Meath Peace Group Talks
No. 58 – “Who Can We Trust?”
Monday 14th November 2005
St Columban’s College, Dalgan Park, Navan
Speakers:
Dr Hazlett Lynch
Raymond Finlay
Gamble Moore
Billy Harpur
(Members of West Tyrone Voice Victims’ Group)
Chaired by Roy Garland (Irish News columnist, and Co-chair, Guild of Uriel)
Contents:
Welcome and introductions: John Clancy
Opening words: Roy Garland
Speakers’ presentations
Questions and comments
Closing words: Roy Garland and Julitta Clancy
Appendix: West Tyrone Voice – information
WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS
John Clancy (Meath Peace Group): “Good evening and thank you all for coming. Just to introduce our guest chair tonight: Roy Garland has never spared himself in working for understanding between the diverse political cultures in Northern Ireland, but also our own diverse political culture down here, working to foster understanding and to reach across over the last number of years. I was saying to Roy tonight, that all he needs to do is to tell the car to go south and it will know exactly where to go! The amount of times Marion and Roy have come south – for meetings, discussions, seminars – is just incredible. Roy is one of those people whose efforts have largely been unrecognised to date, particularly in this State. But the great thing about Roy, that lack of recognition actually does not in any way make him downhearted, because he is a man with a mission and a vision and he has been a pleasure and an inspiration over the years to know, a very special person in terms of helping to shape new directions on this island….
1916 commemorations: “A couple of weekends ago, we were with Roy and the Guild of Uriel and others in Enniskillen and Rossnowlagh [Co. Donegal] and in the course of our discussions we got to talking about 1916 (in the light of the Government’s decision to re-introduce the Easter military parade in Dublin)…. It was an amazing year in terms of the island of Ireland – apart from the Easter Rising, over 10,000 Irishmen lost their lives in the Great War in that year alone. …. And the question arose – will we be celebrating or commemorating? This is something we need to think about… The Meath Peace Group hopes to host a discussion in the Spring of 2006 on this theme – if any of you have ideas or suggestions on this, please get in touch with one of the committee.
“Now, I will hand over to Roy to chair this evening’s discussion….”
Chair: Roy Garland
“Thank you very much, John…. I feel in a sense very humbled to be chairing this meeting tonight, because I know there is a wealth of experience here and a wealth – maybe wealth is the wrong word – of hurt and pain, and some of the people I am sitting with have been through some horrific experiences which even we in Belfast don’t know much about, coming from West Tyrone and facing daily threats, worrying about your own security, your family. Sometimes the worst thing is what’s happening to your family when you are out there looking after your community …. But the family is left at home and the wife is there and they have to fend in a way that the men out there don’t have to.
“I know some of the people out there have gone through some horrific experiences. I actually met Hazlett [Lynch] and Leslie – the brother of one of tonight’s speakers – about 12, 15 years ago down the country, and Leslie was very good about problems with your knee and that sort of thing. We got to know each other and eventually Hazlett came down and it has been a really terrific experience getting to know some of these men and hearing some of their stories and they are all going to say a bit about their experiences. …
“Hazlett is going to introduce the topic of victimhood – he is the leader of the West Tyrone Voice which he will tell you about himself. ”
1. Dr. Hazlett Lynch (West Tyrone Voice)
“…. I would like to thank Julitta and the Meath Peace Group for their very kind and warm invitation to address the meeting tonight and also for the opportunity to bring some of my very close friends with me to this particular meeting.
West Tyrone Voice: “We are all members of the West Tyrone Voice Victims’ group. The West Tyrone Victims’ group is the largest victims’ group, not only in Northern Ireland, not only in the British Isles, but probably in Western Europe. We have a beneficiary base of somewhere like 2,300 as direct and indirect beneficiaries of the services that we offer and our work is located not far from the border with the Irish Republic. There have been about 231 people murdered from our group area, which covers something like 1500 square miles. So it is a fairly big area, probably most of the west of the Bann – the River Bann divides Northern Ireland diagonally. We have about 600 members in the group. We are currently down to four members of staff. We had seven at one time, but, like other organisations that are dependent totally on funding, when the powers-that-be decide that funding is no longer to be allocated then sadly people have to go and it doesn’t seem to matter too much whether the work we are trying to do is of benefit, contributing to a better Northern Ireland for people or anything like that. They just decide there is no funding, hard cheese, on your bike, that’s basically it.
Personal background: “My own brother was murdered back in 1977 by the Provisional IRA, 22 years of age. He was 9 months in the police, he was a police officer, the youngest of my brothers. I have one other younger brother and a younger sister.
Good Friday/Belfast Agreement has ‘elevated the guilty’: “West Tyrone Voice was founded in 1999, just after the Belfast Agreement – or the Good Friday Agreement, whatever name you give to it. Maybe the Good Friday Agreement is a good name for it, because if you remember back to the very first Good Friday it was the guilty who was released, and it was the innocent who died. …. That is exactly what the Agreement has done in Northern Ireland. It has elevated the guilty and it has sought to demonise, to ostracize, to marginalise and to alienate the people who suffered horrendously at the hands of the people who were promoted and who now prance around the world stage masquerading as peacemakers, and that doesn’t bring any joy to any of our hearts up here at the table.
Trust a ‘vitally important’ issue: “The whole area of trust is something that is problematic. Trust is a problematic issue in any case and certainly within the context of Northern Ireland. And we could think of Israel, we could think of South Africa, we could think of the Balkans where trust is a vitally important issue and yet not something that can be resolved. During the past 80+ years of Northern Ireland’s very colourful history, while there have been wrongs on both sides of the community, for any one section of that community to resort to a vociferous, bloody, diabolical campaign of terrorism, to right what was essentially a political wrong, beggars belief. Yet that is what we have been putting up with for the last 36 years.
IRA campaign ‘not over’: “It is not over yet and I think people would be very, very foolish if they believed that the IRA’s campaign was over. It isn’t over … Adams said on a chat show – was it this week or towards the end of last week? – that “the war is over.” The problem I have with that is I don’t believe the guy …. …and I think of a group of dog owners who are having a dinner, conference, in a hotel in Belfast when …. PIRA torched the place. Yet, what does he tell the world? He was never in the IRA. Do you believe that? We certainly don’t believe that!” [Editor’s note: Hazlett Lynch referred us to Richard English’s book Armed Struggle (Pan: London, 2004), pp.105 and 110]
“Yet he is the president [of Sinn Féin], mirroring the President of this country. It is not without significance that they use the same terminology to describe the leader of that terrorist organisation.
“They still claim that Sinn Féin is the legitimate government of Ireland and the IRA is the legitimate army of Ireland. They have never rescinded that, at least not to my knowledge, and that army has been governed, controlled, given its orders, by the army council which includes the same Mr. Adams. Michael McDowell [Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform] told us the last time we were down here that the information they had was that those guys are still in the IRA’s army council [Editor’s note: for text of Minister’s speech see report of Meath Peace Group public talk No. 57, 20 June 2005, available on the website].
“McGuinness … he is a ‘peacemaker’ as well, by the way, if you missed that bit. He is a ‘man of peace.’ He was the Minister of Education in Northern Ireland who didn’t know what the word “decommissioning” meant, which I thought was quite interesting. These guys have denied that they were involved in the IRA and yet they think that we are stupid enough to believe their lies. We don’t believe their lies. So when they say ‘the war is over’ or when they say they have decommissioned all of their armaments, all their weapons, I certainly don’t believe them. These other men with me can speak for themselves. I don’t believe them. Their campaign has taken a turn, it has changed. It has moved from barefacedly murdering people to poisoning them with drugs. But they are still killing people. They are still destroying lives. They are still exiling people. They are still holding their own communities under their control. That is still happening. The poor decent Catholic/nationalist people of Northern Ireland are still under the clutches of these guys, these terrorists who masquerade as politicians. I think that is probably the best way of putting it.”
Personal experiences: “In our group at the moment, forty people are still under death threats by the paramilitaries. These two men here live within one mile of the border, this other man lives within five miles of the border. I was brought up within, as the crow flies, five miles of the border. My primary education was close to where I lived. My secondary and technical education for five years was right on the border, Strabane/Castlederg. My further technical education was in Londonderry, right on the border, and then I escaped to Leeds for a few years and that was a relief in those days. But even there I always had to tune in to what was happening back home, because my father and mother were at home, my two brothers and sister were at home, my grandparents were at home. So you couldn’t get away from it, even when you were over in England.
Building trust and confidence: “Within our particular sector – the victims’ sector – we have been given funding by the UK Government and by the European Union with the express purpose of trying to build trust and confidence within our people. Given the fact that where we live and work, people from our community are less than 32% of the population, we are a minority group, a minority population within a majority Catholic/nationalist community.
Catholic/nationalist community and votes for Sinn Féin
“The really sad thing about the Catholic/nationalist community amongst whom we live and work is – and I know this will be challenged, I think there is somebody here who will challenge this point – that the vast majority of people from the Catholic and nationalist community have voted for Sinn Féin which, in my book, is a vote for violence, terrorism, oppressive campaigning and other forms of violence. They vote for Sinn Féin knowing right well what they are, they vote for them knowing right well what they have done over the last 80 years, 85 years. They know the horrendous pain and suffering that that terrorist party has inflicted upon my community in West Tyrone and, knowing all that, they still say ‘these are good guys, these are the people who have got the best chance of getting us a united Ireland, because we will shoot the Prods and we will bomb the Prods, and we will intimidate the Prods. We will break them so that they will have to give in to a United Ireland’.”
“And the Catholic/nationalist community in West Tyrone is saying ‘these are good guys, they are going the way we want to go’. So they put their X on the ballot paper for these murderous thugs.
Confidence-building difficulties: “In our work, we are supposed to build confidence in people. How can you build confidence in people when 40 of their fellow members of our organisation, at least 40 are still under death threat from Gerry’s boys? You tell me how I am supposed to do that. You tell me how I am supposed to get our people in a very real sense to be able to come out of their house, get into their car without checking under their car, without checking under the wheel arches, without checking under the floor of the car?
“If you can tell me how I can increase confidence in our people in that area, in that situation, then I want to know because it has beaten me for the last 6 or 7 years that I have been working at this. I don’t know how to do it and I suppose as the leader of the group in some ways, I have taken considerable risks with our people to try to build bridges, to try to promote peace, to try to promote reconciliation North and South and cross-community. I have been doing that since just after we started. And a good number of our people will now come with me to things like this and meet with people like you and we are delighted to have links with the Meath Peace Group and with the Guild of Uriel, Roy’s group – delighted to have relationships with the folks here.
Funding difficulties: “And even though we have worked hard and tried hard, at times it has cost us in the work we have been trying to do. Because our work and the thrust of our work does not fit into the neat little pigeon holes that government and the European Programme has arbitrarily decided upon ……I received a letter in the office today, saying we have been turned down for funding from the Community Relations Council. So I ask myself: is there any point in me or my group even being involved in this type of work? Because unless you fit the criteria of ‘faceless men in grey suits’ who have decided upon this somewhere, we are not going to be able to get the where-withall to do that work. Over the last number of years, we felt we couldn’t trust the system, certainly within the funding end of things, because up to then we had been fairly successful in securing funding for the work that we are doing, even though most of it would have had a training emphasis. I am now starting to think: is my trust in the funding organisations misplaced?
“What is the point of putting myself through all the turmoil of application after application and interview after interview if at the end of the day, the only work that will be funded by the funding bodies is the work that dovetails exactly into their predetermined agenda? That is a challenge we have to face, but certainly it has challenged our trust in the whole funding system.”
Disparities in funding: “Maybe I shouldn’t have been so trusting of the funding system. I’ll tell you why I say that. Our office is in Newtownstewart – about 10 miles south of Strabane, 10 miles north of Omagh, just bang in the middle of those two principal towns. We reckon there are somewhere around 18-20 republican ex-prisoners in and around the Strabane area. They have secured almost half a million pounds to run their programmes with those 18-20 prisoners or ex-prisoners, and let’s use a multiplier of 4 for the sake of fairness – they are working with about 80 people to secure half a million pound plus about another £250,000 that came after that for 80 people. We are working with 2, 300 people and we get nowhere near that. And I ask you the question, ‘why is that being done?”
“I think the Government knows that we are no threat. I suppose it is only fair that I should disclose at this point that we came here tonight with arms with us – there they are: we have got 8 arms with us [points to his arm]. So we are no threat to the Government. We are no threat to their plans and their schemes and their regimes. But do you see the fellows in Strabane – well I wish the only arms they had were like these, because they are still armed to the teeth. The main terrorist organisation operating in Strabane is not the IRA who told us that they have decommissioned all their weapons. It is the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). They are not on ceasefire. They have never been involved in any kind of ‘peace process’ so called. They have never been involved in any kind of negotiations to try and bring about some kind of settlement within Northern Ireland, nothing like that. But they are a threat to the government and if you want to be able to pursue your policies, what you have to do is to keep the greatest threat on side with you, so you give them half a million and we get a fraction of that.”
Terminology – ‘survivors’/’victims’: “Even talking like this I suppose I am in the danger of depressing not only my own friends here but you folks as well. We are a victims’ group. The four of us are victims, we are working with victims. One of the very clever things – and it is clever, I take my hat off to the people who have thought this up – is: ‘Victim’ – ‘you don’t want to use that word because the word ‘victim’ is very disempowering. It takes the fight out of people. You are far better to call yourself a ‘survivor’ because then you could fight them and you will take on things and you will do things. You will achieve things, you will conquer, you’ll overcome.’ I don’t agree with that.
“When we were formed we didn’t have a lot of confidence but we had enough confidence and common sense to see that there is a need out there and a group of us banded together in order to form this organisation. We had very little support, nobody knew about us. Nobody knew what we were doing, what we wanted to do, so in a very real sense we were disempowered people. But I have come to this conclusion that the groups in Northern Ireland who prefer to call themselves ‘survivors’ groups are really to be pitied and I feel sorry for them because they are the groups – despite their name ‘survivors’, despite the description that they use to tell people who they are ‘well we’re survivors, we don’t like the term victim’ – they are the very people who are not prepared to stand up and tell the powers-that-be what it’s like. They just accept all the rubbish that the Government throws at them. They are groups that are really funding-driven. So they have been disempowered. They are to be pitied and they call themselves ‘survivors.’
“We call ourselves ‘victims’ and one thing that will never be able to be said about our group is that we are disempowered, because we have taken our people to the highest levels.
“We have met with Government and Cabinet ministers. We have told them what our experience has been. We have told them our needs. We have asked for their help, not gone ‘cap in hand’. We have presented them with the situation. ‘This situation in Northern Ireland has ultimately your fingerprints on it. You are responsible for looking after the people who have suffered and whose loved ones have paid the ultimate sacrifice for freedom, for decency, for law and order, for democracy in our country.’
“We have gone to them and we have told them that, we have gone to London and we have told them that. We have spoken to ministers from Dublin, we have told them that. We have taken our people to Brussels and we have told them the same things.
Are we disempowered? We call ourselves ‘victims’. We are ‘victims’ but there is more ‘true grit’ within the views of the people I work with than the people who call themselves the politically correct term ‘survivors.’
“There haven’t been too many people who have come and have said to us: ‘Look, what can we do for you?’ Oh yes, you get the Government ministers saying: ‘What are your needs? We want to know what your needs are. Tell us what you want us to do for you.’ Our experience has been, the Government has already made up its mind what it is going to do and – ‘stuff you, but we will put on this nice show’.
Cosmetic exercise: “There has got to be this cosmetic exercise gone through. Tony [Blair] is into these focus groups. He has invented focus groups and we are consultation-weary in our organisation! Consultation files are hardly opened. That is not a good policy because sometimes you get a chance to say things that have to be said to people who maybe want to hear and because you filed them in file 13, they don’t get the chance to hear it. He has asked through his ministers time and time again, “what are your needs?” We have told them what our needs are and they haven’t paid one blind bit of notice to what we have said to them. Then we ask ourselves the question: ‘how do we trust a lying prime minister? How do you do that?’
Hypocrisy: “Some of the most notorious scoundrels in Western Europe were ministers in our Executive. You should be glad that poor aul’ Bertie has more sense than that. He says: ‘Oh we don’t want these boys near us. There is no way I am having those boys in my government. I would rather be in opposition than have those gangsters in government here in the Republic.’ Fair play to the man, but he needs to ‘wake up and smell the coffee,’ because he is speaking with a ‘forked tongue.’ He is hypocritical to an unbelievable degree, because it is good enough for us. Anything will do the people up in the ‘black north’. I am sure you have heard that phrase. We’re the people from the ‘black north’. We’re not fully human beings, no we’re just people from the ‘black north’, Prods from the ‘black north’. We don’t count for anything. Anything will do them and that’s the message Bertie is putting out to us. And we wonder sometimes, how do we come to trust the Prime Minister of our nearest international neighbour?”
Northern Ireland a ‘foreign’ country: “And I am glad to be speaking at this conference, I suppose as an ‘international speaker,’ because I am in a different country. I take off my hat to your Government, that the guy from your Government who looks after Northern Ireland is known as the ‘Foreign Minister’. So at least the Government knows that Northern Ireland is a ‘foreign’ country and sends the Foreign Minister to deal with us. Long may that continue!
Building trust in context of ‘nazi’ remarks: “Just one or two other things, then I am going to ask my friends here to say a word or two. How are we to trust the second largest ethnic cultural religious group in Northern Ireland? When I say this I am not anti-Catholic, because we have a growing number of people from the Catholic community who are active members of our group and they are gems. They are really, really fine people. They have been to England with us, they have gone to other places with us. We have done things together. Good people. But I am left wondering: if a senior nationalist figure thinks of me as a ‘nazi’ – I’m speaking about your President – and if a senior churchman, Mr. Alec Reid, thinks of me, my people. as ‘nazi’, and if the main – you’ll shoot me Roy when I say this – if the main nationalist newspaper in Northern Ireland, for which Roy writes an article every Monday, describes me and my people as ‘nazis’ – that is offensive. I was speaking to a Jewish friend of mine just last Thursday in Belfast and she was appalled at that language from Reid. If these representatives of Catholic nationalism view the Protestant people as nazis, how are we ever to come to the point where we can trust them?
“If that is said once, you could say ‘right, it is a Freudian slip or something like that. Give it a fancy name’. If it happens twice, you could say ‘well it is coincidence’. When it happens three times, then you start to wonder if that is how my Catholic neighbours and friends view me, that makes it difficult for me to trust and if you good people – probably most of you are from the Catholic community – if you can give me help, and I am asking for your help, if you can give me help to be able to trust your community, I want it. I want it, because it almost seems that, contrary to what Mary McAleese alleged against our people, it almost seems that people from her community have been taught that the Prods are nazis and they have drunk that in with their mother’s milk. It seems that way. If that isn’t the case, I’d be delighted to hear that. Please assure me that it isn’t, but that is how the people from my community actually see it. … Thank you.”
Roy Garland: “Well, thank you, Hazlett. I am sure you have a lot of questions to ask, if you hold them all till the end and now I will ask Raymond to speak…”
2. Raymond Finlay (Chair of West Tyrone Voice)
“I am not used to speaking. Although I am retired now, in my job I controlled a pile of men, but that was different. In that respect, I would be talking electrical work and there was no problem there. But this is more heart talk and I do find it very hard to talk at times.
Revenge the easy option: “…. I have lost five relatives: a brother, a nephew and three cousins and many, many a friend. How did I cope with that? I am a Christian and that possibly, I do assure you, stopped me taking the easy option. The easy option would be to look for revenge. That was offered to many a victim. People don’t realise that at times. That would have been the easy option, just to go out and kill some of their Roman Catholic friends. It did happen in places, and I am sorry for that, it shouldn’t have happened. As Christians we should have waited for the Lord to take his revenge and each one of us will have to answer to the Lord on our last day.
West Tyrone Voice: “I am very, very happy to be a member of West Tyrone Voice. We formed the organisation, as Hazlett has told you, in 1998/9. We had been talking about this for some time. We all had the same idea. The first thing we thought of: there were many old people there, that weren’t being looked after. Outreach workers seemed to be the natural thing to look for as well as all the other expertise that we could give them and pay for.
Funding: “Grants, as Hazlett was telling you there, were very awkward to come by. That is one thing. We started off the first year and a half I think with about 175 members. At that stage, we had 2 field/outreach/friendship workers, call them what you will, but somebody to go and knock at the doors. We’d go and knock at the doors of homes even now and we wouldn’t be allowed in the first time till people would check us out and then maybe we would be invited back. That is the way we were working. But instead of going forward and having five or six friendship workers at this stage, we are down to one. A lot of people don’t realise it, the restraints we are working under. And the problem there, even the one person we have we can’t afford him full time, so we do get private donations from members and different people and that has helped to employ him as much as possible. Scary, but all these things over the last year is the peace. The peace seems to be only in one group’s thinking. The mentality of Sinn Fein and it certainly has been backed by the SDLP. The SDLP lost out I think because of that. They were just the ‘yes men’ to Sinn Fein over the last few years and now they have lost nationalist people.
Roman Catholics in the forces: “Hazlett mentioned the voting. Our Roman Catholic friends – I worked with Roman Catholics, a good portion of Roman Catholics all the time. The area I come from would be something like 95% nationalist area, some great friends. Whenever I became a member of the UDR [Ulster Defence Regiment], we talked it over at work and we decided this is a good thing to go for, we will all get into it and this will be peace. But then the Roman Catholic person, he was intimidated out of the forces so he couldn’t do anything, because he’d be leaving his family open to attack.
Victims/survivors: “To call us survivors, it’s very hard, I was talking to a person there earlier and it is very hard to know what to call it. We are just victims, innocent victims I would like to think, not a perpetrator that has caused his own death, whether by suicide or taking other lives and lost his life because the security forces happen to come on site. I’ll leave it for now….”
Chair (Roy Garland): “If we could move over to Gamble, if you could say a few words Gamble.
3. Gamble Moore
“I’ll speak at a lower level than my two friends here and at a personal level.
Who can I trust? “Who can I trust? I worked as a maintenance fitter in factories. I also was a part-time member of the Ulster Defence Regiment. Now as you go through life, you see about dates, what date does this conjure up or what date did that conjure up, such as President Kennedy being assassinated and what have you? But to me a date stands out in my mind is the 22 November 1973. Why? Because on that day I was sentenced to die. Who did it? Who brought the charges against me? Who was the jury? Who was the judge and who appointed the executioner? The IRA.”
“Coming from my work, there was an assassination attempt made on me. I was shot 3 times. My wife was in the car and 3 other workmates….. I was shot in the neck, the chest and the shoulder. Now who set me up? My workmates. I had socialised with them, went out for a drink with them and what have you. They set me up, and who tried to shoot me? One of my workmates. He never was caught, he cleared to Canada after it. Therefore who can I trust?”
Chair (Roy Garland): “Thank you very much Gamble. I suppose that’s one of the hardest things to take – when your own friends set you up and that sort of thing. I am going to pass you over now to Billy who has had a long and difficult experience.
4. Billy Harpur
“Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen. I take a more radical view as we are democratic in the West Tyrone Voice. We say what we like. Nobody writes what we have to say when we meet in these groups.
