority of people in this country are sick and tired of what they see as prating and as slogans and as shaping up. The vast majority of people would support a policy which put aside gradiose goals, which put aside posturing and had as a subjective anything which would work towards making possible genuine dialogue among the major political groups in Northern Ireland and the establishment of any set of institutions within Northern Ireland which would be acceptable to the people there, which would bring about a genuine polity in that part of this island.
Six or seven years ago, for politicians from mainstream parties to say that and to have that as a major objective, perhaps the major objective over the next decade or two decades, would perhaps be tantamount to heresy. Today, the vast majority of people would be happy if that were the objective which could be attained. What I am saying is that public opinion is almost certainly way ahead of the official Fianna Fáil line. Indeed, there are many Fianna Fáil who will say in private that the official line is way behind them.
People here do not want to be an impediment to a solution in Northern Ireland, an impediment either by holding out and fuelling expectations among Northern Nationalists which we cannot be able to deliver on, nor do we want to be an impediment through frightening Unionists about things in which we only half believe, things which we cannot realise and things which we know to be so.
I conclude by saying that the questions asked by the first two speakers in this debate are the questions to which I want answers. I want answers to them in good faith but, most of all, I would appeal to the Government to work the Anglo-Irish Agreement in the spirit in which that agreement was conceived. If they do, they will have the backing of the vast majority of people in this country. I ask them to listen to the ordinary people of Northern Ireland, not to be influenced by what the traditional supporters of their own party may well want from a part of Ireland that probably they have never been to and know only vaguely, but listen to what the people on all sides in Northern Ireland are saying. What the ordinary people are saying is that they want political institutions within Northern Ireland, institutions which will work. If we got that far, then I am quite certain that better relations with the South, and eventually some form of unity, will come about. That sort of unity is the only unity which is worth having on this island.
I do not have much to say on this subject, but I have not heard anything this afternoon that will convince me that the Government do not have a commitment at this moment to the progressing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. We heard of lack of passion from one speaker and yet we were advised by another to keep a low profile, in fact, to say nothing. We would appear to have a further suggestion, that we should ignore the subject and it will go away altogether. Of course, that is not the style of this party and it never has been. That anybody would suggest in this House from any side that we should drop the legitimate aspiration of the majority of the people of this island that is the cornerstone of our Constitution absolutely astounds me. Nothing has happened and nothing has convinced me in this debate this afternoon that such should be the case.
With analysis of the current situation in the North of Ireland, we have to ask ourselves, did the present crisis, the crisis of the last 18 or 19 years, evolve because of what has been suggested here today is an unsustainable territorial claim over the Six Counties of this country? I suggest it did not. It came about because of very basic deprivation of human rights, the type of deprivation we can see on our television screens every night on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip and we are appalled that the Palestinian people are being deprived of fundamental human rights. These are the very same type of acts that we saw played out on our screens in connection with this country in 1969 and 1970. It was not a debate on the streets about a grandiose, mystical, territorial claim that we have over the Six Counties. It was a cry from the heart of a deprived people for very basic, fundamental human rights. The majority of the people of this country subscribe to a concept that some time in the future, let it be two centuries away, the people of this country, legitimately aspire to unifying this whole island by peaceful means.
This present crisis did not spring, as I said, from that claim, but had a very very different reason altogether. We saw that, not a thousand years ago people in that part of this country did not even have a vote, where they could not even have a human rights march without being harassed by the forces of the State, not just by rednecks but by people in uniform representing the Government of the North of Ireland, not even the British Government but the police force of the North of Ireland. These are the kind of things the people of the North of Ireland, of Ulster, rose up against in 1969. It was not to reunify this country but it was because, as I have said at the outset, the people could look with some degree of confidence to us. This party particularly but the other major parties, too, subscribe to the concept of the ultimate unity of this island. As a party we did not walk away from the situation in 1969-70 and neither will we walk away from the situation that has subsequently evolved. We have to thank the last Government for the trojan efforts they made in advancing the debate.
Maybe there were people in my party and organisation who did not agree with every line and every scintilla of what was agreed but prior to the last election the Leader of our party made his position quite clear and the election was fought on that basis. I am a little disappointed to hear that people are now suggesting that we do not have a commitment in this regard. I did not hear one example this afternoon of a lack of commitment to the progression of that agreement. Maybe the emphasis is changed in some areas but I still fail to see an example of where any opportunity has been lost in our efforts to advance that legitimate forum of debate that has now been established. I would not like to think that the debate was the preserve or the monopoly of Fine Gael and Labour because the debate that took place prior to Sunningdale took place by virtue of overtures from our party and was progressed by the Coalition Government who came into office in 1973. Let us not suggest for a moment that there was no Fianna Fáil input into the advancement of legitimate debate between the major partners in this dispute. Fianna Fáil most definitely had a legitimate input but, as I have said, the emphasis might have been somewhat different.
We cannot lose sight of the fact that many people still subscribe to what has been referred to here today as very fundamental and bedrock republicanism. Tragically a lot of this has become quite misguided but we cannot ignore it. It is not going to go away. I am rather disappointed that people appear by innuendo to suggest, for example, that John Hume should not have spoken to Gerry Adams. I would be much more disconcerted if he was not prepared to talk to him. Surely we have reached the ultimate impasse if dialogue is denied between any of the protagonists in this debate. I congratulate John Hume on taking the initiative. It cannot have been easy for the SDLP given the kind of harassment they have been subjected to at election time and so on by Sinn Féin. The facts are that they are still prepared to talk and at least when you talk there is hope.
