asked the Taoiseach if he has any statement to make on the guarantee given by Mr. Chuter Ede, British Home Secretary, to the Prime Minister of the Six Counties of closer co-operation and ties between the Government of Great Britain and that of the Six Counties at a recent dinner of the London-Ulster Association.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Inter-Government Relations.
The only information I have about the statement made by Mr. Chuter Ede on the occasion to which the Deputy refers is derived from newspaper reports, which do not confirm the suggestion that the statement contained a guarantee to the Prime Minister of the Six Counties. So far as the statement bore upon Partition, I can only repeat what I have, in effect, said so often before: that an overwhelming majority of the Irish people are justly determined to secure the reunification of the national territory and that that determination, supported, as it is, by informed opinion throughout the world, must eventually prevail.
Can the statement which has just been made by the Taoiseach be considered as a guarantee to the nationalists of the Six Counties in the same light as Mr. Chuter Ede's statement was a guarantee to Sir Basil Brooke?
I should think it would have a much better effect for the nationalists in the Six Counties than the statement to which the Deputy refers as having been made by Mr. Chuter Ede because he gave no such guarantee, as far as I can gather from the newspapers.
Can we take this as a guarantee by the Taoiseach, if Mr. Chuter Ede did not give a guarantee?
The statement speaks for itself and anybody can put any label he likes on it.
I am sure it is a guarantee.