Personal experience: “I have 30 years experience in the security forces
I have lost two brothers and I lost my son who was twelve years in the RIR [Royal Irish Regiment]. I myself was a victim of attempted murder four times. I was shot in the thigh and they attempted to blow me up by semtex. I was travelling in a car with a driver and when I looked around he had no head and I wondered what hit me on this part of the jaw and it was his teeth and there were just a couple of strings coming out of his neck and I will never forget him sitting at the steering wheel and looking at his wedding ring and he never moved. It was outside a public house and they came out of the public house and threw beer on top of him and spat on him. There was a third person in the car and he was out on the road and he had lost part of his leg and an eye and his face was just like the back of a fireplace, so he was crawling out onto the middle of the road and I got him up into the side of the road….
“We’ll get into this a bit more. I have lost my religion over these Troubles
I think I have lost my religion, we’ll put it that way. I no longer go to church. My son goes to church, the other son I have. I have ten grandchildren. I have a daughter who was 15 before she’d lift a telephone, because of what she heard on the other end of it.
I got Christmas cards with black coffins on them and I am one of the people that is still on the death list.
Who can we trust? “And who can we trust? I have no fear. I have no fear of anybody now. I have come through that much. I listened to Hazlett speaking tonight and I thought he spoke very well. Something I always think, I mean there is no difference in anybody’s grief. There is no difference in Protestant grief, Roman Catholic grief, it is all the same. But with my experience of the police, the superior officers don’t want to know me anymore because of this so-called decommissioning and peace. Now I am an embarrassment to them because I am one of those people who fought their battles when they needed it. When that fellow had lost his head in the explosion, they were putting me back into an ambulance and there came an inspector and he says “I have no men on, I need that man to do another eight hours.” So I was taken back out of the ambulance and made do another eight hours of duty and I didn’t know where I was in doing duty or not, I am not worried about telling you. I am still on 325 mg of an anti-depressant plus other medication. At 49 I had two heart attacks and I had heart bypass done at 50. Two months later I got cancer and I survived that.
“So I am a survivor. I am looking for a better place for my 10 grandchildren and I don’t want a place where terrorists are running it. Where we live, a mile from the border, there is Real IRA, which planted ….a bomb three days before we came here. There is Continuity IRA and there is INLA [Irish National Liberation Army]. But let me explain something about those three organisations. Those 3 organisations are the people who were discontented and … they are all SF/Provisional IRA, they just go under another name, they are disillusioned. …”
Double standards: “... Bertie Ahern made the statement today that Sinn Féin would never be in government in the Republic of Ireland. So is it all right for them to be in government in Northern Ireland? Is that ok? Does it really matter? We don’t trust Tony Blair by no means. We don’t trust.Patten, we don’t trust any of the police at the minute, who were my bosses for years.
We will survive: “And we have survived and we will be survivors. We will survive. I definitely will survive anyway, because I am not lying down to anybody or I am not letting anybody put me out of my home. And I was asked by the police, as these men know here, to leave my home ten times, to move ten times, and one of the superintendents come to my wife, as the last time I wouldn’t move. He says: ‘I am only here to tell you this time, so that you don’t come back when your husband is shot and tell me that you weren’t warned, I never warned you”.
Protestant grief no different from Roman Catholic grief: “So you know I am a happy go lucky man and have survived a lot of attempted murders…. .We can trust no one, but at the same time with my radical views I would like to have friendship, which we have with everybody. Three out of every five Roman Catholics in our area voted for Sinn Féin in the last election, so I mean they have the support in our area. …. But lost ones, loved ones are just the same on both sides. [quote from a booklet] This was said in a wee book that a clergyman wrote there at the weekend. “When Fr. Reid passed his comment about the unionist community, there were words which were quite offensive to many different people and communities.” Generalisation – tar everyone in the same community in the same way. …There has been a lot of pain and grief and many people lost on both sides of the religious divide. Protestant grief is no different from Roman Catholic grief. Everybody wants to move on. But we are not prepared to move on, on Tony Blair’s or Gerry Adams or anybody else’s [agenda]. We want a fair society for what we’ve come through for 30 odd years and I thank you very much for your time.”
QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS
Chair (Roy Garland): “Thank you very much and thanks to all of you. In listening to some of the pretty horrific stories, something comes from the Quakers. I often attend a Quaker meeting and I remember one Quaker saying: ‘sometimes in response to the world and the downside of the world the only proper response is silence’ and sometimes I feel like that when you hear these terrible stories and we haven’t heard half of it. Man’s inhumanity to man, in a sense it does silence you, because what can you say? We have done such terrible things to each other. There is nothing more to say in a sense and … it’s taken a lot of courage on the part of the men who are sitting here with me. I feel very privileged to be with them. It takes a lot of courage to come out and actually express these things and it’s not easy. I am very grateful to them for what they have shared with us and I know there is a lot more. Now I want to open the meeting to questions and I think we are all friends here and I am sure the people, in a sense do feel very much with them……..
Death threats: “Maybe I should start the questions. The thing about the INLA and the Real IRA, the Continuity IRA and the IRA – are you still suffering threats to this day?
Billy: “Yes.”
Roy: “And are those coming from the INLA?
Billy: “No I say they are coming from Provisional IRA, rebels who have left Provisional IRA and go under a different name. I mean it’s just known, it’s fact.”
Roy: “How do you live with this to this day?”
Billy: “I live with it with my attitude to life. My attitude to life has always been I’ve been under threat for so long now I always think I’ve got to guard, but you still have to come out your front door.
“And just if I could put a thing in here which I forgot. Two years after the Good Friday Agreement, they tried to murder my wife and I in the front garden. They took over a house across the street. This is two years after, this is why I am on about this IRA. Two years after the Good Friday Agreement, but how do I live with it? Maybe I’ll tell you more about it. I always think that, alright I’m living, but you always think about your wife and children. They are in a worse situation than you and you’re trying to protect them and when you’ve lost so much. Friends that I have lost I just don’t know Roy. I get strength out of somewhere to go on. Although I’ve had my…I mean I got strength. The strength that I got. I was down to the lowest I was down, till Hazlett Lynch met me and brought me around through the West Tyrone Voice. I was down to the ground with drugs. I was taking seventeen drugs a day and that is the first man that brought me back. West Tyrone Voice brought me back….”
Q.1. Fintan Mullaly (Dublin): “…. I’m not a member of this group. I’m from Pax Christi in Dublin, but basically I feel an awful lot of pain on that side of the table there and I get the same feeling from Mr. Gallagher whom I go up and meet in Omagh.
Roots of the Troubles: “We’re all sort of in the same situation. I am the descendant of two Northerners, one from Derry and one from Fermanagh…. They in their time had to come south because there were no jobs if you wanted to get over a certain level. There was a certain barrier for a Catholic … in your force, the head constable or somewhere, he couldn’t get above that. You couldn’t get to inspector. Now you had the same situation, right up to the time that John Hume started conscientious, ideal peace by peaceful means and they walked and they marched and they met in opposition. At that stage there was no real big numbers in the IRA, to the best of our knowledge, dare I say. ….But the thing was that that was like as if it was an insurrection coming for no apparent reason, but it had been like cinders, all you needed was to get a blow at it. Once fifteen people were murdered …… including a distant relation of mine. They had done nothing, they had no weapons, no nothing and yet the forces of the Crown whose names have never been given as to who they are, they’ve never stood culpable for what they did, because they had made the problem that you now have.
Gerrymandering: “But all those years back, I had one of my cousins who came home, the first civil servant to get a job in the Guild Hall in Derry.
“Up until then no Catholic was allowed see the books. It was dangerous to let Catholics inside. The same with the RUC. If at a certain level you had violence, they were in an area that they wouldn’t get their hands on it. But I think your whole basic problem started with the gerrymandering thing, which most people here know about, that the man who owned a house got a vote. If you were a tenant of the council in a house, you didn’t have a vote, but the man down the street who employed you had maybe 2 or 3 votes.
“So therefore in Derry County Council where you had 70% Catholic out of the entire council there was only one or two councillors Catholic and the rest were all Protestant, which was a complete gerrymandering system.”
Voting for Sinn Féin: “Continue right up to this day. You’re saying that people vote for Sinn Féin. Why would they vote for the weaker of the two as they saw it in order to get someone elected? They had to vote for Sinn Féin, because you don’t have a transferable vote.
Billy Harpur: “You’re talking about them voting for Sinn Féin, well it was John Hume of the SDLP party who got the biggest vote in Derry at that time. Thirty years ago, when I joined the police my two inspectors were Roman Catholics, thirty years ago and you got up about the gerrymandering. I do believe that years and years, the hierarchy from England, maybe the old unionist party did discriminate, but not just against Catholics. It was also against Protestants, ordinary working Protestants and Catholics. They were no different and the biggest vote ever got in Londonderry was by John Hume who was an SDLP man. Well once John Hume left a space, you can see where the votes are going now. They are going back to Sinn Féin.
Bloody Sunday [1972]: “I assume you referred to Bloody Sunday, the shootings, well that has never been proved yet. The outcome of that is come yet. There were two policemen shot two days before Bloody Sunday and Martin McGuinness does admit that he was commander-in-chief in the Bogside two days before Bloody Sunday. Therefore he should have been charged with the murder of those two men, if they were shot two days before Bloody Sunday, if he admits he was commander-in-chief at that time, so it is the truth that the IRA was in the Bogside on Bloody Sunday.
Fintan: “I never said they weren’t in the Bogside, I said they were targeted”
Billy: “There were arms in the Bogside.”
Roy Garland: “Can you clarify just one point on the voting thing? I think it is important to clarify. It was voting in local government, it wasn’t Stormont or Westminster and it was whoever was in the household and it was the same in unionist areas and nationalist areas?”
Billy: “There was no difference.”
Roy: “That’s right. There was no difference. In working class areas, there were fewer votes and the same system applied in England but it was abolished in 1944. But I mean it was strong and in the Catholic community most….”
Hazlett: Re gerrymandering: “…. Gerrymandering is fundamentally wrong, it cannot be justified. It cannot be rationalised. But I think we have got to place the whole gerrymandering regime in the context of the times. When Northern Ireland came into being in the early 1920s, you had a situation where approximately one third of the population didn’t want to be in Northern Ireland. You had a third of the population that was intent upon the destruction of Northern Ireland as a political entity. John Hume used this mantra for years and years and years: ‘50 years of unionist misrule in Northern Ireland’ or, as he would probably say, “in the north”. John was a teacher but he didn’t seem to realise that Donegal was the North but it is not in Northern Ireland….
Nationalist ‘non-cooperation’: John Hume’s mantra was ‘50years of unionist misrule’. What he didn’t also say was that from his own community there were 50 years of non-cooperation with the State, deliberate, planned, orchestrated, and that the Roman Catholic Church was leading that orchestration of non-cooperation with the State in Northern Ireland, and even to this day, there will be a fair section of people, probably all those who voted for Sinn Féin, who still will refuse to give any kind of meaningful cooperation to the working of Northern Ireland. The only exception to that is when they draw their giros on the government and their hundreds, multiple hundreds of pounds per week, to keep them living at a standard that I couldn’t afford. That is the only time they cooperate with the State. Outside of that there is still this entrenched attitude of non-cooperation with the State, no matter how they try to call it or to name it otherwise.”
Fintan: “… [Edward] Carson said: this is ‘a Protestant State for a Protestant people’.”
Hazlett: “Do you know the context of that? It was in response to a statement made in Dublin. They wanted a ‘a Catholic parliament for a Catholic people’.”
Fintan: “So it’s tit for tat all the time?”
Hazlett: “It was responsive.”
Fintan: “… You mentioned the point about people calling you certain names. I have heard the Reverend Ian using a certain term against the leader of our church and I wouldn’t like to repeat it. But the thing is, as long as there is that tit for tat, the hostility will always be under the surface. I used to enjoy going down to the Guildhall for the 12th July and sitting up looking at all the bands and all the rest of it, the same as your people possibly from down south here for our Easter parade, but I don’t agree with our Bertie doing what he is doing – resurrecting something for this Easter. But thanks for coming down. In case you think I am against you, I am very sympathetic.”
Hazlett: “Thank you”.
Roy: “An important point in relation to that is: if there was discrimination, does discrimination justify murder? And it is important because it was a democratic society, it wasn’t a fascist society and there were means of protesting. The civil rights movement did protest, in fact most of the demands were conceded through the civil rights movement and the agitation.
Fintan: “One point, you mentioned about Bertie [Ahern] making a decision about never taking Sinn Féin into Government. You are right in so far as they are the words. He would not dare say that he would consider it, because tomorrow morning Mary Harney would be out, right? That’s the first point.
“The thing is he also knows that if he was to say within his own party, that he was going to coalesce with Sinn Féin, his own party would lose half their votes, because they have what they call the ‘floating vote’. He only has 21% of standard votes, he has another 12 or 13% of floaters. …”
Q.2. Rev John Clarke (Navan): “I’d just like to thank the panel, thank each of you for sharing with us this evening and naturally, my heart goes out to you. .. It is very much with you indeed and to all victims of the Troubles. It strikes me as a very natural outcome of the Troubles, naturally where there is hurt, where there is a great need for healing and reconciliation afterwards.
“But do you feel that there is a lack of this sort of initiative taking place? Are there other victims’ groups, or survivors’ groups – I know you don’t like that term but you know what I mean – are there other victims groups doing what you do? How are they being funded?”
Hazlett: “…. Decisions will be made over the next number of months about the new round of funding and I know that a sister group in our sector was turned down about 3 or 4 weeks ago, by the same funder for doing similar work that we are doing. But what is happening within our broad sector is that in the wake of the allegations that have been made by senior nationalists in both church and state and in the press, that we are really nazis, there has been, I suppose, an attitude or a responsive recoiling from anybody who would be perceived to hold that view.
“And I would see some of the victims sector, the part at least that we are in, that contact across the community is going to be eased up considerably if not totally stopped. I can see that, because people from my community are fed up being insulted by clergymen, by politicians and by the press, all coming from the same part of the community. And the view seems to be if that is really what they think about us, is there any mileage to be gained in having any kind of contact with them?”
Rev. John Clarke: “I’ve got the point perfectly clearly on that. The whole thrust of your presentation was actually on that particular point. At the end of any conflict, let’s believe there is an end ….. But with relative peace and as part of the process of bringing that forward, there needs to be a healing and reconciliation and a need for whatever fancy terms you like, could you tell me is there sufficient initiative in that department? It is part of the process, this healing and reconciliation, surely to God there are other bodies, be it on the other side of the divide from you or otherwise, who require reconciliation and healing and soothing of the wounds. Surely it is part of any government, north, south, east or west as part of the process? Is anything happening in that department? Are you a lone voice, this West Tyrone Voice? ……. Are we coming at it too soon? I mean are there too many wounds to be revealed at this point in time?”
Hazlett: “I think the Government has really put us into a hothouse situation and they are trying to force reconciliation, trying to manufacture reconciliation within the community and between the communities.
Churches and reconciliation: “But I think probably the most disappointing thing that we have found – and please don’t take this personally John – the most disappointing thing that we have found in our work is that – if we accept a definition of the church as being the ‘community of reconciliation’ – there hasn’t been one clergyman or minister who came into our office to find out ‘who are you, what do you do, what can I do to help?’
“There hasn’t been one. The people [ministers] who have been in our office have been invited by us, but nobody came in from any of the churches, not one single one has ever come and said ‘Look, can we help you, can we support you? Can we do anything for your members who are also our members?’ Not one single person. That is disappointing and the church is supposed to be… one of the definitions within the literature, would describe the church as ‘the community of reconciliation.’ It has failed. One of your colleagues …. a Church of Ireland minister was the reconciliation officer for …..Down and Connor, or Down and something….. And I remember asking him at a conference that we were at, back in April I think it was: ‘do you know of any church that not only preaches about forgiveness but practises it?’
Reconciliation an ‘elitist enterprise’: “And he drew back and he thought and I said… ‘the fact that you have to think about this has given me the answer. I mean this is the church, the Christian church. And then he did say ‘there is only one church that I know that practises what it preaches and that is the Mennonite church in America.’ That was the only example that he could give! Now we are supposed to be looking up to the church and to the church leaders on the local level as well as on the macro level. We haven’t been given anything that would make us want to contact the churches to see can they even work in partnership with us, because the whole reconciliation thing certainly in Northern Ireland is very much an elitist enterprise. It is ministers and clergy from different churches, going off on their wee retreats and having their tea and their coffee and their buns and having nice wee chats coming back again. It is an elitist enterprise. The people in the grass roots are never asked or encouraged to get involved in that kind of thing, but maybe, more to the point, they are not interested in getting involved in that kind of thing, because the people that they would be going to drink their tea and coffee with and eat their buns and their biscuits are probably the very people who have been working with someone, who have been eyeing them up and saying ‘I wonder what I could get you’ and these would be the people who are now involved in the ‘reconciliation industry’ that has been created in Northern Ireland.”
John Clarke: “…: I would not take things personally…. Even remarks like ‘nazis’ washes off me. It has no bearing on me whatsoever. So I don’t get hung up on it. But in fairness you make a statement on the church and we are ….all members of the church I think even in terms of hierarchy, whether it is clergy who go off and have cups of tea and coffee with one another or whoever.
“I mean the church is a great mass and body of people and from a fairness point of view, their responsibility is to preach reconciliation, love and peace and I think …to that aspect of the church they are doing that, I mean we have had our church leaders dominating this in some way, but what is happening is that the great mass of people is not following. And then some groups we meet like your group and clergy cannot be expected to keep knocking on your door …It’s up to them to co-ordinate groups to go in and help you out….
Gamble: “…. a girl came to me at work one day and her mother just had her tenth baby and she said to me: ‘you Protestants, you get everything. You have everything made. You get all the benefits …”. I said ‘hold on a minute.” She lived quite near. I said ‘you live in the same type of house as I am living in and your father works in the same place as I work, the same housing, the same wages. There are five of us and there are ten of you so who is going to spend more money – to spend on a family of five or ten?’. But she couldn’t see that. She maintained that we had everything made. We were getting the same wages as her. We were living in the same housing as her. Everything else was the same. … I said ‘the only thing you can do is to have a word with your father about that, it has nothing to with me’.
Q.3. Arthur O’Connor (Trim): “I have sympathy for the gentlemen here, they call themselves victims – they were victims, they are now victims in Northern Ireland. But with respect there are victims on both sides. But there is no good in raking over the past, what’s done is done. It’s water under the bridge now, it’s history …I don’t like to pre-empt, call it what you will. But in the current situation now there seems to be, there are not as many shots going off. We’ll see what comes out of it. It’s been 35 years …. I think it’s time to bury the hatchet. That’s all I’d like to say.”
Raymond: “How can we trust the system? The system from the Good Friday Agreement hasn’t been fair. I think that is a big problem. It is not being worked fair.
“They’re trying to buy off the government in the Republic and in Britain. They’re trying to buy off the bully boys. It will never work. They have to show that they are sorry for what has happened. Then, we will move forward. But the intimidation of Protestant people against the Roman Catholic people in the North through discrimination of jobs took place in the South here as well. My people are all from the South. So we are going back on it again. So we keep hearing this thing. I will say that if the majority of Roman Catholic people or Hindu or whatever, and there was a minority of people any other place over the world, the majority always rule, whether it was fairly or not. We would think not, but that is the way things are. We didn’t take to arms. That would have been the easy thing. A lot of people don’t realise that. I find it very hard for us to keep our young people and for my father to keep our family. …….I come from a family of 12. None of us got a State handout in our life. My father came north and he was a farm labourer and reared us and put some of us through university…. We worked hard night and day. I went to night school for 5 years to get where I was. I wasn’t asking somebody else to do it for me. That’s what we’re up against. But there again I did cycle to Strabane with two Roman Catholics and three Protestants. Three Protestants and two Roman Catholics. That’s where we come from so talk about trust. We have to have it for each other. It is not one side.
“We are being dictated to, living in the North here, the unionist side, that we have to agree. The Irish government and the British government, they’re trying to push us into a situation. They won’t wait to see things happen in a fair way and they are not being fair.”
Arthur: “What do you think of the current police? Are they an improvement on the RUC or are they doing any good?”
Roy: “Can you hold on a minute? There are three other people wanting in. Julitta?”
Q. 4. Julitta Clancy: “First of all thank you for coming down and sharing. I know that when we were up with you a month ago, we spent a lot of time talking and listening and learning more and it was very, very important for us. Again we came away not knowing what to do. What’s the answer?
“First question – somebody mentioned the word ‘embarrassment’ – is it the case that former members of the security forces and the defence forces in Northern Ireland are more an embarrassment to government, to the unionist people as well? Do you think you are being left behind not just as victims, but in that it is kind of assumed that so much wrong was on your side and that is the perception among the Catholic community.
“Second question: do you think you could ever have a meeting like this or even in private, with a mainly Catholic, Roman Catholic group in your area? Do you see that day coming? Or that it can happen, that your stories can be heard by them and that they would be willing to listen or is that a long, long way off?”
Billy: “I’ll take the one about the security forces, the one that affects me. The security forces don’t want to know me. I am an embarrassment, as you say, to them, because they want to hide me out of the road. I am just a sore now. They want to let on that we never happened, that there wasn’t people who suffered all of this and hide it so that they can go ahead with their peace initiative … the police authority, the hierarchy in the police and the government are destroying this and trying to keep people from getting pensions for injury and duty pensions.
“They are sent to England to be assessed. They are not looking after the members at all. As long as you don’t get annoyed, you’re quite all right. Keep out of the road, say nothing…. This new police force now: I never was on the PSNI [Police Service of Northern Ireland]. I was an RUC man …. what has happened to the police force at the minute; it is just like a car. If you take the engine out of the car, it doesn’t go. When Patten came in, all the senior policemen and all the policemen’s experience, all grabbed their money and left. And now they have an inexperienced police force in there and they can’t cope. And all you have to look at is the criminality with drugs. Now the Special Branch comes in for a lot of stick, a lot a lot of stick through the years, but they would have been aware…..without any bother. People who knew who was around the corner and didn’t do it. So the police force at the present time has a lot of growing up to do in our country and drugs will be rife, criminality will be rife and the most important thing that I think.….was the disbandment of the RIR, the throwing of about 9,000 men …. on the street. …. Some will get into criminality and drug running. … I think there should have been a better way of handling this.”
Roy: “Hazlett, just briefly, because we have a few people waiting with questions, could we have a meeting like this in West Tyrone?”
Hazlett: “I had hoped over the last number of months that that could have been organised. But with statements coming from senior nationalists, I can’t see it. ….and I don’t think the membership would want to go down that road. That is sad, that is very disappointing, but again that wasn’t the situation of our meeting. We were hoping to go in a slightly different direction to that, but because of the turn of events and then with the letter today, that we will not be funded for reconciliation work by the Community Relations Council, that even throws it into greater jeopardy and without resources I can’t see how that will be possible at least over the next few years.
Roy: “Thank you. We are running short of time, Marion next”.