On behalf of this side of the House I am suggesting quite clearly that if people can produce evidence to the effect that the Government lack commitment to the pursuing of legitimate debate between the main parties in this dispute, they should do so. I agree with Senator Ross's suggestion that we should have an all-Ireland debate and an all-Ireland referendum on whether the majority of people still subscribe to a united Ireland. I have no doubt that if such a referendum was held the result would be a most emphatic and very sizeable yes. If the day ever comes when people in this or the other House, propagate that kind of mentality — I will not go so for as to say Quisling mentality — the mentality that we should opt out, throw away the keys and say that the situation as it is in this country at present will remain for ever, I certainly will never subscribe to that point of view. It is an anti-Irish disposition and I could not agree with it. It is not the position of this party. We will continue to aspire to a united Ireland. Sixty years is a very short time in history as Professor Murphy more than anybody should know. We should never deny the people the ultimate right to aspire to a united Ireland.
I wish to establish if this debate will adjourn at 5 p.m.
Yes, you will be in possession when the debate resumes.
The debate is very much retrospective. We are having an inquest as to what has been happening during a period in history and there is a tendency to shy away from the harsh realities of dealing with a problem. As well as every speaker in this House, I will be looking at this matter very subjectively. No matter how much we appear to take the objective view of the problem we are all too close to it to be in any sense objective. I am sick and tired of listening to people who think they are experts on the North of Ireland. I have yet to find such an expert. Not only is there none in the South but neither is there any in the North. The structure of society in both parts of this country does not allow for the sort of pluralist or broad view that is needed and that is where the problem begins. Every speaker from the North or the South comes from some sort of ghetto-type background and therefore they look with a very blinded or blinkered view at where the problems are and where they might be resolved. It is a cant at this stage that the strength of any democracy can be judged or measured by the way in which it treats its minorities.
I intend to spend the first five minutes of my time looking at how we came to be where we are today. In dealing with this question of the despicable treatment of the minority in the North, we must take a close look at the despicable treatment of the minority groups on this side of the Border. The minority in the North have suffered as have minority groups in the South but for different reasons. It is time we had a close harsh look at that. When I began to put my thoughts together on this issue. I wrote on top of the page: "Let us keep party politics out of this." But I must take up one point that the Leader of the House made in his statement. He said without a quiver: "as true republicans..." No word has been devalued or has deteriorated to the same level in the last short period of our history as the word "republican". It is time people began to understand that there is a major difference between being Nationalist and being republican. There is nothing republican about denying rights to minority religions or supporting changes in our Constitution or legislation as has happened on two major occasions in the last six years which caused offence to minority groups and which deny them rights, as they would see them, that they might have in other groups, in other areas, in other states and under other jurisdictions.
I disagree with my colleague, Senator Murphy, in saying the he would not accept that we should have an aspiration towards a united Ireland. It is quite legitimate and in order to have that aspiration. It is a fair and a just objective provided it is approached in a fair, just and honest way and there lies the nature of the problem. We have refused to do that. We talk securely from Dublin about those in the North who need protection but we have shown very little evidence that we are prepared to accommodate the cultural differences, the differences of belief, the differences in religion and the differences in political aspirations in the North of Ireland. In other words, we have not grasped the fact that the Presbyterian from Ballymena is as much an Irish person as is the Catholic from west Cork or from anywhere else. This has not been accepted and the easiest way to see that is to watch the reaction from a group of Southern Irish people to an atrocity in the North of Ireland. There is an amazing difference, depending on who it is has suffered at that particular point. I would like to consider why it is that somebody who is baptised in a different church has therefore a different value from people from another church. It is totally unacceptable. I think it is also unacceptable that we should allow our legislative process and our constitutional responsibilities to deteriorate into the panic politics we have seen over the years. We have seen it recently, I have given my views on it before. In the wake of Enniskillen we rushed through the Extradition Act. In the wake of Birmingham on the far side of the water we rushed through the prevention of Terrorism Act and in the wake of the Dublin bombings, ten years earlier, we rushed through the Offences Against the State or the Criminal Justice Act, I forget which. They were all bad pieces of legisaltion put through in a rushed, ill-considered way, in a reactionary manner. That has been the nature of our problem here. We are attempting to find fire brigade type solutions to a problem that has simmered and developed over a long period and it can only be grappled with by taking a true republican aspiration for a pluralist State where there will be, above all else, tolerance and acceptance.
There are only two issues in society whether it be Northern Ireland, Southern Ireland, North America or South America and they are peace and poverty. I intend next week to develop those two particular areas in the light of finding a solution where we do not differ from people by virtue of which side of a partition they happen to be born on, in which church they happen to be baptised in, in which hospital they happen to be born, in which housing estate they happen to live, in which schools they happen to go to or in which graveyards they happen to be buried. The discrimination and the sort of womb-to-the-tomb discrimination and differences that are carefully fostered by interest groups in our society have to be addressed by us.
Debate adjourned.
With the Minister here we have the Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs. I would like as Cathaoirleach, and I am sure all my colleagues would like, to convey to Deputy Brian Lenihan all our good wishes for a speedy recovery.
That is one issue where there is total agreement among all sides of the House.
When is it proposed to sit again?
It is proposed to sit again on Thursday, 28 January 1988, at 12 noon.