Q. 5. Marion Garland (Belfast): “I just wanted to say I too felt totally shocked by those statements from Fr Reid and I just couldn’t believe I was hearing right. I understand that. I just feel it would be an awful shame to let that put you off meeting with people of kindred spirits and people from the nationalist community. I would also say I have the concept that problems are to do with the church and I have to say that ministers and all the rest have a difficult job and they are human like the rest of us and so some do the job better than others. But I would like to mention the story of the Good Samaritan. I have been surprised many times in my life who the Good Samaritan has been to me and I think that is just great to feel that God can surprise us and I think too to just to try and keep our minds open. You might be surprised you know.
Victims Commissioner: “But the other thing, what I am really getting at is you know the way there has been a new Victims Commissioner appointed. I am just wondering would you find that of any help? What sort of help would she be?”
Telling the stories:” Also, just before I sit down, I just feel you must tell your stories, I think that’s part of your healing. You’re never going to be rid of these demons, let’s face it, but it has got to help others and it has got to be helpful to meet other groups and please, please do that. Thank you. …”
Hazlett: “The name of the new Victims Commissioner who was appointed I think at the end of September is Mrs Bertha MacDougal. We don’t know who she is. Now within the victims sector, I phoned all the groups. Nobody knows her…. A Victims commissioner I think is a good idea because we have needed somebody who would champion our cause and bring our concerns at the highest level of government in the hope that somebody up there will listen. I think the disappointing thing about it – and there has been a bit of controversy over this – has been the fact that that appointment has been done as – to quote from Mark Durkan – ‘a secret deal or a side deal, or a sub deal.’ There was no openness about it, there was no transparency about it, there was no consultation about it. It was the Northern Ireland Office, as it has been doing for the last six or seven years, telling the victims ‘we know best, we’re government and we will tell you who you are going to have and what they are going to do’.
“Now that’s the negative side of it. But we are prepared. I’m on public record through the BBC. We welcome the appointment of the commissioner. We are prepared to give her a fair wind. We want to see what she knows about the sectors. We don’t know anything except that she is a police widow. I think that is one thing that was said. She’s involved with a couple of groups we’ve never heard of, never saw them in any government literature….. But even with that we are still prepared to give her a fair wind. She is coming to meet with us in December. She asked to come to meet with us. The letter of invitation that I have for her, was written and signed by me, the envelope was addressed and stamped asking for the lady. It was sitting on the desk. Then her secretary rang and asked could she come to see us, so we thought now that’s good, that’s good. That was very, very interesting. We will have to see.
Definition of victim: “One of the down things of it was, in her first BBC interview she was asked what she understood a victim to be and she said that there are documents published by the government available to us and that is what she will be working to. Now that has been massively disappointing, because the definition of Bloomfield’s ‘victim’ is a catch-all definition. That means everything, that means nothing and the OFMDFM , that is the Office of First Minister and Deputy First Minister, their attempt at a definition is also a catch-all… And within our sector, that is the pro-British victim sector, we will not and do not accept that IRA men are victims the same way as we are. We will never accept that.”
Roy: “Time has gone very quickly, and what I am going to do is take four more questions one at a time. ….”
Q.6. Fr Pat McManus (Columban missionary). Re healing: “I belong to this establishment, the Columban Fathers. I have been a priest for 40 years and one of the most saddest things in my ministry was listening to the individual person in the privacy of a room talking about their wounds and their hurt and I in response trying to say something to make them feel better. And according to their testimony over the years, I have succeeded in doing that if only by listening sympathetically. I would feel terribly sorry for the people wounded in Northern Ireland as you have been if you look to Tony Blair or Bertie Ahern or any organisation to heal your wounds, because there is a healing that you need and you will only get it from God and from Christ and from prayer and God does not hand over to Tony Blair or Bertie Ahern or any organisation what he himself can do. So I would ask you to consider that we are all individuals and when it comes to pain and wounds, we need the healing that comes through prayer and Christ. Look there for that healing and don’t look for the healing that only God can give, from Bertie Ahern or Tony Blair. … My grandfather came from Northern Ireland and I have a deep interest there. I feel sad and frustrated when I hear everyone from every side exposing their wounds and looking for justification … because I can see there is no solution to that. Christ’s solution was forgiveness. We don’t get it by sorting out this is for you and that is for you. We have to rise above it by forgiveness and we need God for that. Now as regards the things which Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair can do, we must demand those and get them but don’t dispense with what Jesus Christ has told us we need from Him.”
Roy: “Thank you.”
Pat: “Can I say one further thing? I deeply regret the use of the word ‘nazi’ by Mary McAleese and Fr. Reid. If they were only aware of the numbers of people from Northern Ireland who gave their lives fighting nazism, and the sacrifice their families back home made, they would be more sensitive. But do remember the number of people from down South who fought nazism. … It was an unfortunate use of the word. Reverend Clarke is right, you can make too much of it. Fr Reid never said unionists were nazis. He said if you do such a thing, you are putting yourself in the same category but he didn’t believe that himself and he didn’t actually say that or believe that you are nazis. Mary McAleese has hurt you but she has also hurt other people. She gave a talk on child abuse by Roman Catholic priests – which was her right – but she went on in her talk to coin a new phrase and she said these priests are ‘social terrorists’. Coining that, it hurt us all. When we think of the pain and sacrifice, well I have endured in becoming a priest and in my ministry, I found that very hurtful and inexcusable from a person in her position and her education. … ”
Q. 7. “I’ll put it to you very clearly what I want to say. I sympathise with you, with the terrible atrocities that have affected your families. I honestly do. What I want to say is this: that partition – and going back to 1916, 1916 to me was a failure in many, many respects. It was a complete disaster for the whole island of Ireland and I can honestly say that. Looking over my history over the last years and years I have taken an interest. Now, the partitioning of this island and it was done really and truly we would say along sectarian grounds. Splitting Ulster … you’ll have the Catholics there and the Protestants there. To me that was horrendous, partitioning this island. Growing up in Ireland from 1955 onwards ….. the fact is Protestants left this State and went North. And partition disenfranchised thousands and thousands of Catholics the other side. We really had two states operating in a horrible fashion. To me that is the greatest tragedy for my generation.
“I feel the unionists in Northern Ireland are every bit as much Irish citizens as I am. And I would like them to feel like that. I cannot understand why they don’t feel as close to my side of the argument as they would to Britain or to Scotland or wherever. So why don’t they feel this closeness to us? I have always felt I was inferior in some ways ….even today when I hear unionist politicians speak they forget about us people down here. We do feel very much part of their pain. Sorry about this, I’m going on about this but I wish you would make the Good Friday Agreement work. I pray you do. I honestly do. That thing about the foreign minister and the border, distrust. You distrust the English Governments. I mean they have sold you out left, right and centre over the years. The IRA have done some terrible things and they cannot be justified. Of course they can’t. …”
Q. 8. Sean Collins (Drogheda): “Firstly may I say I admire you all for having the courage to come down, to feel comfortable enough about coming down here, telling your story. My experience in Northern Ireland is more centred around Belfast and the people I meet up there, particularly in the unionist community, who are living under the same threat. They are living under it from unionists. They are not living under it from the IRA. I sat at a table three weeks ago with three gentlemen having dinner and none of them were paramilitaries but I discovered the only person sitting at the table that wasn’t carrying a gun was me. They all had protective firearms because of their past, of the work they had done, and until we get all the guns out of Northern Ireland, as far as I’m concerned, for whatever reason people are carrying them for, we are not going to have any peace at all.
Dialogue with Catholics: “But what I would appeal to you is, I would appeal to you – to go back to Julitta’s question in relation to addressing Catholics in your own area, if you can do that at all, I really feel that is what you have to do. It is when you get talking to the ordinary people, you find the real fear that is out there. I often tell a story about when I was working with ….some people from both sides of the divide about three years ago…. I said to them ‘you’ve lived through the Troubles. Why should I try to tell you what troubles are all about? You should be able to tell me far more than I’ll ever know or experience’. But at the end of that day, which proved a productive day, some women from Ballymurphy in Belfast said: ‘if you are up in Belfast, would you drop up and have a cup of tea? Do you ever come up there and see us?’ And I said ‘I do and I’ll do that’. And then two women from the Village area of Donegal Road said to me, ‘we’d love to meet you in Belfast some day for a cup of coffee’. And I said ‘Yeah, that’d be great, wouldn’t it?’. Now I couldn’t possibly come to the house – they weren’t afraid of me going to the house because the IRA would see me. They were afraid that the loyalists would see me and they are people from your community who are living in fear, the same threats that you are living with, and I always feel until such time as you go out and talk to people…..
Politics: “Forget about the politicians. I heard someone say ‘Bertie Ahern is not going into government with Sinn Féin’. Someone over here said that is because Mary Harney would run him. Mary Harney’s party was set up 20 years ago to demolish Bertie Ahern’s party and they have been in government with them for the last 11 or so years! So Bertie Ahern will be in government with Sinn Fein in two or three years time. Mark my words, that is the way it goes. That is the way to play politics down here and it is the way politics is played all over the world and ordinary people in the street that just don’t even count. But … I am not asking a question. I am just making an appeal to you, if you can at all, talk to those people.”
Q. 9. John Marren (Scurlogstown): “The lady behind just said what I was going to say. I thought there was a wee bit too much negativity coming. I know that area that you are from, Hazlett. I know that there are elderly active groups working between Castlederg and Ballybofeigh. That is across the border, across the divide, and I feel that you talking tonight, you were sort of isolating yourselves and maybe that is why you are not getting the money and I feel you just should be open a bit more and a wee bit less negative about it. That would be better. And … about Fr Reid. You can harp on a wee bit too much about individual things like that. He was actually pushed very strong that night when I saw the whole thing on the television. Now what he said was totally wrong. But you must remember what Fr. Reid has done. He has played a big part in silencing the guns and all the people you hear of everyday on the radio, being shot by the IRA or the UDA or any of these. He took a big part in silencing that and he has done a lot for this island and for the peace I think. And I think it is a better place in the North at the moment for bringing up kids, than it was ten or fifteen years ago, thanks to Fr. Reid.”
Hazlett: “The man down here who raised the whole issue about partition. I tend to agree with you. I don’t want to fight with you. I want to agree with you. What I cannot understand is why did the people in the South of Ireland at that time want to break off from the rest of the British Isles? Northern Ireland wanted to stay part of the United Kingdom. People in the Republic wanted to move away from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
Billy: “My grandparents were from Donegal. And during 1916 they were taken round the house by the IRA at the time and there were attempts to ethnically cleanse them from the Donegal border but they stayed. But there is a funny thing too at the end of the day. They used to come at night with hoods with them and walk them round the house and threaten them with guns and all. But they always recognised the voice, it was the butcher that come to them the next day to sell them their meat! And my grandfather told that story several times. He … used to come in the next day to sell them beef. But they stayed in the Republic … they lived there till they were over eighty and wouldn’t move out. They lived a good life there. Only my mother moved north…. It might seem…. that we are always against the Roman Catholics. Hazlett said earlier in the night that we have a good lot of Roman Catholics in our group. I told you at the start I have very little religion and I belong to the group.”
Q. 10. “When you look at the history of Ireland, Presbyterians have always been the radicals that were going to lead from the front. …”
Billy: “We only have to go down to the Boyne, haven’t we, to see that”.
Questioner: “I’m sorry about the sectarianism and the people that brought this about. It breaks my heart.”
CLOSING WORDS
Roy Garland: “…. It just remains for me to thank everyone who is here and particularly to
thank all of our guests here – Billy and Raymond and Hazlett and Gamble – for coming here
and sharing so much with us. I think we’d like to show our appreciation.”
Julitta Clancy: “On behalf of the Meath Peace Group I would like to echo that and thank you all for coming down. It was a brave thing and it was also a risky thing. You were going public, you knew that it was going to be recorded. You know that we are going to produce a report from this. ….which will be open to everybody. … You put a little bit of trust in us, which we are grateful for … Over the years it is this legacy of hurt that has to be addressed. Telling the stories is very important, as Marion said. Because we don’t know. People don’t know but it’s when we hear and come in contact … and I know it’s very, very hard – especially in a public room like this – to be telling us your hurt and your pain. So we do appreciate you coming and we very much appreciate the audience coming and listening patiently and taking part. It has always been such a major part of the work of the group here – people coming and engaging. I want to thank Roy and to reiterate what John said about Roy and Marion and the work, the unsung work they have done for years and how they have moved and changed people down here and in NI and have sometimes been vilified for it. Sometimes their own community has distrusted them for what they are doing, but they have moved people and made people think in another way and brought a new vision to things, so long may they continue at that. ”
APPENDIX: West Tyrone Voice (WTV) – information
Extracts from the group’s information leaflet:
“West Tyrone Voice (WTV) was established in 1999 to meet the profound needs of the victims of terrorist violence in the West Tyrone region of Northern Ireland. These largely ‘forgotten’ people had no one to help them, voice their concerns, or support them in their darkest hours. The region where these victims live is bounded on the western side by the border with the Irish Republic, from where many of the terrorist attacks were launched and to where the terrorists returned after their task was completed. The region is mainly rural and agricultural, and covers an area of approximately 1800 square miles. In this area, people still live in fear. The group was formed after the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement was signed, and found its motivation in the outworking of the terms of that agreement.
Membership: “The main purpose of this grassroots group is to deal with the genuine concerns that many victims have, and to voice those concerns at the highest levels in society. WTV now has 530 members, with an additional 180 non-members with whom we work; this bulks up to some 2150 people with whom we have meaningful contact. Numerically, Co. Tyrone is the third worst affected area of N. Ireland – Belfast is the worst, and South Armagh is next. Per head of population, West Tyrone lost 26 people out of every 10000, South Armagh lost 37, and Belfast lost 48. WTV is non-party political, nor is it linked to any religious grouping. Members are drawn from both sides of the community. The group comprises families of security force personnel, where the breadwinners are no longer with them because they were murdered by terrorists, or are no longer capable of supporting the family because of injury sustained either on or off duty. This grouping would account for about 70% of our membership. On top of this are the many families who, as civilians, were caught up in terrorist attacks as a means of ethnic cleansing, the most notable of which was the bombing in Omagh town centre in August 1998, where 29 people lost their lives, and 270 sustained varying degrees of injury. Of the more severely injured, many of them will not be able to work again. In our area alone, terrorists murdered 128 people. Add to this a further 100 who were from the area but were murdered elsewhere in N. Ireland. The number of people injured physically amounts to 384, while those injured psychologically, emotionally and mentally would come to some 13000, based on the figures used by Sir Kenneth Bloomfield in his victims’ report. These atrocities have created more than 100 widows, 300 orphans, 236 parents who have had a child murdered, and many extended families who have been affected by the campaign of terror in our area. As our work continues, we are becoming aware of more and more people who have been diagnosed as suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), as a direct result of terrorist violence against them and/or their colleagues and friends. “
Meath Peace Group report, February 2006 Taped by Judith Hamill (audio) and Jim Kealy (video). Transcribed by Judith Hamill. Edited by Julitta Clancy
©Meath Peace Group
Acknowledgments: Meath Peace Group would like to thank the speakers and guest chair for coming to address this public talk and for giving so generously of their time. A special thanks to all who came to the talk (some from long distances), those who took part in the discussion afterwards and all those who have given their continued support, encouragement and participation through the years. Thanks also to those who assisted in the planning, organisation, publicity and recording of the talk, to the Columban Fathers at Dalgan Park for facilitating the majority of our public talks and to the Dept. of Foreign Affairs Reconciliation Fund for financial assistance towards the running costs of the talks and school programmes, and to the staff and students of secondary schools who have taken part in our peace studies programmes
The Meath Peace Group is a voluntary group founded in 1993 with the aims of promoting peace and the fostering of understanding and mutual respect through dialogue.
Meath Peace Group Managing Committee 2005: Rev. John Clarke, Navan; Anne Nolan, Slane; Julitta and John Clancy, Batterstown; Philomena Boylan-Stewart, Longwood; Michael Kane, Ardbraccan; Judith Hamill, Ross, Dunsany; Leonie Rennicks, Ardbraccan; Olive Kelly, Lismullin.
Meath Peace Group Talks
No. 57- “Paramilitarism, Criminality and the Good Friday Agreement”
Monday, 20th June 2005
Ardboyne Hotel, Navan, Co. Meath
Speaker:
Michael McDowell, TD (Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform)
Chaired by
Michael Reade (Presenter, ‘Loosetalk’, LMFM radio)
Contents:
Welcome and introductions: Julitta Clancy and Michael Reade
Michael McDowell, TD
Questions and answers
Topics of questions:
1. Murder of Cllr. Eddie Fullerton
2. Immigration/asylum law
3. Federal/confederal state
4. Search for the Disappeared
5. Criminality allegations and due process
Condemnation of republicans
6. Ardoyne disturbances
Have Sinn Féin lost control?
7. Westminster election results
Amnesty for on-the-runs (OTRs)
8. Will extremists be brought into democracy?
9. Bobby Sands
10. Rights and responsibilities
11. Fear and polarisation
Reclaiming republicanism
Reconciliation
12. Reclaiming the spirit of the GFA
Interface tensions
Appendix A: Biographical notes
Appendix B: Meath Peace Group news
[Editor’s note: over 110 people attended this public talk including representatives of groups such as: West Tyrone Voice and the H.U.R.T. Group (Lurgan) – victims’ support groups based in Northern Ireland, the Guild of Uriel (Louth), Drogheda Cross-Border Focus, Reform group (Dublin), Cavan Family Resource Centre, the British Embassy in Dublin, the Ingrid Betancourt Appeal Committee. Political parties represented included the SDLP, Progressive Democrats and Sinn Féin. Representatives of various media (North and South) were also present and excerpts from the discussion were broadcast on LMFM radio every morning for over a week following the event. Parts of the discussion and exchange, particularly between the Minister and Sinn Féin representatives were also quoted in the NI press].
WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION
Julitta Clancy (on behalf of the Meath Peace Group) “Good evening ladies and gentlemen and thank you very much for coming on this summer evening. Unusually for us, we have gone into the end of June and we are not in our usual abode, in Dalgan Park. We would like to particularly welcome here tonight, the British Ambassador, Mr Stewart Eldon, and Mr Patrick Reilly from the British Embassy, and a special welcome to those of you who have come very long distances …
We also welcome the media present: LMFM (local radio), the Meath Chronicle, BBC Northern Ireland and RTE, and we would like to especially thank the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, for coming to Meath in the middle of a very very busy time for him, to fulfil a promise and come to talk to us. We very much value that. He came here three years ago [Public talk no. 45, 30 September 2002] just before the Stormont Assembly collapsed, and we are looking forward to hearing him again tonight. I hand over now to our guest chair, Michael Reade, of LMFM radio.”
Chair: Michael Reade (Presenter of ‘Loosetalk’ on LMFM radio): “I am not going to take up much of your time but I do want to congratulate Julitta and the group on this and all of the talks that have taken place. They really are most interesting and worthwhile and I’m sure tonight will be exactly the same… The Minister will speak for about a half an hour and there will be a question and answer session immediately after the Minister’s opening address. I’m going to ask you to think about what you would like to ask the Minister. I know a lot of people are here for a purpose and we are going to be as strict as possible with you in that we are going to ask for one question per person at a time. The reason for that is obviously to give everybody a chance to speak. So without standing on ceremony I would like to ask Minister Mc Dowell to begin…”
Opening Address of Michael McDowell, TD, Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform
“Thank you very much. Mr. Convenor, distinguished guests and friends, it is three years since I was invited to speak to the Meath Peace group in Dalgan Park and a number of things have happened since then, a number of things have changed profoundly since then and a number of things haven’t changed at all. And therefore when Julitta wrote to me and asked me would I come here this evening, I did the usual thing and said: ‘you have given me a long period of notice before this meeting and things may have changed’.
Situation in 2002: “So once more I venture onto the stage here before you in circumstances where there is great uncertainty. Can I just remind you – if you weren’t here when I was at Dalgan Park – of what the situation was then? Paul Bew and myself were speaking to a meeting in Dalgan Park and the issue of that time was what the prospects were for the political process in Northern Ireland – whether there should be election or should not be elections. What Paul Bew’s prognosis was for the political parties in Northern Ireland, he at that stage was very pessimistic about the future for the SDLP and effectively considered they would be the major casualties of an early election, and he was at the same time defending the position of David Trimble and outlining the difficulties that he had come across.
Unfinished business: “Things have changed, obviously, and I’m not going to attempt a synopsis of recent electoral outcomes in Northern Ireland. But what the last year has demonstrated beyond any doubt is that the fundamental issues which have bedevilled the Good Friday Agreement and it’s implementation remain unfinished business and that until they are addressed in their entirety and comprehensively, we are not going to have further political progress in the restoration of the democratic institutions in Northern Ireland, in particular the Assembly and the Executive.
Republican philosophy – reconciliation of Orange and Green: “I come before you this evening, as I came before you then, as an Irish republican. By that I mean that I believe in the establishment of a republican society on this island, that I believe in the unity of the Irish people, that I believe it should be brought about – and that I believe that it can only be brought about – on the basis of the very implication of the tricolour, which is that there has to be a reconciliation between Orange and Green and the society that merges in Ireland must be one with which both traditions are at home and are reconciled, one with the other, in developing a society which is both pluralist, tolerant and inclusive – one based on equal respect for all and based on a mutual respect for each others traditions.
Anti-republican political ideology: “My claim to be an Irish republican is I think sometimes challenged by those who use the term to describe their own form of politics. They believe that republicanism involves use of violence, use of force. They believe that it involves bringing an armed conflict to the heart of Northern Ireland and dealing with the unresolved business in Northern Ireland by the use of force and that form of political ideology is in my view anti-republican and the people who espoused violence in those circumstances are in my view not entitled to use the term republican.
Polarisation politics a betrayal of republicanism: “And I’m also strongly of the view that they are people who have set back the cause of reconciliation between Orange and Green and have betrayed the fundamental vocation and challenge of the Irish tricolour. They have damaged and seriously undermined the inclusive and progressive republicanism of Wolfe Tone and of Thomas Davis and of so many other people who served in their own way the cause of the establishment of an Irish Republic. I make no apology for being critical of the Provisional movement because I believe in my heart the only way in which this island can be united, and the only way in which the people of Northern Ireland can achieve a fair and reasonable way of life for them and their children, is the reconciliation of Orange and Green. And I believe that politics which is based on polarising Northern society, rather than reconciling it is retrogressive and, as I say, a betrayal of genuine republicanism.
Personal and family background: “Can I just put on the record my own background? I am 54 years of age, I am a barrister, I was brought up in Dublin. My forebears came in the main from Northern Ireland. The MacNeills came from Glenarm in County Antrim. Eoghan MacNeill was the youngest son, the one for whom there was not much money left to spend on his education. His elder brothers were sent to Belvedere in Dublin and he was sent to St Malachy’s in Belfast. They got good jobs and he had to take a job as a clerk in the Four Courts in Dublin. Of his £2 a week he spent 10 shillings receiving Irish grinds because of his interest in Irish nationalism and the Gaelic movement. That was in the 1870s, 1880s. He was a co-founder of the Gaelic League. He was a man who was passionate about two things: the separate identity of the Irish people and their culture. He married a woman called Agnes Moore, and some of you may know that the Moore family is another Belfast family who descended from Presbyterians but they became Catholics in the mid-19th century. Brian Moore, the author, was my mother’s first cousin and his grandfather was somebody who regularly had his house stoned in Ballymena at Orange demonstrations in the 1850s and ‘60s.
“On my paternal side, they were from Belfast as well, Whiterock in County Antrim, McDowells. He was an editor of the predecessor of the Irish News in Belfast. He was a Parnellite, he came to Dublin and became editor of the Freeman’s Journal. So that was his kind of politics, they were more Redmondite than Republican or separatist in the MacNeill sense. Eoghan MacNeill’s eldest son Niall was an officer in the Free State Army as was his third son Turlough, but their middle son, Brian, was killed on the top of Ben Bulben fighting for the Republican side in the Civil War in what would now be generally described as a ‘shoot-to-kill’ policy or incident. He was one of Sligo’s ‘noble six’ and I have on my office wall in Stephen’s Green the funeral flag which lay on his coffin, a tricolour with a large black sash sewn onto it.
“And on my wife’s side, my wife’s grandfather was a Fianna Fail TD and before that he was a Republican hunger striker during the Civil War in Mountjoy Prison and yesterday, on the occasion of my wife’s mother’s death, one of her relatives was showing to me a letter which he had written on hunger strike in Mountjoy, on the Republican side, to his parents.
United Ireland: “I say all of those things simply to say this: I have a real appreciation of history like most people in this room. I do not come from a point of view which is hostile to republicanism, I classify myself as a republican and I believe in the unity of Ireland and I believe that Irish people, Protestant and Catholic, nationalist and unionist, will eventually be reconciled in a single society in Ireland. I want to say on top of that that I believe it makes good sense that that should be so, that the interests of the present majority in Northern Ireland coincide much more with the interests of the rest of us on this island, and that their economic future would be far better developed and progressed through a closer relationship with the rest of us, and that their interests in the last analysis are interests which coincide with ours.
Inclusive view of Irishness: “And I make one last point in relation to the general philosophical points that I want to make, and that is that it is much much easier to portray yourself as an Irish patriot by struggle and violence sometimes, than by doing the much more difficult thing and that is setting out to reconcile Orange and Green on this island, as Tone and Davis had as their ambition to do. And it is much more difficult and more challenging to advance a view of Irishness which is inclusive and which is open to all of the people on this island, which recognises the complexity of Irish history and which recognises that there is validity and respect due to both major traditions on this island. That the Protestants who fought at the Boyne were not simply people trying to tyrannise Catholics.
“They were people who in their own minds were honourably fighting for what they thought was civil and political liberty against absolutism. And that the Protestant tradition in Ireland, whereas it has been traditionally portrayed – and with a good deal of truth – as being closely linked to the notion of English Ascendancy, is at the same time a tradition which is a rich part of our heritage. Yeats, Synge, all our architects, Swift, all our great institutions, that these are part of the heritage which we as republicans should value rather than despise. And that the complexity of Ireland, whether it is from soccer playing, rugby playing and Gaelic playing, is something to be revelled in rather than to be regarded as evidence of a mutation from some pure national strain of Gaelic nationalism.
Polarised politics easier than politics of reconciliation: “What I want to emphasise is my driving spirit and my vocation as an Irish republican in the opening years of the 21st century: that the task which is now before us, which is the process of reconciliation which justifies and requires and demands implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, is a very challenging task. It is not something that is simple, it is not something for the namby-pambies, building centre ground in Northern Ireland is not something for the soft-hearted or the soft-headed. It is the most difficult task to create bridges between the two communities in Northern Ireland. It is far more difficult to do that than to go out in front of a microphone and give out about which side was right or wrong when violence breaks out at a parade of this kind or that. It is far more difficult to talk about those values of reconciliation than it is to talk about community grievance one way or the other. And it is far easier to engage in polarised politics, be it the politics of the DUP or the politics of the Provisionals, than it is to engage in the politics of reconciliation. And that the politicians who pose now as Mandela are frequently closer to Mugabe.
Recreating history verging on fascism: “That those who stand up now and advance the views that they are part of history and making history, are in fact in many cases shredding history and trying to recreate history in their own mould. And I want to say in particular, and this I want to say particularly about the Provisional movement, that the notion that we can recreate history, and we can incorporate all that they have done, as part of a central expression of Irish nationalism and the essence of Irishness, is a very dangerous one and it is one that does verge on the edge of fascism – this notion that you can recreate history now to your own likeness and pretend that things have been moving inexorably towards where you want them to go and in fact they have been quite different.
Monuments and commemorations: “And all across Ireland now there are many monuments erected and many demonstrations held, particularly by Provisionals, around the country in the memory of volunteers, as they put it, who have died in the course of their campaign. But there aren’t memorials, and there are no parades, to the Protestant workers who were taken off the bus at Kingsmill and machine-gunned. And there aren’t memorials, and there aren’t parades, to all the people who were shot down in cold blood. There’s no memorial anywhere to the proxy bomber who was strapped into a truck and blown into pieces together with a checkpoint. There’s no annual commemoration of Jean McConville, there’s no annual commemoration of the Disappeared, there’s no annual commemoration of the many hundreds and thousands of victims of violence. We are in danger, in other words, we are in danger of creating a new history of this island which is false and which seeks to elevate one set of people to the status of heroes while abasing everybody else to the level of people who just did not understand or were obstructive. And that’s wrong in principle and it’s something which I think we should stand up against.
1905 Sinn Féin party not the same as Provisionals: “I’ll give you a very simple example. This year it has been claimed by the Provisional movement that we are in the 100th anniversary of the foundation of their party by Arthur Griffith in 1905. Nothing could be further from the truth! In fact, it is curious that in 1948 that very issue was brought to the Irish High Court. I have here, and I will leave it with Julitta, a decision of the Irish High Court [Buckley and Ors. v. Attorney General 84 I.L.T.R. 9] as to whether the party which, through several splintering processes, ended up in the Provisional movement today, was in fact the movement founded by Arthur Griffith. And the High Court judge who heard the case delivered a very powerful judgment examining the whole history of the party and came to the conclusion that it was not the same party and could not claim to be the same party that was founded in 1905. So we do live in an era where appearances are hugely important, where spin is everything, where PR is hugely important, but we have to remember that our history is slightly more complicated than all of that. And those of us, as I say, who are Irish republicans, should not either yield the tricolour, or the term ‘republican’ to those who have abased those terms and betrayed them, in my view.
Provisional criminality: “I want to talk about another difference that came to light in the last year. Some of you may recall that approximately 15-18 months ago I had to use on the radio a somewhat uncomfortable phrase, I have to say, because it smacks slightly of arrogance – ‘I know what I know’. And the context in which I had to use that was when I was asked to stand up my proposition that the Provisional movement was engaging in major criminality in the Irish State. And I can tell you now what I was talking about then. In Dublin there had been a Dublin brigade of the IRA active, fund-raising for the Provisional movement throughout the ceasefire period, and a number of its senior members were suspected by the Northern command of the Provisional movement of actually hanging on to some of the money. And they were brought north of the border, to South Armagh, and there shot in the legs, and the Dublin Brigade was stood down as a fund-raising unit. And many people thought that this was part of a graduation away from criminality, but the truth was slightly different, the truth was that the adjutant of the IRA in Belfast began to organise major robberies in the South, directly using proxies in the South. As a result, a series of major high value goods robberies took place in the Dublin area which were eventually detected by the gardaí and the involvement of the senior Provisional command in Belfast in their organisation was laid bare. That’s what I was talking about at that time.
“Time passed and in Northern Ireland a series of major robberies – the Makkro robbery, the Gallagher robbery, the robbery in Strabane among others of a similar kind – took place. We are now talking about the period running up to the summer of 2004. At the same time we were being told that the Provisional movement was asking Dublin and London, in accordance with the Joint Declaration, to advance the Good Friday Agreement.
Acts of completion negotiations, autumn 2004: “And so it was that in the autumn of 2004 the two governments put together a package which was designed to bring about acts of completion of the Good Friday Agreement process, to enable the restoration of all the democratic institutions in Northern Ireland and the full implementation of the Agreement. Unfortunately at that time, and at the time of the Leeds Castle discussions, the Provisional movement systematically rejected efforts by both governments, and particularly the interlocutors in the Dublin government, to formulate words which the IRA would agree to issue and publish which would indicate a complete and total end to violence and criminality of all kinds. Eventually the negotiations produced a formula that henceforth the IRA would respect the rights and safety of all persons. And when the red line went through that particular phrase it became clear to a number of us in government that we had a serious problem with the Provisional movement, that it was intent on keeping ‘elbow room’ to endanger the rights and safety of other persons, to engage in other words in criminality and the threat of violence.
Northern Bank robbery: “We did not know at that time that the Northern Bank robbery was being planned by the Provisional IRA, but what we did know was that An Garda Siochana were keeping under surveillance at that time the development of a channel of money laundering, which development they did not understand themselves at that time but found in January and February of 2005, this year, was the means whereby a significant portion of the Northern Bank money would be attempted to be laundered within this State. And again, senior Provisional figures were involved in that.
“So when it came, first of all, to the attribution of responsibility to the Provisionals for the Northern Bank robbery, and, secondly, when proof positive of the involvement of the Provisionals in the laundering of the money came some time later with the magnificent Garda operation in Cork, Dublin and other places in Ireland, it became abundantly clear and it is now beyond contradiction that the Provisional movement had been looking for that elbow room with a view to being able to continue fund-raising in that way.
Fund-raising: “And those funds, my friends – 26 million of which the Irish State has recovered or accounted for in burnings roughly about 5 million euro – those funds were being raised for the purpose of financing the Provisional movement’s next phase which was the political phase. And we have no doubt that it is their intention to get rid of their heavy armoury of weapons, hundreds and thousands of Kalashnikovs are of no use to them, neither are tons of Semtex, but what is of use to them is the resources which violence and criminality produce to fund their political campaigns North and South. As free democrats in a free society we in this State believe that that is a mortal threat to Irish democracy and we will stand up to those people who engage in it. We will not engage with politenesses or excusatory language, we will not engage in fictions that the Provisional movement were not involved in these matters, and we will not ignore the reason for which they were raising that money which is to progress what they call their revolutionary struggle for the creation of a socialist republic on this island.
Robert McCartney killing [January 2005]: “Now, I want to say in relation to the McCartney killing, that the McCartney killing was one which was perpetrated, not for the purposes of the Provisional movement obviously, but it demonstrated that if areas of particularly nationalist enclaves in Northern Ireland fall victim to the reign of fear and subjugation which the Provisional movement have carried out whereby what they call civil administration units of the IRA can summon people to Sinn Féin offices, warn them about their behaviour and, if ignored, take them out and break their legs, shoot them in the hands, torture them and beat them up with baseball bats and the like. That is the kind of reign of terror that gave rise to the feeling of invincibility among those who murdered Robert McCartney and attempted to murder his companion on that day, that they could get away with it, that they could subjugate a community and terrorise a community into not testifying or cooperating with the police, and that they could do their level best to abolish the forensic evidence that might be available if there had been an uninterrupted police investigation. And it was the Provisional movement that called out the youngsters onto the street to try and make the immediate follow-up operation impossible, and it was members of the Provisional movement who carried out the process of cleaning up the pub in question to prevent their being any evidence found, and it was the Provisional movement which intimidated the people who stood up against them in the Short Strand. And it also was the Provisional movement who issued the public statement offering the McCartney sisters the doubtful honour of having the perpetrators shot by the Provisional movement as retribution for the acts in question.
Intentions of Provisional movement: “And all of those events call into question now the intentions of the Provisional movement. And I am very hopeful that the logic of their situation now, and the fact that they are facing into a cul-de-sac if they don’t give up criminality, if they don’t give up paramilitarism, if they don’t …[tape break]… accept the rules of democracy, that the logic of all that is going to force them sooner or later to make the requisite declarations and to deliver to the Irish people what the Irish people were always entitled to on foot of the two referenda adopting the Good Friday Agreement. I am hopeful that that will happen, and sooner rather than later.
No concessions needed to end criminality: “But I want to say this: that when it does happen it’s not a matter of further argumentation or further dealing or further negotiation. It’s ours as of right that this campaign should end. And no one needs concessions to end brutality, criminality and the like. Nobody needs concessions, nobody is entitled to concessions for that. Republican democratic politics don’t require to be bought by concessions to end that kind of thing.
Present situation: “If you ask me therefore where I feel we are now, I believe we are in a different position from the one that Paul Bew described three years ago. Obviously, the SDLP didn’t have the demise that he predicted for them that evening in Dalgan Park, obviously his own party took a bigger tumble than he imagined likely at that time. Obviously, the Democratic Unionist Party is not going to be outflanked on the right of unionism, if I may use that phrase, and is a more formidable group of people for the Provisionals to have to take on politically than perhaps the middle ground of unionism was.
DUP: “But I believe, again optimistically, that the Democratic Unionist Party will engage with the other parties in Northern Ireland to bring about devolution in Northern Ireland. And there’s only one basis in which devolution will come about and that is the Good Friday Agreement. I believe that, whatever else its characteristics might be, the Democratic Unionist Party is a devolutionist party. It is not a party of, how would I put it, integration into the United Kingdom, political integration, it does believe that the people of Ulster, as Ian Paisley would put it, have the right to determine how their own society is run and I believe will act on foot of that.
Optimism: “So I am not pessimistic, I’m optimistic that the Good Friday Agreement’s institutions will be put back in place. I’m optimistic that the North-South institutions provided for under that Agreement will be made to work and flourish, I’m optimistic that economic interests North and South will increasingly emerge as united. I’m optimistic that in the Republic and in Northern Ireland a new spirit of reconciliation can be built. I’m optimistic that those of us who consider ourselves to be republican will be able to use that term without offence or threat to those people with whom we aspire to be reconciled. And I’m optimistic that the Ireland of the next 10, 15 and 20 years will continue to be a place which is growing in prosperity, which is developing in a normal way, which offers a good place to live to all its people – whether they are immigrants or people here of long standing, whether they are people of the nationalist or unionist tradition – that this island will become an increasingly warm place for all and a cold place for practically nobody.
Tribute to Meath Peace Group: “Those are my optimistic views tonight. And what I want to say to all of you, particularly in the Meath Peace Group, is I want to salute all the work you are doing for reconciliation because that vocation that I mentioned about reconciliation is the true vocation, not merely of Christians, not merely of patriots, not merely of people of good heart, but, as I say, of Irish republicans. And those of us who have noticed what the Meath Peace Group has been doing for so long, can only now feel a great sense of gratitude for your constant and unrelenting pursuit of reconciliation and mutual understanding. That is the way forward. And I feel proud to have been invited here this evening and grateful to be invited back in these circumstances and I feel as well as that a great sense, as I said, of optimism and of confidence that things are going in the right direction.
Tribute to Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern: “I want to finally pay tribute to Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern. These two men have been faced with difficult history, difficult circumstances, difficult politicians – it has to be said – and difficult sequences of events, and they have, together with the President for the time being of the United States, whether it be Bill Clinton or George Bush, they have put enormous effort into bringing about the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. People such as George Mitchell and many other people who have come to this island to assist in the process, haven’t been doing it out of a sense of self interest. Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern are not acting on the basis of what the next opinion poll will bring or what the political advantage to them today, tomorrow, or the next day actually is. They feel the hand of history on their shoulder and they feel that the time is right now for the people of this island to look forward to a much brighter future. And I believe myself that the best way to achieve that is on the basis of honesty not cant, truth not falsehood, history not propaganda, and a sense of hope, not a sense of pessimism. And in the last analysis a sense that the people of Ireland have more uniting them than dividing them and that some day a generation of young Irish people will be able to live in a society that fully reflects that reality. Thank you very much.”
Chair (Michael Reade): “Thank you very much, Minister. Now, as I said, you are welcome to ask questions. Let it be known, if you would, by raising your hand if there is a question that you would like to put to the Minister. Before you do that you might want to consider that we are recording this evening for broadcast purposes and you will be able to hear substantial excerpts from this evening as well during the week on my own programme, which is ‘Loosetalk’ on LMFM, the local radio station.
Marching season fears: “So, while I am looking for the first questioner, Minister, perhaps I could ask you an immediate question, an immediate pressing matter according to Fr Aidan Troy. I was talking to him today and he is extremely concerned about reconciliation between the Orange and the Green, as you outlined earlier on, going into the marching season. He’s fearful about a loss of life. He’s calling on both governments to intervene. Will that intervention happen?
Minister McDowell: “Well, you may take it for an absolute certainty, Michael, that the two governments are most concerned about the potential for violence involved in the marching season this year. And expressions of pessimism from both sides of the divide in Northern Ireland on this issue shouldn’t be allowed to mask the deep duty of everybody involved in the process in Northern Ireland to ensure that violence of that kind doesn’t happen. I got a report from the Department of Justice’s representative in Belfast in relation to what happened the other day in the Ardoyne, and I have to say – and I am going to be blunt about it – that the marchers were complying with their legal obligations and they were the subject of a violent outburst which was not justifiable. I regret to tell you that there was contact made with Dublin in the aftermath to ask what the Dublin government was going to do to defend the nationalist people in Ardoyne. So we have to be very very wary of people who will exploit all of this for propaganda reasons and create a sense of dependency in the communities based on fear of sectarian violence. And that’s the big problem now, that there are some people whose interest it is to create a sense of fear, especially among those who feel threatened by sectarian violence in the marching season, a dependency designed to justify taking steps or doing things which are not in accordance with the law.”
Chair (Michael Reade): “So there won’t be direct government intervention?”
Minister McDowell: “Well there is a Parades Commission and there is constant government political activity to ensure that everyone engages with that Commission, that everybody obeys the law and that the marching season in Northern Ireland is not turned into a tinder box of sectarianism.”
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SESSION
Chair (Michael Reade): “We’ll go to the first question from the floor…. One question per person at a time, but also if you would identify yourself as you ask the question as well.”
Q.1. Re murder of Cllr. Eddie Fullerton:
“Hello Minister, I would like to ask you at what level of importance do you put the murder of my brother, Eddie Fullerton, who was an elected member of Donegal County Council and a politician of this State? And what are you going to do about it? And how long have we to wait for justice after 14 years? Thank you.”
Chair (Michael Reade): “Minister, will there be an independent inquiry as has been called for?”
Minister McDowell: “Well the first thing I want to say is, in relation to what level of importance do I put on it, I put the killing of any person – any person from whatever background or whatever community – at the highest level of importance. And I condemn absolutely and totally the use of violence, and more particularly lethal violence, for any political end. And I have no doubt in saying that murder is murder, no matter by whom it is committed. And Eddie Fullerton should be alive today and those who were responsible for his cowardly murder have a huge moral blame attaching to them. I would say to you that I am considering whether there is a basis for an inquiry into whether there was police collusion north or south of the border into the death of Eddie Fullerton.
“And if I found that there was a credible basis for the suggestion, for instance, that members of An Garda Siochána – as has been claimed – had anything to do with it, I would be the first to have an inquiry into that issue. And, as you know, in relation to collusion matters, the Irish Government at Weston Park committed itself to inquiring into a number of acts of collusion. Judge Peter Cory requested us to do it and I have established in recent times one public tribunal of inquiry into that matter.
No hierarchy among those who were murdered: “Can I just add to that that the killing of Eddie Fullerton was murder, and the killing of Jean McConville was murder, and there is no qualification of that in my mind, none whatsoever, and I deprecate any politician who would say that Eddie Fullerton was murdered and Jean McConville was not murdered. You can’t dine a la carte at the table of human rights. And there is no distinction to be drawn between those who are disappeared and buried here in Meath and other places, and Eddie Fullerton either. All of them are human beings. And Pat Finucane’s murder was murder, Eddie Fullerton’s murder was murder, in my mind. Jean McConville’s murder was murder, in my mind, and so were all the killings of the Disappeared. And, unlike other politicians, I don’t create any hierarchy among those who were murdered.
Chair (Michael Reade): “Minister, would the role of the Gardaí in Donegal and the findings of the Morris Tribunal make that statement any different?”
Minister McDowell: “No. I mean the events into which Judge Morris is inquiring are located in Donegal but they are quite different from the murder of Eddie Fullerton and I don’t see that they are part of a sequence of events. But, as I say, if a credible basis is put forward by anyone for believing first of all that Eddie Fullerton’s murder was in any way contributed to by a member of An Garda Siochána, and that an inquiry is capable of establishing the truth of such a proposition, I wouldn’t shy away from it for one minute.”
Chair (Michael Reade): “And the Gardaí in Donegal obviously, in your view, deserve a presumption of innocence?”
Minister McDowell: “Sorry, in relation to the Eddie Fullerton matter, I have not seen credible evidence that suggested that they are involved and I don’t believe that the great majority of Irish people believe that there is at the moment any great credible evidence of that proposition.”
Q.2. Cllr. Tomás Sharkey (Sinn Féin):
(i) Re murder of Eddie Fullerton: “Good evening, Minister, my name is Tomás Sharkey, Sinn Féin Co Councillor in County Louth. Just before I deal with my main question, on the issue of Cllr. Eddie Fullerton, who was murdered 14 years ago last week, I do believe that it’s incredible that we can sit here tonight and hear you making announcements about the guilt of the IRA in robberies, and to stand over your statements that you know what you know, without anything having been proven in a court of law and yet when a documentary aired by TG4 clearly gives new evidence and new eyewitness accounts of suspected collusion in the murder of a county councillor and an elected councillor for Donegal County Council, I find that hard to take. Last week Donegal County Council unanimously called for a public independent inquiry by an individual of international repute to look into the murder of Eddie Fullerton, and I think that should be acted upon because that motion will be put before Louth County Council shortly as well.
(ii) Re immigration law: “Why I did want to ask a question is: I was very interested in your talk, and I thought it was very informative. In the first couple of minutes you mentioned how you wanted to see a society in Ireland that is pluralist and tolerant and equal. As an elected public representative in County Louth, I meet many people, but the case that most struck me was a family of asylum seekers in Dundalk. The mother of that family described how her teenage daughter had been dragged from her home and was mutilated and bled to death, and how she fled with her youngest daughter to Ireland, and was going through the trauma and indignity of having to appeal to you and your good office for permission to stay in this State. And the most telling thing about that meeting was when the family left my office, the Sinn Féin office in Dundalk, the young child turned around and said: ‘slan go fóil, agus go raibh míle mhaith agat’ [goodbye and thanks].
“But then, later on that week, I saw you on television talking about ‘cock and bull’ stories that you allege are being made up by families. And I wonder where’s the pluralism and where’s the tolerance? And when you declare that inequality can be a good thing, I wonder what are your credentials and what is your vision for equality, tolerance and pluralism in this State?”
Minister McDowell:
(i) Re murder of Eddie Fullerton: “Well first of all … you’re an elected member of Sinn Féin, and what I am astonished by is that senior members of your party – and I don’t know if you are one of them but you can tell us if you are not – are willing to say that killing Jean McConville wasn’t murder but killing Eddie Fullerton was…. and maybe you can explain how one was justified and the other wasn’t and how one fits into one category and the other doesn’t.”
(ii) Re immigration law and asylum-seekers: “In relation to the question of immigration law, I have a difficult job as Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, in that I have to run the State’s asylum-seeking law, its visas and immigration law, in large measure. And I have always told the Irish people the truth about these matters. There is a huge amount of asylum-seeking in Ireland which is basically motivated by economic interests. There’s a lot of misinformation as well. Right across Europe, the success rate of first instance of Nigerian asylum-seekers is less than 2% which means that 98 out of every 100 asylum seekers, in every country in Europe where they make applications, are rejected at first instance.
“Now, you don’t see all the reasons that they give for coming to Ireland but I do. And I have to say to you that if I was at liberty to publish everybody’s file you would be satisfied, in the great majority of cases, that the consideration of whether they are entitled to protection by the Irish State and the appeal process is very fair. Let me just tell you a couple of things about our system. If you come to Ireland claiming to be an asylum seeker, you have a hearing in the office of the Refugee Applications Commission. For that hearing you are given legal assistance, translators, officials hear the case, take a case history from you and decide whether your case does or does not merit protection under the 1951 Geneva Convention. If you lose that case you are then given the right of appeal to an independent Refugee Appeals Tribunal. It reconsiders the case, again you are fully legally aided, you can make all the points you want to make and you get a hearing before that body. If you are turned down a second time you are given a notice that, notwithstanding the fact that it has been adjudicated that you are not entitled to refugee status, that you can apply to remain in Ireland on the basis of humanitarian need to remain, and that that will be considered by the Department of Justice and in the last analysis, the decision taken by the Minister.
“Anybody who is deported from Ireland has gone through all of those processes and has also been offered the right to go home, voluntary repatriation with assistance arranged at the International Organisation on Migration. And nobody is deported unless they have gone through all of those stages and have decided not to go home voluntarily but to remain on in Ireland. Now these are facts which the Irish people just simply aren’t told about. They are told about dawn raids and swoops, they are not told about the huge files that grow as each stage of that process is gone through.
Ireland’s asylum law: “And Ireland has a system of asylum law which is totally open to UN inspection and which is very highly spoken of by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. But in the last analysis we have to have a system whereby if your case is rejected on credibility grounds, or on legal grounds, and it has gone through all of those arrangements, that in the last analysis you must be liable to be deported. If we didn’t have that, our system would fall into disrepute. And the consequences of it falling into disrepute would not be favourable at all, it would play straight into the hands of those in Irish society who would use racism and xenophobia and fear of immigration to exploit that for political ends. We don’t have to look far across Europe to see that even in societies which the Irish would regard as progressive liberal societies, such as Holland, Denmark, Austria and other places, that in those societies the fear of migration, fear of asylum seeking, has been ruthlessly exploited by opportunistic politicians to attempt to grab for themselves 10 or 20% of the vote and a place in Parliament.
Constitutional referendum on citizenship (2004): “Now I have stood up for a fair system of migration law into Ireland. I changed the citizenship law in order to prevent it being abused by people who came to Ireland under the guise of asylum, had a child in Ireland and then said that because they have an Irish child they wanted to remain in Ireland or to go elsewhere in Europe. When I say I changed it, I proposed an amendment to the Irish people and it was passed by 80% of them. Your party, Mr Sharkey, told me I was a racist and that it was a racist referendum. 80% of the Irish people – and you are a republican – voted for it because they knew it was necessary to bring sanity to Irish law.
“And secondly, in relation to that issue, I said at the time that I would – once that referendum was passed – deal with the Irish-born children issue in a fair, humane and commonsense way. And I want you to know that I published a scheme earlier this year and all the parents of Irish-born children who remained with their children in Ireland were free to avail of that scheme and, if they were of good character and they were genuine people, they are entitled to remain here for two years and then a further period of three years, and then after that period they will be entitled to remain in Ireland indefinitely. 18,500 people have applied to remain in Ireland under that scheme. I believe I have been more than reasonable, more than fair, and I have lived up to my word. And secondly I want to say that those 18, 500 people give the lie to the media suggestions at the time that I was raising an issue over a handful of people and that there was no significant issue, and that I was manufacturing figures to suggest there was a problem. 18, 500 people are staying in Ireland on foot of the scheme that I put through.
“And I reject, I have to say, the Sinn Féin line that the referendum was racist or that the decision of the Irish people was racist. And what’s more I’ll tell you, that when your canvassers went door to door with leaflets saying that, they gave up very soon and concentrated on the other issues in the local election because they realised they were getting doors closed in their face on that basis. So I would ask you not to be opportunistic on that subject.”
Chair (Michael Reade): “Minister, if I could come back, I just want briefly – because
we really should be talking about Northern politics – but just to expand briefly if you
wouldn’t mind, Minister, do you believe that the system for processing applications is
too slow and cumbersome to ask some people to wait as long as 4 years because by
that stage they have integrated into society, and that whilst the deportations may be
justified, the system for administering justice is somewhat cold?”
Minister McDowell: “I do agree that there was a huge volume of backlogged applications at the beginning, and that was because Ireland was a country of net emigration which suddenly became a country of immigration, it wasn’t prepared for the asylum-seeking phenomenon on the scale that we experienced it. But I do make the point that 90% of the applications for asylum in Ireland were not justified and no amount of spinning one way or the other can change that state of affairs. Likewise, the cost of asylum-seeking in Ireland is very significant. 370 million euro per annum is the estimated cost across all government agencies of dealing with the asylum issue. It’s not an inconsiderable issue, and when 90% of it is not warranted, it does require that someone in my position is straight about the issue and deals with it effectively.
Huge change: “But again what the media have not been reflecting, in my view, adequately, and tonight’s a good opportunity to begin to correct that, is that there has been huge change. We’ve now reached the point in relation to the prioritised country that applications are being dealt with from beginning to end through all the stages that I mentioned earlier in a number of weeks. You mentioned families who have been here for some time. And yes there have been families who have been here for some time and asked to go home. Each of those families has gone through the process that I have mentioned and Ireland has been – not like Australia, we haven’t put people into detention centres or segregated them from the population. Our approach to asylum-seeking has been very open. The children of asylum seekers go to the same schools as our own children in Ireland. We have operated on the basis that while they are here they are welcome guests in our community. But they aren’t entitled to, say for instance, a status which is better or superior to a visiting worker who is working in Ireland and who at the end of his or her visa has to go home and bring their children with them.
“And whether it is an American executive coming to Intel, who stays here for 3 years and for whatever reason is required to go home, he has to bring his children with him even though that involves breaking their friendships at school, and all the disappointments that that entails. The same applies to someone who comes to Ireland, seeks the protection of the Irish State, goes through due process and must go home at the end of it. ….[tape break]…..
Q. 3. Nuala McGuinness (Nobber). Re federal/confederal state.
“My name is Nuala McGuinness, originally from Co. Down [now living in Meath]:
“Minister, I would like your opinion on having a federal or confederal state in this
country. Thank you.”
Minister McDowell: “Nuala, I do believe that Irish unity is inevitable. I believe it is inevitable for a number of reasons. I think the people of these islands want Irish unity, the great majority of the people of the island of Britain want Irish unity whenever their opinions are asked in opinion polls or whatever. So I think it is going to happen some day and then the question is is it going to happen in some kind of click of the fingers, suddenly everybody wakes up in an all Ireland single unitary state or is it going to be something which will be accommodated in stages or accommodated in a confederal or federal arrangement. My own view is that it is more likely that at some stage the economic and cultural integration of both parts of this island will lead to a situation where even with NI remaining part of the UK for a while it will for instance develop much enhanced connections with the South of Ireland. One thing that I have often thought is that if the Irish state was really interested in unity we should have permanently on offer to the people of NI the right to share our membership of the European Union and to share the way in which we exercise that membership without prejudice as to whether you are a unionist or a nationalist.
Real political progress comes in stages: “I think it is unlikely that there will be a big bang revolutionary change one morning, some kind of political ‘Tet’ offensive where everyone will wake up, suddenly there will be a single unitary Irish state. I think it is more likely that it will go in stages, looking at our history from the Treaty to de Valera’s 1937 Constitution, to Costello’s declaration of the Republic, to the Good Friday Agreement via Sunningdale. If you look at all of that I think that real political progress is done in stages, not in revolutionary big bank political upheavals. So I do actually believe that, if the Good Friday Agreement beds down and if there is power-sharing in Northern Ireland between both communities, and if equality and mutual respect and respect for each other’s positions beds down and the politics of polarisation being practised by the DUP and Sinn Féin are eclipsed or at least moderated to the point where normality was centre ground emerges, that the institutions in NI will gain a life of their own of some kind, and that there will be some federal or confederal arrangement. And even Sinn Féin in times past looked to a confederal or federal Ireland as a way forward. And even if you look at de Valera’s Constitution of 1937, he talked about legislatures other than Dail Eireann operating in parts of the country. So my function this evening is not to map out what happens over the next 25 or 30 years but I do believe that if you ask me to say whether those kind of models are more likely than not to be part of the process of establishing political and cultural and economic unity on this island, I would say the answer is yes.”
Q. 4. Brendan Markey, re Disappeared:
“Minister my name is Brendan Markey and I live in Wilkinstown, 6 miles north of Navan, Co. Meath. I happen to own a few acres of land in Wilkinstown called Coghalstown Bog, and – peace and reconciliation – two young men were murdered by Sinn Féin/IRA in the early 70s. One of those young men was a month short of his 17th birthday. Their family meets me regularly and they walk the bog. We’ve been able in this community of Wilkinstown to think of those two young men. I would love to call on you Minister to assist, because local knowledge, as you said one time ‘I know what I know’. The people who carried out this butchery murdering antics in north Meath back in the early 70s, the mother of the young 17 year old has been in mentally handicapped hospitals for the last 23 years. I would like to examine can we look for those bodies and return them to the families and put together the past and unite the families? Thank You.
Minister McDowell: “Thanks. The answer to that by the way is, first of all, of the 9 people whose bodies were not accounted for arising out of the murder campaign of the Provisionals, 5 of them are still missing, and it is believed that for 3 of them their bodies are buried in Co. Meath. And the Commission which was established under the chairmanship of the former Tanaiste John Wilson has made every effort in the past to try to locate those remains and to reunite them with their loved ones.
Forensic expert: “And of recent times a proposal has been made that an expert in forensic geography who was involved in the investigations into the Moors Murders in Britain should be retained to assist in yet another effort to locate those graves and to reunite the loved ones of those people who died with their remains and a proper Christian burial for them. And the two governments have agreed that that should be done and yet another effort should be made to find them. Certainly I would urge anybody with local knowledge, or local intuition… If you know a bog, for instance, you’d know if you’d walked it as a child the bits that haven’t been disturbed, then you might be in a better position to identify it to experts coming in the bits that could be in the frame and the bits that could not be. So I would thank you very much for what I would presume is your offer that you and your neighbours would assist in any way these experts in making another search.
Physical and psychological torture: “And can I just finish by saying this in relation to the Disappeared. Each and every person who the IRA decided to kill after interrogation was put through a form of psychological terror called a court martial and many of them – and I don’t want to say this to disturb any people whose relatives have been found or have not been found – many of them underwent physical and psychological torture of the worst kind before they were killed. And many of them were terrorised into making tapes admitting that they had informed or whatever, as an inducement to save their skins, and those tapes were then sent to the relatives as proof that they were so-called ‘guilty people’.
IRA Army Council: “The rules of the IRA – and this is something that the Irish media should again bear in on – are that nobody can be, as they call it, ‘executed’, as I call it, ‘murdered’ – at the end of a court-martial unless that sentence as they call it is sanctioned by the Army Council of the IRA. It’s written into the Green Book of the IRA. And even after torturing somebody and getting whatever they wanted out of them, or even if they didn’t, they got no admission, that nobody could be shot in the head and dumped on the border or buried secretly in Meath or Louth without the sanction of the IRA Army Council.
“And I just want to say that the people who populated that Army Council during all those years, many of them are now posing on the stage as Mandela rather than Mugabe. Those people have direct responsibility for the deaths that they sanctioned in each and every case. Posturing as being concerned when you and your colleagues actually gave the direction that a bullet was to be put through the head of this person or that, is outrageous and an exercise in gross hypocrisy.
Governments restarting the process: “But angry though it is possible to feel about the hypocrisy that we have to put up with by people who were directly involved in making those decisions now posturing as being concerned about retrieving the bodies of the people whose murder they sanctioned, the two governments are absolutely committed to doing anything that is reasonable to recover the remains of those people and bring closure in so far as they can to people who have spent years in the circumstances you described of complete agony wondering whatever happened. And you know that Templetown beach [Co. Louth], nearly the whole beach was taken away and it turned out afterwards that the information that we were given was a half a mile out. The same has happened in other places but if I have any reason to believe that I can in fact with any reasonable prospect – I am not creating absolutely false hopes – repeat any search or carry out any new search that will bring closure to those people’s lives insofar as losing their loved ones is concerned, we will do it. And the Irish and British governments have recently taken steps to restart that process with the assistance of an expert to try and see what we can do and I would appeal to anybody either side of the border, I would appeal to anybody who lives anywhere near any of these places, to come forward with any hunch they have or any information they have, or any local knowledge of the topography they have, to assist with the process.
Chair (Michael Reade, LMFM): “Could you expand on the expert that you are referring to, is it a forensic expert?”
Minister McDowell: “Yes I have forgotten the gentleman’s name, it goes out of my head at the moment, he is an individual who assisted with the investigation of the Moors Murder. I spoke the other day to Peter Hain about this and we both have initiated an approach to the Victims’ Commission and to this expert, to restart the process and to re-engage with his assistance to see if that can advance the whole situation.”
Q.5. Peadar Toibín (Sinn Féin, Navan):
(i) Re allegations of criminality and due process: “My name is Peadar Toibín. I would like to thank you first of all for coming down to Navan today. There have been a lot of very interesting points made. But at the very start of the meeting I think was a very educational point. The last time you were down in Navan [30 September 2002] was very close to the fall of the Assembly and I suppose we all know why the Assembly fell: there were allegations of a Sinn Féin spying ring and a number of known republicans were arrested, and then the Assembly fell which was a travesty and a major injustice. But then we saw that when the eyes of the media were diverted, that the people whom the charges were made against, the charges were actually dropped, and recently the PSNI were asked what stage was the investigation in, and the PSNI admitted that the investigation was over. So what we have is the PSNI were either inept – they could not find enough evidence to put these people into prison – or they had actually concocted the whole story to bring about the end of the Assembly. Now many in the establishment including yourself at the time also gave out about this republican spy ring, and again no evidence came there.
Due process: “And the question I would like to ask you Minister, is: why do you expect me, in a liberal democracy, to believe you when you state you know what you know, and you can condemn groups around the country. Surely in a liberal democracy people have due process, surely they have presumption of innocence Minister, and it strikes me as something that would happen in Chile under Pinochet, where a Minister would condemn great numbers of people without people bothering to give them the right to a trial amongst their peers, a trial in front of a jury, or a trial in front of a judge. Now I know what kind of an answer you are going to give me, Minister, you’re going to give me examples again of some things republican members have done.
(ii) Re Minister’s condemnation of republicans: “”But I would just like to say one other thing, you also said that you were as equally interested in finding justice for the Fullerton family as you were for the McConville family, and I would commend you if that were true, but the whole energy of your ministerial journey so far has been attacking people who call themselves republicans. If you were to put the same energy into trying to bring about the end of loyalist murders, loyalist criminality, I would believe you Minister but you haven’t. In this whole speech tonight you’ve spent all your time condemning republicans, people who want to bring about a united Ireland.
Chair (Michael Reade): “I would just mention to you Minister that was a member of Sinn Féin and Brendan Markey who spoke earlier is a member of Fianna Fáil.”
Minister McDowell: “Can I make the point to you, Peadar, that I happen to know that the Provos carried out the Northern Bank job, I happen to know that the Gardaí have fully investigated a money laundering operation involving senior members of your party who were found in possession of large sums of money. And I happen to know that an ongoing criminal investigation is at hand in relation to those issues. And I will not be browbeaten by any political party into concealing from the Irish people the truth about these matters. There’s a difference between admissible evidence in a court and intelligence. If I don’t tell the Irish people what is actually happening on the basis that there has been no court case yet, it could spell the end of Irish democracy.
Dublin robberies: “For instance, I earlier spoke about the series of robberies in Dublin which were conducted by the IRA under the aegis of the adjutant in Belfast. None of those have resulted in prosecutions and the reason they haven’t – I’ll tell you now the reason they haven’t. First of all, in relation to the last of those robberies, the consignment of stolen goods was traced to a warehouse on the west side of Dublin. And Gardaí raided that warehouse and recovered the goods. They interrogated a number of people concerned with the warehouse and established that they were not aware of the fact that the goods were stolen and that they were innocent of any part in the robbery of the goods or the storage of them on that site. But it’s very interesting to note that one of the individuals who the Gardaí arrested and interviewed in relation to this issue was subsequently visited by two leading members of your party – Provisional Sinn Féin – one of whom had been released from prison for serving a sentence of 40 years for the capital murder of an Irish garda.
“So concerned were the Gardaí about the safety of the man whom they were going to visit to find out what happened, that they intervened and arrested all three of them. Those were two members of your party, Peadar, who were arrested in the aftermath of that robbery, inquiring of that man what happened. And what’s more, so that you should know the truth, Peadar, the group of people who had done the robbery were summoned to a meeting with the adjutant of the IRA who is based in Belfast and threatened that if the events ever took place again, they would be shot dead.
Intimidation: “Now those are the facts, Peadar, you can try and escape them any way you like, but your party, and senior members of it, and the adjutant of the IRA in Belfast who is rubbing shoulders with the people who you cheer at ardfheiseanna – these are the people who perpetrated that robbery. And if you think that the Irish people shouldn’t be aware of these facts because due to intimidation – the same kind of intimidation, let me just finish, that reduced the murder charge in Jerry McCabe’s case to a manslaughter conviction – if you think that the Irish people will be kept away from the truth by Provo intimidation of this kind, and that I won’t tell the Irish people what’s gong on because the Provos can – by threatening people – prevent the truth emerging in criminal courts and prevent admissible evidence, proof beyond reasonable doubt, from being made available to the Director of Public Prosecutions, you are very very wrong.
Determination to put facts before the people: “I am determined, and I will make a habit of it as long as it is necessary to do so, Peadar, to put the facts before the Irish people so that people who masquerade as being interested in human rights while at the same time organising major criminality and threatening people with execution don’t support that movement with funds which they steal from ordinary citizens in Ireland.”
Peadar Toibín: “If I could, Mr McDowell, I would like you to answer the question I asked you – why should anybody expect, why should you expect me to believe your point of view or your opinion on these things? In a liberal democracy we have a right to due process where the Northern Bank issue, all these other issues, people will get a chance, a day in court. It strikes me as undemocratic for a Minister for Justice to use his position, without giving evidence to the population of their peers, to use his position to condemn groups of people or individuals. I ask you why do you expect me to believe you without you putting it in court?
Minister McDowell: “I’ll tell you exactly why I expect them to believe me, because I have a record of telling the truth, unlike Gerry Adams who has a record of telling lies, saying he was never in the IRA and pretending he was never in the IRA, I don’t deny my past –[interruptions]… your friends over there are getting active, Peadar, but the fact is I tell the truth and I have a record and a reputation for telling the truth, that’s why you should believe me.
Re killing of Jean McConville: “And a second point, and I’ll ask you now Peadar, since you’ve talked about liberal democracy, would you stand up there again and take the microphone in your hand and tell me: was the killing of Jean McConville a murder?”
Chair: “It would be unusual I think for somebody in this locality outside of Arthur Morgan to answer that question.”
Peadar Toibín: “First of all, again you did say – [interruptions from members of the audience saying repeatedly ‘answer the question!’] – I asked the question, you said because you should believe me, Peadar, on this. For anybody to say – [interruptions from audience] – in the case of Jean McConville, I actually think that the killing personally was a murder, so I have no problem in saying that at all.”
Minister McDowell: “Why can’t Gerry Adams …?
Peadar Toibín: “He will answer his own questions, Mr McDowell. But I want you to put the same efforts as you have put in in the case of Mrs McConville, to put the same effort into the case of the Fullerton family here. It’s not a one-way street, Mr McDowell. There are other people in this room who have suffered from the Troubles. All I am saying is try to represent both sides fairly and stop putting your energy trying to demonise people like me and other republicans around the country.”
Minister McDowell: “Can I put this to you Peadar? Any killing, any murder, was wrong, and I am glad that you had the moral courage to distance yourself from the prevarication and the hypocrisy of Gerry Adams who pretended that the killing of Jean McConville was not a murder, and likewise Mitchel McLaughlin and Mary Lou McDonald who couldn’t admit these propositions.
Inquiring into past murders: “But can I make the other point to you? That if we are going down the road of uncovering the perpetrators of every murder, do you expect me to show the same zeal now to try to find out who were the team of IRA gunmen who took the 10 Protestants off the bus at Kingsmill and drew them aside machine-gunned them? Do you think that I should pursue that with the same zeal? Do you think that we should spend the last 20 years working out who did set off the bomb at Birmingham, who did let off the bomb at the Le Mons restaurant, who did let off the bomb at Enniskillen – [interruption from audience] … and who let off the Monaghan bombs, I am doing something about that, and I’ve spent many years as Attorney General and as Minister for Justice progressing the Dublin-Monaghan bombing and pressing for a full revelation of the truth in relation to that.
Liberal democracy requires that everyone obeys the rule of law: “But I ask you – rather than engage in this propaganda in which you are engaging of saying that I am in some sense being cavalier with the rights of the Provisional movement by pointing out when they are engaging in crime when they are – to concentrate on this issue, that a liberal democracy requires that everyone upholds the rule of law and there isn’t a la carte dining at the table of human rights, or at the table of the protection of the law, that every punishment beating is wrong.
Jean McConville killing: “And if you are a member of Sinn Féin, Peadar, you are in a much closer position to stand up at your Ard Fheis and say that the murder of Jean McConville was murder, but I don’t recall ever hearing you ever doing that, and I’d be interested if you go and repeat that at the next Ard Fheis, I’d be interested to see what kind of reception you get from your fellow delegates.
Q. 6. Sean Collins (Drogheda Cross-Border Focus Group):
“You’re welcome to Navan, Minister. I am a stranger here myself so I feel welcome. I have heard you called a lot of things over the years but Pinochet, that’s the best yet. You couldn’t possibly be using your campaign, or your position as Minister for Justice to condemn the IRA because you have been doing it for years, long before you were ever Minister for Justice, so fair is fair.
(i) Re Ardoyne disturbances (17 June): “I sat on Friday night with a group of women from staunchly nationalist Short Strand working with a group of women from staunchly loyalist inner east Belfast, and they all recoiled in horror at what they saw on TV, the pictures that were transmitted of the golf balls flying across the land rovers at the bandsmen marching. It reminded me of over 30 years ago now, I suppose, it’s nearly an eternity away – Burntollet Bridge – when the TV cameras opened the eyes of the world to what was happening in Northern Ireland with the proud B Specials beating up the people campaigning for civil rights. It reminded me a lot of that because I think Friday night’s events opened the eyes of a lot of people North and South.
(ii) Have Sinn Féin lost it? “The thing that strikes me, and I’m curious to ask at your level – if it is possible to ask – I’ve admired Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness for a number of years for bringing the IRA or Sinn Féin, or whatever they are, together, into the Good Friday Agreement, and I’ve admired them for that because I believe that was a very hard job, but in the light of the Northern Bank robbery and a number of other events and to see Gerry Kelly helplessly trying to control the events on Friday night, has Sinn Féin – are they losing it or have they lost it? Or they not leading so-called nationalist Northern Ireland any more?
Minister McDowell: “Well Sean, they are not losing it. Everything they do is very carefully planned. It’s not a question of losing it at all. You say what those women who are trying to do what I was talking in earlier – engage in the vocation of reconciliation across the peace line in Belfast – you say what their reaction was to those scenes on TV but I know that a senior member of Sinn Féin, on the following day, contacted the Dublin Government arising out of that incident and asked what the Dublin Government is going to do to protect the nationalist people of Ardoyne. I know that that’s what the reaction was, the following day.
Personal courage doesn’t mean your cause is right: “So I mean we have to be very very careful here, that we don’t allow people to pervert truth for their own purposes, and you know, I’ll give you this, I give the Sinn Féin people here, the minority of this audience which is Sinn Féin, I give them this: that many people in the Provisional movement displayed personal courage over the years, but many people in the Japanese Army in the Second World War displayed personal courage, and indeed in the German Army in the Second World War displayed personal courage, but the fact that people display courage doesn’t mean that their cause is right, or what they were doing was justifiable. And we have to distinguish between propaganda – for instance, I believe that Bobby Sands was sentenced to imprisonment for serious crimes and I also believe that many people in Northern Ireland salute his courage in making the sacrifice of his own life … but the fact that people show courage doesn’t mean that their cause is right, no more than the suicide bombers in Iraq today are justified in what they are doing even though it obviously takes huge courage to blow yourself to pieces in order to make some kind of point or whatever, it doesn’t make killing other people right.
Real challenge for republicanism: “And this is why the Irish people have to move to a new plane, and we can’t all the time dwell in the past, we can’t spend our lives marching up and down in lines at memorials all around Ireland to Volunteers, the rest of us have got over all of that and have moved on to the real challenge for republicanism which is reconciling the people of this island, North and South.
Bodenstown commemorations: “And you know I was very interested, just looking at today’s papers, at the picture of Bodenstown, and you have to hand it to the Provos, instead of the usual colour party with berets, black glasses and polo necks, there are fellows in golf club type blazers now leading off the parade.
Provisional movement is moving: “So they are moving, and it’s all very carefully orchestrated, and somebody sat down and ordered those blazers yesterday and somebody …[tape break]… they are moving, and the only thing that will force them to move, and the only thing that has been effective in the past in forcing them to move, is that the rest of us stand up against them and say: we don’t accept the propaganda, level with us, deal with us in ordinary democratic language, and accept the ballot box as the only measure of moral entitlement to engage in political activity, don’t ask us to say that you have a mandate from history which excuses you from obeying the criminal law and which allows you to kill people or allows you to rob, or whatever.
Honest speaking: “I mean, I am very very confident that Irish society has moved ahead of the Provisional movement and that they are now catching up and that they will make all the necessary steps to catch up, but will only have to happen if we reject the cant, if we say to Gerry Adams we don’t believe you when you say you weren’t in the IRA, we know you were. If we say to Adams and McGuinness we know you were on the Army Council when all these things were done, don’t give us this guff that you weren’t. If we’re honest with them, they will be forced to address us in honest terms, if we constantly appease them by using their kind of Provo speak – parallel universe stuff – that they are the legitimate government of Ireland and that’s what there in Dublin is some compromise rump of Uncle Tom, if we appease them in all of that language they will take liberties with us, but when we say no, enough, they actually respond much better than the fudge and wink type of politics.”
Q. 7. Hazlett Lynch (West Tyrone Voice):
“Hazlett Lynch, director of West Tyrone Voice victims’ group, west of the Bann in Northern Ireland. Mr McDowell, this has been a tremendous experience for me, and I know for the people who are with me, to be here tonight and to hear some straight talking. We have appreciated over the years, since you became Justice Minister here in the Republic, the things that you have said, the clear thinking that you have been able to articulate and the passion with which you have held your views. And it has encouraged us enormously, in Northern Ireland, to hear somebody in the Republic speaking the way you do. I would to God we had people in Northern Ireland and in the UK Government who would speak the way that you speak.”
Recent elections – demise of PUP: “There is a mantra that seems to be repeated time and time again by the media and politicians both in your country and in our country that gives the impression that the opposite party or political ideology to Sinn Féin/IRA is the DUP. That, sir, is manifestly untrue.
“The opposite of Sinn Féin/IRA is the PUP, David Ervine’s crowd. And what happened in the last election was this: unionist voters decided significantly to rob the PUP of half of its members in the Assembly, reducing them to one. That was a tremendous encouragement to the unionist people in Northern Ireland, to see that they were prepared to put their mark on the ballot paper to try and marginalize as far as they could any political grouping that was associated with armed terrorism.
Nationalist community: “The disappointing thing is that within the nationalist community the reverse was recorded – that there was an increase in support for IRA psychopathic murderers and killers, people who as terrorists are masquerading as politics. I am delighted to hear you using terms similar to that.
Amnesty for on-the-runs: “But one of the things that really does cause us concern in Northern Ireland is that these people, these self-same people, who you describe so accurately and on terms that I can identify with very very well, these same people have been asking for, and being granted by both governments, a de facto amnesty for on-the-run terrorists who are living in your country. Now victims of terrorism find it very very difficult in their daily lives to have to walk past and to see the people who murdered their loved ones and who put their lives under threat. This amnesty is to be activated this summer. I would ask you, sir, I don’t know if it is possible, but I know that you are concerned for law and order, I know that you are committed to promoting decency in your country and in our country, can I ask you, as a victim whose brother was murdered by the thugs who have their fellow workers, fellow-travellers with us tonight, can I ask you to do all in your power to stop the granting of political forgiveness or amnesty to psychopathic killers who will return to Northern Ireland again and harass and intimidate and torture those who were responsible for putting them behind bars in the first place?”
Minister McDowell: “thank you for your kind remarks at the beginning. What the Good Friday Agreement was about in part was a decision to draw a line across history and to say we have to have a new beginning. And, for many people, the widows of the policemen who were shot both North and South of the border, it was a bitter day to see the people who shot their husbands go free under the Good Friday Agreement. And for many people, I agree with you, that the prospect of closing the files on many of those cases are bitter fruits indeed, because they hoped against hope that the system of justice would at least establish the truth even if it wasn’t going to exact punishment. My own judgment about these matters – and you may find this slightly disappointing but it’s true in my view – there has to come a time when, on both sides of the divide in this country, we say that we are going to look forward to the future together rather than continue to require a determination of past wrongs.
Unbalanced approach to inquiries into past events: “But what I would like is that the Sinn Féin people in this audience to dwell and reflect for a moment on the intensity of the words you just used, because what I have noticed is that there was an absolute determination by the Provisionals that the on-the-runs should be excused and that the prisoners should be released, but at the same time, an absolutely unquenchable demand that every wrong done on the other side should be the subject of intense inquiry and scrutiny. And that I find difficult to take.
“If the name of the game is drawing a line across the page of history, people will have to realise that the pain you feel, obviously, and the loss of your brother, and the notion that the likes of his killers will be able to return even without facing a criminal trial, that that pain is real and substantial as you just announced it there, and that those who keep demanding, incessantly and insatiably, further and further inquiries – which suit their political purpose – into events 10, 15 and 20 years ago should realise how unbalanced that approach is. That what’s reasonable to ask you to accept, in their mind, which is that your brother’s killers should walk past you in the street, free or unconvicted as the case might be, is equally full of the implication for them that they cannot constantly recreate history and pretend that all of the injustices done to their side of the equation should be the subject of tribunal after tribunal, inquiry after inquiry, and the like. And that the Police Service of Northern Ireland at some stage – like the Gardaí here – should be free to police that society and to protect today’s youth from having their legs broken by thugs, rather than trying to work out at a distance of 20 years ago what happened in the murky days of a dirty war.
“So, you may find what I am saying slightly disappointing, because I do believe that, just as it makes sense to say to the men of violence on either side you may go free from prison, and have your punishment set aside, it may make in certain cases sense to say that those who have not yet been accused but are suspected should go uninvestigated and unconvicted and that may be part of the price of bringing normality.
Sense of injustice felt by victims: “But I want to say this, and finish on this note again, that the pent-up anger and sense of injustice that you have articulated here today should be listened to, particularly by the Provisionals, because when they demand, in retrospect, that all of their selective grievances should be fully investigated and pursued to the nth degree, they seem to be ignoring the pain and suffering that you have and what has already been accorded to them, at your psychological and emotional and sense of justice expense.
On-the-runs: “You asked me to oppose a policy of non-prosecution of the on-the-runs. I have to take a pragmatic view of that. It may be that it would be justified to bring an end to all the violence but the quid pro quo is that we don’t get the nonsense, the propaganda and the cant, that only people who in the new official Provo history of Ireland suffered injustice are the members of the Provisional movement or their supporters. That it was the mainly decent people on either side of the community who suffered most at their hands, and that most of that is going to go uninvestigated, unconvicted and unpunished. And I think that’s where the balance of history, where the pendulum will end up, it may not be satisfactory to you but I think it would be remiss of me to imply that you can let people out after serving a small fraction of a mandatory 40-year jail sentence for shooting a member of An Garda Siochana dead, as happened here, and you can’t see it as equally pragmatic in some circumstances to say to people who are suspected of similar offences in Northern Ireland that the process of criminal justice should be stayed in the interest of a brighter future for everyone.
“And those may be harsh words to you, but you praised me for straight talking, and you’re getting a bit of it now.”
Chair (Michael Reade): Re Sinn Féin leadership and IRA Army Council: “And Minister, do you believe that the Sinn Féin leadership, McGuinness, Adams and Ferris, remain on the IRA Army Council or has that changed in recent times?”
Minister McDowell: “I think they are now in the process, Michael, of actually trying to get out of it. But it’s purely cosmetic, they are in total charge of the Provisional movement, and as long as the IRA was a lethal force which was the backbone of the Provisional movement they remained centrally involved and in charge of it, and I regard it as a good thing that they are now trying to get out of it because it suggests that it is not going to be the centre of their political struggle in the future.”
Q. 8. William Smith.
“My name is Smith, William Smith. I am not a political supporter of the Minister but every time he speaks his mind to condemn the Provisional IRA, and … the IRA, and every time he condemns torturers and murderers and robbers, I am 100% behind him, as every decent Irishman should be, as every decent Irishman is…… And I am more than four score years and It’s time for me to shut up I suppose, I keep making myself unpopular and what I am going to say will make me more unpopular.
“I remember 73 years ago, 73 years now in January, going with my parents to the local polling booth where they were going to vote for Eamon Duggan. And for those people here who never heard of Eamon Duggan, he was one of the signatories of the Treaty, the Anglo-Irish Treaty, and that was the treaty which was the basis of the formation of this State which was led by W.T. Cosgrave and was opposed all those years – over 80 years now – by Republican Sinn Féin [tape unclear] ….and it is my understanding, I remember in the 1930s Thomas MacCurtain turned around in Patrick Street in Cork and shot a policeman in the stomach, and I will say this for de Valera who was not one of my favourite people, but he did during the early years of the 1940s stand up to them and when they tried to blackmail him by having a hunger striker in Portlaoise…… he stood his ground and let the man die which happened much later in Northern Ireland with all sorts of condemnations. But fair play to de Valera he wasn’t afraid to shoot people …..
Will Gerry Adams bring in the extremists? “To get to my question, does the Minister believe that when Gerry Adams eventually gets old enough and tired enough, and less ambitious, and adopts the road of democracy, is he equally going to bring all his followers with him? People who live in the sewers, those kind of people who still continue to believe in murder, torture and robbery as a means to achieving their political future… Does he believe that they will not become – I don’t want to use the word Omerta – but .. what happened in the United States and in Sicily, people who will be self-propagating and self-fulfilling, mé féiners, and does he believe that …?
Chair (Michael Reade): “Minister, before you respond that there are more questions than we have time left, and I am sorry to those of you in advance, but the question very simply is: will there be an old boys’ club, will that be acceptable?”
Minister McDowell: “William, can I say this? I can see where your politics are, from what you say there, can I say this too that my three sons, as I said earlier at the beginning, will number among their ancestors people who died for the Republic in the Civil War, people who put their lives on the line for the Free State in the Civil War, people who were on hunger strike for the Republic in the Civil War and people who later became Fianna Fail T.D.s. They number all of that, my sons will number all of that among their ancestry. And I believe that if you look back across the history of independent Ireland – from the Treaty onwards to de Valera taking power in 1932, to the 1937 Constitution and the like – that where things were wrong was when people pushed their ideology before their republican democratic values, and when things went well it was because republicans accepted that the will of the people was superior to their own theory of history.
Pernicious doctrine – IRA legitimacy: “And I believe that the greatest and most pernicious doctrine that the Provos at top level still believe is that the handful of survivors of the Second Dail in 1938, December 1938, handed over to the IRA the legitimate powers of the Irish State which they said was founded by the people in the 1918 and the next election, and the IRA declared itself to be the legitimate government of Ireland thereafter. That’s a very pernicious doctrine and totally anti-republican in view of the fact that the great majority of people who were in 1916, people who put their lives on the line to create an independent Irish State, brave people like Collins and De Valera, those people knew that the way to be a genuine republican and democrat was to work with what you had to transform it, to build a republican society on this island. And I look back across my own family history and across Irish history and I am willing to salute on both sides of the Civil War divide, and in subsequent political struggles and bitter disputes that there were, the genuine patriotism of those who went before the people, Duggan and others as you mentioned, and sought a democratic mandate and abided by it, and thought that there was no higher mandate than the vote of the people who supported them, and didn’t have an each-way bet on the armalite and the ballot box.
Provisional movement in democratic politics: ““You asked me the question, if Adams and McGuinness bring the Provisional movement to a totally political level and they just participate in democratic politics on the same way as the rest of us, will they bring their extremists with them? And my answer to that is, probably there will be a few hangers-on who will then revert to violence. I mean we have had indications the last number of months of people who have done precisely that, people who were in the past associated with the Provisional movement now they are simply using violence for their own personal gain. And we still have the dissidents and the CIRA and the RIRA there on the edges, but if you ask me do I believe that Adams and McGuinness will bring the Provisional movement with them largely speaking intact into democratic politics, if that is their choice, my answer is yes, they are in total control, they are in total control of that movement. They are not facing an internal mutiny, they are not facing an internal challenge, they are not facing a group of people who, for instance, will say well if you go down that road we’re hanging on to all the arms and the bunkers and all the rest of it, and the Semtex. I believe there will be decommissioning. I believe that they will bring the Provisional movement across the threshold – if they choose to do it – into democratic politics.
Need to stand firmly with conviction: “What I equally believe is that as long as people like you and me offer them the opportunity to have one foot on one side of the threshold of paramilitarism and democratic politics, and one foot on the other, as long as we were willing to tolerate that they were willing to exploit that witness on our part.
“And it is only when we say that the door to democracy is open and remains open but you must cross that threshold and stand with two feet on the democratic side of that line, it is only when you say that with absolute conviction and totally unwavering commitment to that proposition that they will actually make the shift. And the reason I am here tonight and I am making the points I am this evening and in other places is to articulate what I believe is the determination of what you describe as all decent Irish people – that this must be an unequivocal, irrevocable and non-negotiable movement from one position to another, and if the Provo leadership understands that that is the only show in town, I am confident that they will make that decision.
Appeasement: “If they are appeased, and there are appeasers, there are people in the media who criticise me for naming them and the members of the IRA Army Council. There are people in the media – and they know who they are, I am not going to dignify them by mentioning them because frankly they are not even worth a mention – who attacked me last year for standing up against the Provos when I knew what I knew. I am saying that if we go down the road of appeasement it will be exploited to create ambiguity and to allow them have this each-way bet of undemocratic activities… and it is only if we are absolutely rock-solid unshakeable that there is no way forward other than an exclusively peaceful and democratic political commitment from the Provisional movement, to operate within the rules of the laws on both parts of this island from now on, it’s only if we show that degree of determination and moral courage that they will make the inevitable break from the past and come in, like many others did before them, into democratic politics.”
Q. 9. Cllr. Michael Gallagher (Meath Sinn Féin):
Re Bobby Sands:“You’re very welcome to Meath, Minister. A few questions I would like to ask you. You’re very proud of your ancestors, and rightly so. How do you relate your grandfather to Bobby Sands? Do you class your grandfather as republican and Bobby Sands as a criminal? And the Provos that had to go out and defend our houses and properties in the ‘70s, and they were let down by this State, and you seem to have an awful lot of information on the Provos, it took 14 years to find out the criminality that was in the Guards in Donegal. Go raibh mhaith agat.”
Minister McDowell: “I don’t really see the question there.”
Michael Gallagher: “What is the difference between your grandfather as a republican freedom fighter, and Bobby Sands whom you classed as a criminal?”
Minister McDowell. “Bobby Sands, as you well know, was sent to jail for firearms offences as part of the Provisionals’ campaign in Northern Ireland. And just so that there should be no misunderstanding, from 1976 onwards use of violence in Northern Ireland – murder, explosives, firearms – was an offence against the Southern State’s laws as well, under the Criminal Law Jurisdiction Act [1976]. It was a breach of our law, it was a breach of the law of Northern Ireland. And I’m not in the business of condemning Bobby Sands for his hunger strike, and I’m not in the business of taking away the courage that that must have entailed, but I do say that people like John Hume, who took the peaceful path and were derided by the Provos and Sinn Féin for their stance, those people deserve a lot more hero-status in Ireland, than the people who engaged in the campaign of violence in Northern Ireland.
“And I also make this point: that you and I both aspire to be republicans, but what the Provisional movement did – in relation to setting back the process of reconciliation between Orange and Green in Northern Ireland – will take people like me many many decades to reverse. “
Member of audience: “Why did you oppose the Hume-Adams talks?”
Chair (Michael Reade): “Ok, I am just taking two more questions…”
Minister McDowell: “Because I will tell you why. At the time I believed that the Provisionals were going to try and have it both ways, and when you see the Northern Bank robbery you know that I wasn’t all wrong.”
Chair (Michael Reade): “I’ll take a few more questions, and I ask you to be brief, just ask the question.”
Q. 10. Ronnie Owens (Slane). Re rights and responsibilities: “Ronnie Owens, farmer and community worker, living close to where Brendan was referring to, where bodies were buried and I know about them since that time. Just in relation to today’s culture, if you like, bringing this whole issue of attempting to put solutions to problems, we talk nowadays about knowledge-based economy, most of us know about the ill effects of rampant consumerism, globalisation and commercialism. Would you agree that as an instrument to kind of inform people – Christianity was good at saying that people are duty bound to inform their conscience – one of the things that I see in many of the Bills of Rights that are put up nowadays in political form, they do not put down in equal standing, or equally articulated, they do not put down the responsibilities.
“I would have liked to have seen alongside the rights, the duties in equal form. I think looking at a lot of kids today, and a lot of demonstrations, people are very quick to engage in marches and protestations about their rights but there are very few marches about people’s responsibilities. In other words, as an instrument to maybe give people more courage, citizens – you talked earlier on about the foundations of republicanism, being republicanism of equality and fraternity in relation to all the citizens being equal to get the benefits, but I think they must equally inform themselves of their responsibilities.
“And in that sense people would be more courageous about refusing to be intimidated because I know locally people are intimidated, they know stuff and they are afraid to speak up about a lot of things, not just Sinn Féin/IRA stuff, but all kinds of other needs in society. So would you agree that maybe when Bills of Rights are being drawn up they should equally refer to responsibilities and it would be much more informative In people’s minds about the balance that should take place?
Minister McDowell: “the answer to that is I radically and profoundly agree with you, in relation to that. When I was a student of law in UCD, the late John Kelly was the man who lectured us in legal philosophy, and he constantly said what you are saying, a right without a corresponding duty is nothing …[tape break]… and it is certainly the case that in this day of huge concentration on human rights and rights-speak as a language, that everybody is articulating their grievances or their demands as denial of rights whereas nobody is stepping up to the plate and saying that other people must owe a duty for every one of these rights, and that we collectively, if we live in a society of rights, must live in a society of duties. That is undoubtedly the case and there is a huge moral vacuum in political discourse in Ireland based on that exact thing – that everybody is now articulating their views as an issue of rights. And in particular in relation to things which are political arguments, there’s a huge tendency now to put what you believe are your demands in the language of rights being denied to you rather than just simply say this is a political demand or a political policy which I am willing to advance. Everything is put in this business of if you don’t have X, somebody’s rights are being denied. Now I think that is a poison in the coinage of our political language, that we have forgotten the whole area of moral responsibility and moral duty, and personal individual responsibility, just as much as personal rights.
“Because it must be the case, it must be the case, that if we live in a society which accords everyone their personal fundamental human rights, that they must acknowledge that they have personal fundamental human duties to society, institutionally, and to their fellow citizens. And I find I have to say that that kind of language and that kind of debate has evaporated largely in recent circumstances. And in the whole area of rights and duties, if we go down the road of concentrating exclusively on a culture of rights and rights-speak, we then forget all of the duty-based reality on which civilised society relies.
Irish Constitution and political duties of citizens: “I’ll give you an example: the phrase ‘duty’ in the Irish Constitution, I think it appears in two contexts: the rights and duties of parents, and it also appears curiously in Article 9 of the Constitution which says that fidelity to the nation and loyalty to the State are fundamental political duties of all citizens. And the right to sit in Dail Éireann, for instance, is restricted to citizens of Ireland. You can’t sit in Dail Éireann if you are not a citizen of the Irish State. And the right to seek election to Dail Éireann is restricted to citizens, and it is restricted, therefore, to people who owe this fundamental duty of fidelity to the nation and loyalty to the State established by the 1937 Constitution.
“So that means that anybody – whether they come from Sinn Féin or the Progressive Democrats, or an independent candidate – who seeks election to Dail Éireann, undertakes a duty to all the people that vote for them to show loyalty to the State that the Irish people created by their Constitution in 1937.
“And you can’t sit in Dail Éireann and claim that the State is illegitimate, and you can’t sit in Dail Éireann and say that the State’s laws don’t apply to you, or that you can rob or you can kill because you have a higher authority. That’s not loyalty to the Irish State. And you can’t participate in Dail Éireann’s politics under the Irish constitutional scheme of things unless you acknowledge that you are exercising your citizenship under the 1937 Constitution and that you are undertaking that duty of loyalty to the Irish State. So I totally agree with you, Ronnie, I totally agree with you, but some people seem to talk an awful lot about rights, and I never ever hear them make a single speech about duty. And they are not so far away from you there.”
Q. 11. Eithne Casey:
“Michael, it seems extraordinary I feel I have to say, after what you have said about fundamental duties, that it is a fundamental duty not to pull a trigger on another human being. And I remember sitting at my grandfather’s knee who fought in Bolands Mills [1916] and who was then taken up the docks and interned in England, and I remember him saying as a child ‘oh, we stopped fighting because the people of Dublin were getting killed.’ And he said ‘and then the women of Dublin spat at us as we were going to the docks because of what we did in Dublin.’ So, for everybody who does anything, they do it for different reasons, and so many different views.
(i) Fear of not being able to speak out: “But in my early twenties I worked in the murder triangle in Northern Ireland which was west of the Bann and east of [?] and one thing I do remember, as I got used to living in the community there, working in the community, I could no longer bear it, after about a year and a half, or nearly two years, because you got to know the fears of people who were living there, the fear of not being able to speak out and not being able to speak their minds.
(ii) Polarisation: “And I noticed that in many times, and one time in particular, the second Ulster loyalist strike, you saw the immediate polarisation among educated middle class people. And what’s wonderful about tonight is that we are hearing the views so bluntly expressed, because at that time you would never have heard talk like this in Northern Ireland.
(iii) Dr Paisley: “And also what is extraordinary, and I am just changing the emphasis a little bit here, and would just love a comment on – I never would have thought that I would see Dr Ian Paisley come down to Dublin and walk into Government Buildings, and that itself is also a tremendous achievement because once there is contact, and it’s human contact, a cup of tea, I have friends coming down from Northern Ireland who have never come before, and then we cannot have – in most cases – we cannot have the same old views, the same old ideas, about the other side.
(iv) Reclaiming republicanism: “And when you use the word, two words I think, ‘republicanism’ – we have to reclaim that word for everybody here who wants to use it. We don’t live under royalty so we are republicans and there is nothing to be ashamed about that.”
(v) Reconciliation through direct human contact: “And then the other thing is reconciliation, and the only way reconciliation can come about is by direct human contact, sitting in the same room. And it is extraordinarily difficult, and you can see it today, because people are so highly motivated on the Sinn Féin side, how difficult it is to face the fact that you cannot take a human life for your beliefs, and then those who have had their lives or their families taken away from them, to come in the same room is a great movement. And I just hope that the government encourages more politicians to come down all the time, and likewise vice versa, and of course people at every level should have exchanges north and south of the border. And then you can’t have devils, and you can’t project all the evil onto one side, and all the grievances on to yourself. You know we are human beings, and we have a terrible shadow – we have this capacity to kill and we must confront it and stop it.”
Chair: “Minister, I’ll take that as a statement…”
Minister McDowell: “One of the comments that I would like to make if I can, Michael, and that is that I am afraid of leaving here this evening without saying the following things: that Northern Ireland was a place in which there was huge injustice, that the Catholics took more than their fair share of injustice over many years, that many many Catholics were killed because they were Catholics.
Loyalist criminality: “That loyalism is as pernicious, and in fact more pernicious in some respects than Provo-ism because many of its chief people are just simply lining their own pockets and engaging in every form of monstrous activity, drug distribution, racist attacks on minorities in Northern Ireland, and control over rackets and blackmailing and all the rest. I just want to put that on the record, just in case anyone thinks I am selective in my views on these matters. I am not, but I have to address the issues as they are now, and as was said here earlier the loyalist thugs have little enough purchase on Northern Ireland politics and the voters in Northern Ireland, whereas thuggery is present in the Provisional movement and has to end.
Hopeful signs: “And to reply just briefly to what Eithne said, I know it was more a statement and I agree with her statement. I just want to say she’s right, the very fact we can have these conversations here tonight, and there is vehement disagreement here and a lot of masked opposition to each other’s position, but the very fact that we are sitting in relatively civilised circumstances discussing these issues, and the very fact that I could meet Ian Paisley in the Irish Embassy in London and that he has come to Dublin to discuss economics with businessmen, these are immensely hopeful signs.
Duty of Provisionals and DUP to make society work: “And it doesn’t mean that the DUP is not a party which is free from its sectarian past, it isn’t and I don’t pretend it is, but likewise we have to look to the positives because having demolished the centre ground, the Provisional movement and the Democratic Unionist Party have now – to go back to the point that Ronnie was making – the duty to make their society work, and they will only do it if the rest of us make unequivocal demand, in unequivocal straight-talking terms, that they do face up to their responsibilities and duties as people who got seats and got votes, and take them into democratic [action?].”
Chair (Michael Reade): “My apologies to anybody I didn’t come to this evening, we’ll just take a final question from Julitta Clancy and then I am going to ask the Minister if he will give another couple of minutes of his time to talk a little bit about the future conclusion, and my apologies to anybody – because there are a lot of people who have had to travel long distances – if we have held you up. ….”
Q. 12. Julitta Clancy “I preface my question by thanking you Minister for spending so long with us, and thanking all those who got up and spoke here, and people who came – regardless of difference – to share their views. And we very much are grateful for people coming. It was difficult.
(i) Reclaiming the spirit of the Agreement: “Somebody mentioned ‘balance’, and I think Eithne referred to ‘reclaiming republicanism’…. I think we should also be trying to reclaim the spirit of the Agreement that so many of us, particularly in the South, put all our hopes in despite all its flaws, and with the knowledge that possibly a bare 50% of unionists voted for that Agreement, and in the years in between – because of the way it was being implemented and brought in – unfortunately that number went down and down. And therefore the pain of the victims increased, and it increased on all sides. And we spent a very pleasant day in Fermanagh on Saturday, a few of us, as guests of the Dooneen Community Education Centre, the Guild of Uriel and members of the Ulster Unionist Party, Sinn Féin, the SDLP and others, and it was to me such a huge difference from the days when we went up monitoring disputed parades in Fermanagh.
(ii) Interface tensions and marching season: “But I want to turn your attention to
the interface areas of Belfast particularly, because those are areas that some of us
have had the privilege of being invited into in recent years, both in republican and
loyalist areas, and we have seen the pain on both sides, the difficulties on both sides
and the great efforts being done by many good people on the ground there to diffuse
tensions and to get away from the situation it was in a few years ago.
“But there is also the fact that those people cannot yet talk to each other like we are
doing because of difficulties, and if there is any way that that can be helped, in any
way, because the dangers of what now looks like could happen in the marching
season, if it goes back to that a lot of good steps will be reversed. And it is the
suffering of those people, who have suffered so much, on both sides there, I would
appeal to.
(iii) Have we done enough in this State? “And my last point is, Minister, do you think that we in the South have done enough to embrace and to live up to the spirit of that Agreement and should there not be more groups like us engaging – not as we did in the beginning with peace rallies and all of that – but engaging in this type of dialogue across the divide? Thank you.”
Minister McDowell. “Michael, can I complete my two minutes that you were going to say to finish up with my answer to Julitta?
Good Friday Agreement – a deal is a deal: “Firstly, I do agree with you that we are in danger of forgetting the spirit of the Agreement which was there in the first place. And I do believe that the period of time that has elapsed since then has allowed a lot of people to get sceptical, cynical and to forget the moral force of that Agreement. And, if I may say – though there aren’t many here – to people of the unionist persuasion, and particularly to the Democratic Unionist Party I would say this: a deal is a deal, the people of Ireland and Britain through their governments did a deal.
“The people of both parts of this island did a deal. The Irish State has transformed its relationship with Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom into one of which, instead of the claim made in Articles 2 and 3 as they then were, there’s an acknowledgment that a majority in Northern Ireland will determine its constitutional status on terms of a deal. And the deal is that it is a society based on mutual respect, that it is a society in which Irish nationality is not simply tolerated but respected, and that those who feel themselves to be Irish nationalists and republicans in Northern Ireland are free to give their loyalty and fidelity to the Irish State as its citizens as I mentioned earlier.
DUP rhetoric: “And therefore some of the Democratic Unionist Party rhetoric that Dublin should be seen as a foreign state is inconsistent with the terms of that Agreement. We are not just a foreign state, we are not just to Northern Ireland what Norway is for Iceland. We are a state that did a deal with a sovereign state, the United Kingdom, registered with the United Nations and it’s a deal that gives the North-South dimension and the sense of Irishness and all of those institutions real substantial legal status. And I think that we have to recreate in our own minds an understanding of that deal that we did and say to Ian Paisley and Nigel Dodds and Peter Robinson: you’ve done a deal and a deal has been done with us by a sovereign government and the people of the United Kingdom, as a sovereign entity in which you believe, have made a compact with us for a new dispensation in Northern Ireland, and have indicated that they will back a united Ireland and implement it when it becomes the choice of a majority of the people in Northern Ireland.
“That’s the deal, and we are not going to allow anybody walk away from that deal, and by making the institutions unworkable it will only redouble the determination of Dublin that that deal will be adhered to and delivered on.
Marching season: “And the second point you make about the marching season, I really do fear that in the vacuum that now exists that people – instead of facing up to the responsibility of their mandate from the ballot box – will instead look to sectarian conflict arising out of the marching season as a justification of some kind for reneging on their democratic responsibilities. And that applies on both sides of the issue. Those who have obstructed the Parades Commission, denigrated it, torn down its efforts to produce fair and reasonable solutions on both sides, and those who will use violence, or threaten violence, in order to avail of the marching season as an opportunity just simply to reassert atavistic polarised politics, and to justify their own position as defenders of their community.
Have we done enough in this State? “And the last question you asked is: have we done enough in this State to deliver on our side of the Good Friday Agreement? That’s a question on which the jury is out. But I am certain of this, that – above the hurly burly of politics and arguments about ASBOs, and pubs and all the rest of it, airports and all the rest of it, -I am certain of this that we should have a generation of politicians who aspire at least in this one area to be remembered as statesmen and stateswomen, and that is that they articulated a sense of Irishness which was based on the views of Tone, the Sheares brothers, Emmet and Davis, an inclusive sense of Irishness, a thing totally bereft of sectarianism and of polarisation. And I really do believe, if you ask have we done enough, that we haven’t done enough on that. That we still, in this part of the country, have a view of Irishness which is not as open to Protestants and unionists as it might be, which is alien to them in some respects despite our best efforts to make substantial reforms in our political culture. And that there are many many things that we could all do to emulate what this group has done to extend the hand of friendship, to build bridges, and to build links between the two parts of this island. How sad it is, that 20 years ago in days of privilege, the unionists in Northern Ireland sent their children to be students in Dublin, how sad it is that that has trickled to practically nothing and they are to be found in Sterling and other places in Scotland rather than even in their own universities in Belfast.
Identity: “And have we actually engaged on a North-South basis, on a generous basis, to re-involve those people in Northern Ireland with our society – to acknowledge what I was saying earlier about the wealth of the Anglo-Irish part of our culture, to acknowledge that we are all mongrels in one respect or another, we are all born of Normans and Scots, and Scots Irish and English, and now that we have a new wave of immigration into Ireland, rather than pure descendants of a Gaelic society which is not the patrimony of most Protestant unionists on this island. And that we have a sense of our identity which is capable of embracing all of those views rather than being seen as sinister or hostile to people who aren’t of the main stream of Catholic nationalist Ireland.
Lack of genuinely inclusive vision: “I genuinely believe, Julitta, to answer your question, that we are not doing enough on those fronts and that we are not doing as much as we could, and that just as you have garden centre unionists in Northern Ireland who have fled the scene and abandoned it to the DUP and Sinn Féin, the centre ground people, so also in the South there’ll be your garden centre nationalists and garden centre Irish in that we do not have a genuinely inclusive vision and any sense of political vocation to really engage with the unionist community on the logic of the tricolour.
Challenge before us to create a new dynamic of Irishness: “That’s my strong view, and I will share with you, first of all compliment you and all your colleagues for what you are doing, going up to the interfaces and working with people there, but you asked me that hard question – are we doing all we can? And the answer is most certainly not, and it’s a challenge to everybody in this room, from Sinn Féin to unionists to Fine Gael, to Fianna Fail, to PDs, to Labour, to whatever persuasion you are, there is a challenge there now to rise up towards the real goal which is to create a new dynamic of Irishness on this society. And its not for the faint-hearted, it’s not for the politically lazy, it’s not for the opportunists or the night watchmen of history, it’s for the statesmen and the stateswomen of Ireland, for the new generation of Irish politicians to bring about a radically different approach which is based on reconciliation and based on generosity. Thank you.”
Chair (Michael Reade): “Just finally, one final question, do you expect to live long enough to see a united Ireland?”
Minister McDowell: “Well, yes.”
Chair (Michael Reade). “Before you go home, transcripts will be available later from the Meath Peace Group, significant segments of this evening’s talk will be broadcast on LMFM over the course of the next week. Congratulations to Julitta and the group. There’s a cup of tea at the end of the room, thanks to everybody for coming, as it was mentioned this evening this evening was progress in itself and part of that was having such an important and distinguished guest speaker. Ladies and gentlemen, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Michael McDowell.”
—————————————————————————————————————–
Meath Peace Group report ©Meath Peace Group 2005
Talk recorded by Judith Hamill (audio) and Jim Kealy (video). Transcribed and edited by Julitta Clancy
APPENDIX A: Biographical notes: Michael McDowell, T.D., S.C. was educated at Pembroke School and Gonzaga College, Dublin. He is a graduate in Economics and Politics from UCD. He qualified as a barrister in 1974 and was made a member of the Council of King’s Inns in 1978. In March 1987 he was called to the Inner Bar. He is a founder member of the Progressive Democrats and was first elected to the Dáil for the Dublin South-East constituency in 1987. He was re-elected in 1992. Having lost his seat in the 1997 election he was successful in the 2002 General Election, when he was once again returned for the Dublin South-East Constituency. He was Chairman of the Progressive Democrats from 1989 to 1992 and was appointed President in February 2002. Between 1992 – 1997, he held spokesmanships successively in Foreign Affairs, Northern Ireland, Trade and Tourism and Finance. He was appointed by the Tánaiste to chair the Working Group on Company Law Enforcement and Compliance. In 1999, he was appointed by the Government to chair the Implementation Advisory Group on the Establishment of the Single Regulatory Authority for the Financial Services Industry. In July 1999 he was appointed Attorney General of Ireland and served in that post until June 2002, when – on the formation of the new Government – he was appointed Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform.
APPENDIX B: Meath Peace Group update June 2005
Navan school bus tragedy: We offer our deepest sympathies and condolences to the families, friends, communities, teachers and fellow-students of the five young students from St Michael’s Loreto (Navan) and Beaufort College (Navan) – Lisa Callan, Claire McCluskey, Amy McCabe, Deirdre Scanlon and Sinead Ledwidge – who died tragically in a school bus accident on Monday May 23rd. We remember also the students who were injured, including students from St Joseph’s (Navan). Our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families, friends and communities.
School programme: Our annual TY peace studies programme at St Joseph’s Secondary School, Navan, concluded with a Fair Trade seminar on 9th May addressed by the Lord Mayor of Birmingham, Michael Nangle, Fergal O’Byrne of the Green Party and representatives of Oxfam. Local TDs Damien English and Shane McEntee attended, as well as students of St Michael’s Loreto, staff, students and parents from St Joseph’s and members of the Navan business community. Our 2004-05 programme focused on experiences of interface communities in North Belfast and guest speakers included Chris O’Halloran of the Belfast Interface Project, Conor Maskey of Intercomm Ltd and Sean Ó Baoill of Mediation NI. The Spring 2005 term included a visit to Belfast on 11 April, taking in the Conflict exhibition at the Ulster Museum, and visiting the New Lodge Area as guests of Intercomm Ltd. Other topics studied were World Trade, Fair Trade, Immigration, Poverty and Debt Reduction, and mental health. Workshops were conducted by Michael O’Sullivan, Michael Murray and members of the Samaritans and West Papua groups. The overall programme was organised and conducted by Julitta Clancy and Judith Hamill with the assistance of teachers Mary Maguire and Julie O’Dwyer.
Recent public talks:
No. 56 “Bombings and their Aftermath” was held on 9th May and was addressed by Lord Mayor of Birmingham, Michael Nangle, Jacinta de Paor of Glencree and Gareth Porter of the H.U.R.T. group. The talk was chaired by Michael Reade. Prior to the talk, the chair of Meath County Council, Cllr. Tommy Reilly, made a presentation to the Lord Mayor on behalf of the Council.
No. 54: “The Good Friday Agreement – The Future” held on 25 February 2005, and addressed by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern, TD, John O’Dowd, MLA (Sinn Féin) and Dominick Bradley, MLA (SDLP).
No. 55: “Where do we go from here?” held on 7 March 2005, and addressed by Professor Paul Bew (QUB), Sean Farren, MLA (SDLP) and Jim Wells, MLA (DUP).
Acknowledgments: Grateful thanks are due to all who have helped with the planning, publicity and organisation of the public talks, and all who have supported the work of the group, over the past 12 years. We thank all those who have come to participate in our talks, members of the audience as well as speakers and guest chairs. We thank the Department of Foreign Affairs Reconciliation Fund for much-needed assistance towards the running costs of the public talks and Transition Year programmes.
Meath Peace Group Committee 2005: Julitta and John Clancy, Batterstown, Co. Meath; Michael Kane, An Tobar, Ardbraccan; Anne Nolan, Gernonstown; Canon John Clarke, Boyne Road, Navan; Philomena Boylan-Stewart, Longwood; Olive Kelly, Lismullen; Leona Rennicks, Ardbraccan; Catriona Fitzgerald, Warrenstown; Judith Hamill, Ross, Dunsany
No. 56 – “Bombings and their aftermath – the Birmingham experience”
Monday 9th May, 2005
St Columban’s College, Dalgan Park, Navan
Speakers:
Michael Nangle (Lord Mayor of Birmingham)
Jacinta De Paor (Coordinator, L.I.V.E. Programme, Glencree Centre for Reconciliation)
Gareth Porter (H.U.R.T. Group, Lurgan)
Chaired by Michael Reade (Presenter, ‘Loosetalk’ programme,LMFM radio)
Contents:
Welcome and introductions:
Speakers’ presentations
Michael Nangle
Jacinta de Paor
Gareth Porter
Questions and comments
Closing words: Rev. John Clarke
Appendix: Birmingham and other bombings in 1974
©Meath Peace Group
56 – “Bombings and their Aftermath – The Birmingham Experience”
Introduction: Birmingham mayor’s visit to Navan (9/10 May):
The Lord Mayor of Birmingham, Michael Nangle, was in Navan as part of a two-day visit organised by the Meath Peace Group. His first function on the day was to address the Fair Trade seminar organised by Transition Year students in St Joseph’s (Convent of Mercy) Secondary School (where the Meath Peace Group has conducted a peace studies programme since 1995). Other speakers included Fergal O’Bryne (Green Party) and Joy Eniola (Oxfam) and the seminar was attended by students and staff from St Joseph’s and St Michael’s (Loreto) Navan as well as members of Navan business community and Meath TDs Damien English and Shane McEntee. Following the seminar, at a dinner organised in his honour, the Lord Mayor was officially welcomed to Navan by the Chairman of Meath County Council, Cllr. Tommy Reilly, and the incoming Chair, Cllr. Brian Fitzgerald. On Tuesday 10th May, the Lord Mayor visited the Hill of Tara where the group was given a guided tour by Susan Brennan.
Welcome and introductions: Fr Pat Raleigh and Julitta Clancy
The speakers and guest chair, Michael Reade, were welcomed by Fr. Pat Raleigh on behalf of the Columban community in Dalgan Park. Julitta Clancy of the Meath Peace Group continued: “Thank you all for coming, you are all very welcome… Tonight’s talk is dedicated to the memory of Fr Niall O’Brien, Columban missionary, who died of ill health a year ago and who was a tremendous inspiration and a great friend of our group. He devoted his life to the promotion and practice of ‘active non-violence’ and for over 40 years worked tirelessly for peace and justice in the Philippines. His teachings and experiences are recorded in numerous books and articles, and copies of his address to the Meath Peace Group on the theme of active non-violence (on the occasion of our 10th anniversary in April 2003) are available here tonight.” [also available on MPG website]
Birmingham bombs: “We remember especially tonight all of those people who lost their lives in the recent ‘Troubles’ and tonight we’re focusing particularly on Birmingham and the aftermath of the IRA bombs of 1974. Summary accounts of the bombings can be found in the book ‘Lost Lives’ and extracts are available here tonight [see appendix to this report.]. I believe that copies of Lost Lives should be in every house and in every school in Ireland to help us to reflect and to remember and acknowledge the terrible hurt and pain that has been suffered by so many people mainly in Northern Ireland but also in Britain and here in the Republic. We did invite some relatives of the Dublin and Monaghan bombing victims but they were unable to come tonight – some of them have been here before and hopefully will come again…..I will hand you over now to our guest chair, Michael Reade of LMFM radio.”
Chair (Michael Reade, Presenter, ‘Loosetalk’ programme, LMFM) radio):
“Thanks Julitta. I’ll be very brief this evening and after we hear from our speakers we’ll have a question and answers session. It’s probably worth taking a moment to again look at the political landscape of this island and the consequences of torn politics and a torn island – and not just on this island as we’ll be hearing through the evening. One of the most interesting observations about the recent elections in the North … I think the result probably didn’t surprise any body but it showed the reality, maybe it’s a positive but it seems a lot of the gunmen are being removed from the political structure and possibly that’s a sign of things moving on.
“Having said that I think we – especially in the media – tend to move on too quickly and we look at the here and now and the ongoing arguments that take place and to a large degree it must seem like a lot of rhetoric and nothing more then rhetoric because lives have been lost.
“We have a very interesting panel here this evening … I’m certainly here to listen and to learn… I’ll introduce our first guest, Michael Nangle. He’s the first Irish born Mayor of Birmingham which is significant in a city which has such a huge Irish population, he’s a self-made man – he’ll tell you a bit about himself and like many others he left this island to find his fortune. ..
1. Michael Nangle (Lord Mayor of Birmingham):
“Good evening and thank you for asking me here, it’s a pleasure to be here.
About myself: I left Ireland in the North in ‘54 and I arrived in Birmingham. It was a culture shock coming from the green fields although I’d worked in Belfast for a short time and around different places, it was a culture shock to move into a city of over a million people. The odd sign up ‘Irish not welcome’ – it was a bit of a shock to the system but then it moved from the Irish to the West Indies … so the BNP and people with similar ideas took it out on them and then along came the Asian group and they’re taking it out on them and it left us behind.
“Now what about being back home? … I used to go around with a young lady from the top of Lurgan and she was from the Protestant side, a lovely lady, and one Saturday night walking home after the dance – as you did in Lurgan, just walking up – the father and the two sons met me. The two sons were fine but the father said: ‘it has to finish’. And it was a parting that was a bit wrenching because I used to run around with the brothers and the only time we were ever separated was about three weeks before the Twelfth, they were taken away and we all met up after that and we all had a party before the 15th of August and we used to go to different halls together to have a bit of fun and we all thought that would be great but it didn’t materialise.
Violence: “In 1988 I was at home in a very republican area and they said to me: “now you’re in England and you’re an Englishman, what do you think? I said: ‘if you take to the gun you’ve lost it. You’ve got sympathy in the English, the Welsh, the Scots – civil rights – if you’ve got an argument you’ve got a reasonable argument , keep it going, don’t go to the gun, history is history. So maybe I was proved right I don’t know.
Birmingham bomb: “In Birmingham, there’s roughly over 200,000 first and second generation [Irish], we now have the largest St. Patrick’s Day parade in the world after New York and Dublin and we’re very proud of that. In 1974 disaster struck. That was a bad bad time for us in the city – a lot of people were targeted, a lot of houses were stoned, a lot of fights, a lot of threats, I was one of the senior stewards in the factory and things were said down the line about IRA: ‘they’re all IRA’ and all the rest. So we just stopped. The factory had a meeting … and we had it straight out with them and it died a death but we had to keep ourselves low for many years.
Irish Forum in Birmingham: “In 1991 … Fr. Taffe said: ‘I want some money out of the City Council and I want to start an Irish forum.’ … And I said: ‘well Father you’re going to have to show your books to the City Council’ and he said ‘don’t you trust me?’ and I said ‘I didn’t say that. You have to show your books to the City Council because they all want to know where the public money is.’ He said: ‘you don’t trust me’. I said: ‘we do trust you’, and we got on quite well after that and we started the Irish Forum and as years went on we said we would create the St. Patrick’s Day parade.
1974 and its aftermath: “But that period [following the bombings] was very very bad for about a year. I would say it was pretty bad, and we had to live it down because some people tar you with the same brush. It didn’t matter if you had an Irish accent from the North or the South or anything else, you got it. There was one nice thing about the night of the pub bombings – it came up on the television and it was Friday night and it was one of the two pubs that we used to use as stewards coming home from a meeting and we decided that night – it was half five, a quarter to six, that we wouldn’t bother going into any of them and I asked myself ‘do I stop at home or do I go up to my local?’ And I said ‘no, I’m going out, I’m facing the dark and I took myself up to the pub and I walked in and the gentleman that had run the pub for nearly 30 years, Mr. Gallagher, lovely man, he didn’t wait for me to ask for a pint he just walked to the brandy bottle – double brandy – stuck it in front of me and said ‘take that.’ I stood on my own for about 15 seconds and the people that came up to me were actually English and said ‘we know it’s not people like you.’ So that was nice, it gave me heart to keep the fight and to face people out and decided that they wanted to make trouble.
“Now we’ve rolled on … the world is so small now. You can get to Australia in 48 hours where before it took 8 weeks. Children are better educated, they can go any where in the world … I believe that it will take time but it will happen. Maybe another 30, 40 years. … How can you take away bitterness from people that really hold a grudge with you from the day they were born on both sides – on both sides? I went home many years ago to a funeral and they put the flag on his coffin but they said ‘he’s a wonderful man, he’d been a great man’ and I said ‘tell me what he did.’ They brought up the family. He went to work, but what else? Oh he was a ‘great man, a great republican’. Yes, ‘but what did he do beyond raising his family and working hard?’ and there was no answer to that.”
Multicultural world: “You take Birmingham – it’s so multicultural now it’s unbelievable. Yes, you still have the BNP around but we never got into the Bradford riots, they tried to come down and do it but they were met head on by all the religious leaders and by the politicians who said: ‘clear off, we don’t want any of this down here.’ And I think that until we understand that we’re going to have a multicultural world, that it is going to be multicultural that people will come in from Kosovo, Arabia all over the place, that’s the world it’s going to be – diversity.
“And I do what’s called citizenship – people taking out citizenship – and I do 80 a day twice a week, and they’re from all over the world, taking out British citizenship. You mention any part of the world – they’ve taken out citizenship. And you see people walking up to them, and they’re coming from Kosovo and Romania, and they just say thanks for looking after them. Until we get that in our heads no matter what political stance that we are, that it is going to be a changing world, that if we hold onto bigotry we’re not going to proceed into the real world….
Border Protestant community: “I was reading the paper tonight – I was reading about the election. I know a sad thing that’s going on – that the Protestants in the border counties are having a bad time and I think to myself: ‘God, it’s 2005, what’s going on here?’ This is not the real world … taking it out on another human being is wrong. We don’t seem to grasp – or some people don’t seem to grasp – that life is so short. Why take it out on people? We’ve signed the political Agreement, the peace Agreement, as I’d say … everything revolves around a table. The surrender of 1945 was around a table, the Good Friday Agreement was signed around a table, peace in any part of the world usually comes from sitting around with politicians having to bite the bullet and surrender something to be able to gain peace.
Leadership required: “Both sides north of the border where I come from are going to have to give …and they’re going to have to give leadership, they’re going to have to be strong people, they’re going to have to be people with iron will to say ‘this is wrong, it is wrong to hold these views, that what happened in the 14th, 15th ,16th and 17th centuries is irrelevant, it’s totally irrelevant.”
“On Sunday I was at the at the V.E. celebration in London – a big parade and all the rest. There were people there from Russia, Germany, Netherlands, France, America, Canada sitting around a table together where before they slaughtered one another. But then they’ve all realised – as one German person said ‘thanks, you relieved us from tyranny, it was hard to do but you relieved us from tyranny.’ And unfortunately we have had to go through this period to realise that we don’t want that to happen.
Peace is what we need: “But we do have to press upon the politicians that they have to grasp the nettle, that peace is what we all need. …When I went through years and years of having to lie down after the bombings, I have said to people that I’ve met in Birmingham: ‘you weren’t here, don’t come preaching to me with your politics. I was here and I lived through it and I don’t need you to tell me what politics are about. Some of your people planted the bombs and left us with a mess while you took yourself back home or didn’t even bother to come here.’
Apology demanded: “And I still demand an apology which I asked for many years ago and haven’t got yet, but I still say today: ‘you should apologise to us Irish community for what you put us through in Birmingham, you had no right to do it – you weren’t speaking for the Irish community in Birmingham and you didn’t do it in our name, so you can catch the next plane back home and take that message back.’
Irish quarter in Birmingham: “We have come through it. We are rebuilding what’s called the Irish Quarter – it’s not going to be a Temple Bar, it’s a city quarter that’s being built as a legacy to the elders that started it all. We hold ourselves proudly and highly in Birmingham and we are the only city in England that has declared an Irish quarter and I hope to leave that as a legacy to the Irish people in Birmingham and to the second or third or fourth generations.
“I will stop here because I could keep on talking about this for hours … but I hope you understand that we felt very angry that someone planted two bombs in a pub not in our name cause they didn’t do us any favours and they never came back to say anything about it and I hope before I die that one day they’ve got the guts to say they were sorry”. Thank you.”
Chair (Michael Reade): “Thank you very much indeed – you have depicted the reality of living in England and I’m sure most of us would have been aware of … the type of racism that existed in Britain as a result of the Troubles, and understandably so, to a large degree as well because people there felt threatened and that is undoubtedly the way people responded. Julitta came on the radio programme with me this morning to let people know that this talk was taking place. We spoke very briefly about the bombs in Birmingham as well and I mentioned that one of the things that people always remember is the miscarriage of justice – the Birmingham Six. What we have probably forgotten is the families behind those who were dead, maimed and injured and that type of suffering is indiscriminate regardless of where a bomb takes place. Our next speaker will be completely aware of this – Jacinta de Paor, coordinator of the L.I.V.E. program…”
2. Jacinta de Paor (Coordinator, L.I.V.E. Programme, Glencree Centre):
“Thank you. I was asked to talk about the programme that we run in Glencree so maybe if I tell you just a small bit about Glencree and a small bit about the programme and how it came to be and then we will take questions afterwards.
Glencree Centre for Reconciliation: “Glencree – for those that don’t know – is the reconciliation centre that nestles in the middle of the Wicklow Mountains and anyone who has been there will know it’s a beautiful spot – a large British army barracks built in 1802 that has gone through a chequered history of being a reform school subsequent to that but now transformed into a reconciliation centre, hopefully redressing some of the history that had happened there in the past. It’s been a reconciliation centre for the past 30 years and the present phase of Glencree is really in the past 10 years – all since our peace agreements – and it has really taken off since then. It started with programmes that were political programmes – getting politicians at all levels, generally middle level politicians, to talk to one another from all sides of the divide. They would come down from Northern Ireland and talk at Glencree where it was relatively safe and secluded and supportive and they were away from their main line of business, and they were away from their areas that were very troubled.
L.I.V.E. “And in 1999 Sir Kenneth Bloomfield came down to Glencree, and he took testimonies of people who had been through the Troubles. He took testimonies from witnesses and from victims/survivors who had been through various traumatic events. Those people came from Northern Ireland and they came over from England and they came from the Republic as well so a new programme was born.
“My boss at the time – Ian White – looked at these people coming and said ‘we cannot turn our backs, we cannot just leave it at this, these people who are coming don’t have a voice, we need to set up a programme for the voices of the victims to be heard.’ Politicians’ voices were being heard, individual voices were being heard on all sides from paramilitary groups and there was a lot of voices being heard but the voices of the victims were the one voices that weren’t being heard. And the L.I.V.E. programme was born at that time – the letters stand for Lets Involve the Victims’ Experience – and that programme has being going for over five and a half years. …. I took over as coordinator about five years ago.
“….The programme involved bringing victims survivors from all parts of these islands and this is what made the programme unique – the idea being that we brought victim survivors from England, Scotland, Wales, from Northern Ireland and from the Republic together to dialogue. And this is what the Lord Mayor has been saying just now about the value of talking and about the value of dialoguing.
Dialogue: “And we’ve brought together people to dialogue amongst the victims survivors on the one hand – that was the first aim of the program – but the second aim was to have dialogue with the former combatants. Now that’s a term that raises a lot of hackles and it raises a lot of discussion. But the victims survivors themselves in the early days had asked that they could confront and talk with those former paramilitaries who have been involved in some of the events that the Lord Mayor was saying – that they could talk with them, could ask them questions, difficult questions: ‘why did you do it? What was in it for you? What were you thinking at the time?’ and all the horrible questions that go round in somebody’s head, something’s happened over which they have no control.
“And that was the second aim of the program – to get that dialogue going and it did happen. Our first meeting had 3 people at the meeting and we looked at one another and we were saying ‘this isn’t going to go anywhere’ and the next meeting there were 8 people and we still said ‘are we on the right track at all?’ Because people had asked for it but they weren’t turning up and then we said ‘well we’ll bear with it because we’ve been asked to do it, let’s bear with it and let’s keep it going’. And lo and behold we kept it going and now we have approximately a couple of hundred people on our books, but at any one of our events we could have maybe 25 people turning up at a weekend event and these would be victims survivors from all over these Islands. It has been extremely successful from the point of view of dialoguing but some of the exciting things that have happened have been the events where people have come – people who wouldn’t have normally met each other – and they come and they talk together and they have very tough conversations. And that happens not alone in the difficult conversations with the former combatants but that happens within the difficult conversations between the victims survivors themselves coming from different cultures…
“Now at this stage, 5 years down the road, we’re saying: ‘Right, where is this getting us? We have dialogued, we have talked, where’s it going to go?’ So we always turn at this point and we ask the participants: ‘where would you think it should go?’ We always use the dialogue frame of reference to link with the participants and always ask them. They will lead us, so I’ll give you a little story of where it’s going to go, linked to what the Lord Mayor was saying. …
“One of our participants is a lady who herself was injured in the Birmingham bomb and has been coming to us for over 5 years now and her one dream is that the people who she sees coming to the programme would be able to come over and meet some of the people who were in Birmingham who were also injured and are survivors of the different bombings, but particularly of the bomb that she was in herself. And that’s a dream that we have and hopefully we’ll keep dreaming but its coming to fruition and with the great help of the Lord Mayor here it looks like it’s going to happen eventually. We’re certainly pushing for it and this is part of the magic of the dialogue that happens when you bring people together that you can get the dialogue happening not alone within the room but across communities and then across actual countries. So I will leave it there for the moment … because our next speaker links in to some of what I’ve been saying and he will take it up from there. Thank you.”
Michael Reade: “Thank you. Our final speaker is Gareth Porter of the H.U.R.T. group …”
3. Gareth Porter (H.U.R.T. Group, Lurgan):
“Thank you very much for the invitation down this evening. They were talking about 1974 briefly here and I was just trying to think where I was and what I was doing in 1974, and I thought in relation to the Troubles I was in Lurgan College, and I think Lurgan has been mentioned already this evening and certainly I remember at that time the Troubles had been for several years in a very very serious state. On a positive note, I remember we were involved in setting up a prayer group in our own Lurgan College – there had been an intensive spate of killings … in the Fermanagh area and South Armagh and I remember being involved in setting up a prayer group which led me certainly to a very deep value of the power of prayer in that point in time.
“So 1974 was a very difficult time for so many people, it was a time when our communities were changing and we were all being torn in so many different ways. Where we are today is obviously a different world to where we all were in 1974.
“But for many people who have lost family members from that period and since, it is very very difficult and very hard to cope with the suffering that you take to the grave through bereavement.
Victims and their families: “I was thinking of the unique needs of victims of the troubles and Jacinta will know where I’m coming from when she talks about combatants and there’s the whole language, the politics of language. But many of the people that I would represent – and there’s been 224 people killed in the Lurgan-Portadown-Banbridge area over the course of the ‘Troubles’ plus the number of people injured. We’ve estimated it impacts on around 6,000 to 7,000 people as direct family members – that’s assuming that the number of people that have been injured might have around 6 or 7 family members, including parents, children, siblings and the like, and it’s a conservative estimate.
H.U.R.T. group: “H.U.R.T [Homes United against Ruthless Terror] was formed in 1998 by the widows and by several parents of people who had lost family members over the course of the ‘Troubles’. We now represent 98 families that have been impacted through bereavement. We’re very proud of the work that we’ve done. We’ve accessed a lot of families and we make no difference between them. Although 90% of the people [we represent] are coming from a mainly Protestant/Unionist background, we have some very active members of the Roman Catholic community involved also.
“When we set up the group initially we had a committee consisting of police widows, UDR widows and civilian widows, and that was done deliberately so it would be inclusive of all the community. For that reason some of the Roman Catholics in the local area who are associated with us and because of security forces also being involved with the group, they feel a lot of the time it’s better to keep obviously their identity and the services that we provide to them on a more confidential basis.
Services provided by the group: “If we look at where we are today and what we do as an organisation, I was just noting down as I was listening to the speakers just some of the many activities that a self-help group does in relation to conflict and the trauma of bereavement and serious injury:
(i) Befriending: “We do befriending – basically outreach work, visiting homes, visiting people in hospital, basically connecting people back into society in any way we can. We’re a very positive group – although it’s a bereavement group there’s times when one would never believe that that was the case because we have tried and endeavoured to get the positive out of the negative extremes of conflict. Events would vary from theatre visits to meals to social visits also to pantomime. And probably my proudest moment in the group was January this year when we had 129 people together on two buses people and about 30 in cars from all over the Banbridge/Lurgan/Portadown area coming to the Opera House in Belfast. It was a very up lifting evening for everyone concerned and the families there.
“I think our earliest murder victim is from 1971 and it goes right up to the last two policemen killed [in 1997], in fact beyond that because we’ve had feuds in the area now as well in the last number of years, so it covers a wide range over 32 years experience of trauma and death. So as a resource for understanding what the net effect of bereavement is right from the early ‘70s right through to the most recent we’re a very understanding group of the long-term impact of bereavement through terrorism.
(ii) Referrals: “We do referral work. In other words, if there’s people that come to us that have other special needs – for example housing issues or issues on welfare benefits – we can refer that on.
(iii) Trauma programme: “We have our own in-house trauma programme accredited to the Institute of Leadership and Management in England and I think we’re the only group that’s in a position to carry that programme across Northern Ireland. We have a training team that goes to Kilkeel, Newtownstewart, Dungannon, Dunmurry and different parts of the province, all dealing with people who have suffered directly at the hands of terrorism.
(iv) Youth and women’s programme: “We have a youth programme, but sadly, due to lack of resources, it’s probably our most under-resourced area of work. We also have a women’s programme…
(v) Eyewitness programme: “We have an eyewitness project – it’s small in numbers but its specifically for those that have been on the scenes of the murders of their loved ones. Many people were killed in their own homes, on their doorsteps or in the car.
Belfast Agreement and the impact on victims: “I left a girl this afternoon whose boyfriend had been shot 18 times in the car beside her. When she knew I was coming down she … said to send regards down to the people here but also to make sure that they realise the full impact of what the Belfast Agreement did in her life because in many ways it has denied her justice that she so urgently craves. She was actually mocked in the street by the guy that killed her boyfriend beside her. She served in the local supermarket. She had to give up her job because he used to come in and taunt her on what he had done.
Parochial nature of the conflict: “And I’m sure many things have happened from my community on Roman Catholics of a similar nature but that’s the net impact of how parochial our conflict is. Its not far-off, its not far away, it’s not the way it was in normal conflicts in war when people came home. The people that were committing the killings were the neighbours, were the work colleagues, were the people you meet in your shopping area of the time. So the eyewitness program is something we’re very very pleased about in that in small-group work we actually try to have people restore to themselves dignity and confidence to go out and deal with those everyday problems.
(vi) Cross-border work – Breaking the Barriers: “We have our cross-border work, which is work that I have been involved in and it’s called ‘Breaking the Barriers’.
Belfast Agreement: “And I have to say at times the Belfast Agreement has a very major benefit… life is not as cheap today as it was when it was signed. I have no doubt about that. I think the McCartney case in Belfast proves that that is the case, there is outcry when murder takes place of that type and foul deeds.
Victims became an embarrassment: “But I can also say that the victim sector – through no fault of their own – became a political hot potato and it meant we were stigmatised from the start because widows and families tired to help each other to get off their knees and restore credibility and decency in their lives and we were probably viewed as an embarrassment to the government because sadly what we were doing by lobbying was highlighting the failures of government in 30 years and what they had done for the victims.
Help from Department of Foreign Affairs: “We had to look for a period of time elsewhere and in many ways it was a godsend, and the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin really was excellent. I couldn’t commend them highly enough for the work that they did in that period of time. We got funding as an organisation for about a 12 month period which allowed us to engage directly with Jacinta and organisations in the Republic of Ireland and with victims in the Republic of Ireland and along the border, and certainly it was a very eye-opening period for myself.
Extradition failures: “I would have a background of concern for many years that the failure of extradition from the Republic to Northern Ireland led to extra murders of innocent people I can name, cases I can think of, cases where a man who subsequently killed was released as a criminal escapee, released by a High Court judge in Dublin and that judge probably to this day will never realise the true impact of that release of a man who wanted to kill at that point in time. In those cases the people who were involved, who were active on the ground in terrorism, when they weren’t extradited didn’t retire from murder they went on and continued to do it.
Glencree experience: “So our ‘Breaking the Barriers’ programme has been an excellent one and a number of years ago the two ladies that I have down with me tonight and a number of other ladies came down and visited Glencree for the first time. Many of those women hadn’t been over the border in maybe over 20 years and it was a positive experience for all. Glencree for us, to be quiet frank, is a second home, we almost take it for granted now we can come any time and it’s been a very positive experience.
Tribute to Department of Foreign Affairs: “But the experience of dealing with the Department of Foreign Affairs was a very positive experience and I take my cap off to civil servants in that department. At a time when the mindset of some of our senior servants in Stormont was less then understanding, we found support and encouragement and dignity and we were treated with respect in Dublin and that’s something that will stick with us as an organisation for a long long time. “
(vii) Other work: “Other work that we do involves counselling. Suicide-counselling is not a big amount of our work – I think in the last 6 years we’ve only had 4 serious cases but I can say they come from different directions. In two of the cases I know one of the ladies on my left here was involved with talking one lady through the night and probably saved her life, and that woman, just in the last fortnight, was over seeing the Queen because she had lost a family member who was an RUC member. So that type of work is never seen and never spoken of.
Quiet things: “Other types of work that we never probably will get credit for and we don’t want credit for is – we had one lad who had lost a father, a grandfather and an uncle who was just hell bent on revenge. His mother identified the problem quite clearly – he would not go to statutory services, he had already been to statutory services, and the anger was not being released in any positive fashion or in any positive way. I can only guess that in my opinion he was a young men who would have gone on and killed. He has not done so and I’m proud of that, but I have no doubt that his mindset at that point of time two years ago was he would have had the capability certainly to have done…. certainly it’s a case whereby it was a success. He now admits two years on he didn’t know where his head was – his head was away as he put it. His mother knows and has thanked us on numerous occasions for restoring the balance in his life. Those are the quiet things that we take great pride in…..
Attaching meaning to the event: “We try to attach meaning to the event that has taken place – from the time Cain killed Abel, there’s nothing new about murder in Ireland, any scholar knows there’s nothing new about mass murder, serial killing and everything that goes with conflict no matter how you try package it up. If we even look at the Boyne Valley – as I came down tonight I thought of the first Republican in Ireland, Oliver Cromwell, and I think there’s nothing new about murder even in the Boyne Valley, not to mention that glorious and immortal battle a number of years later that was inflicted on the people of Drogheda and the people of the Boyne battlefield!
Peer support: “But on a more serious note, I think a lot of our work is about trying to explain to people that they are not alone. I think one of the strengths of the victims’ group is that they can share with people who understand because they’re all in the same position. It’s peer support of the most raw but the most beautiful kind in that there’s a real understanding of where they’ve all been and also where they’re going, because, as many widows and many the families tell me, they’ll take it to the grave, they have to live with it, they’ve learnt to live with it. And that even in itself is a very very positive statement.
“Nothing’s going to restore what’s been taken away, nothing can”.
Saying ‘sorry’: “And again, as the Mayor was saying, sometimes the word ‘sorry’ would go a long way to helping alleviate a lot of the pain and suffering and the closure that’s required. I understand why terrorists don’t say sorry. Terrorists don’t say ‘sorry’ because to say ‘sorry’ would admit that they were actually wrong on what they did. To cope with the atrocities that they committed they have to believe for their own sanity that somehow what they did was part of a war, it was a conflict. That may well be their mindset. I have to say the people I work with will say this and say it very clearly – they had no choice if their husband going to work of a morning was blown up. I was with a man this afternoon who lost his 11-year old brother in the Banbridge bomb. That man is a very strong man a man of good Christian character who actually stood for a council election today for the first time in his life. He actually got elected in the first count – not because his brother was killed in the Troubles because he never made reference to that at all in his election campaign – but because of his Christian values and his Christian virtue and his desire to work for all the people in the area of Banbridge that he met in the last two years ….
Connecting with people: “Behind what we do is to address isolation. That means connecting with people: if we attach meaning to events we have to connect with people. Self-help groups are excellent at connecting with people. When we go away on bus trips, when we go away to the theatre, we connect with people, we get the people out of their homes. If we never do anything else, just by doing that it’s a success, it’s a bonus, because the amount of people we work with who hadn’t gone out for long periods of time … I was just thinking: I’m currently involved in further academic work at the University of Ulster, I am on a … panel at Queen’s University, but really I’ve learned nothing in comparison to what I’ve learnt in the last 20 years and in the last 8 years in particular when we’ve commuted our career and our future to helping victims of the Troubles from all communities and from all backgrounds.”
Helping people to gain control: “When we talk about helping, we’re trying to help people gain control, control of their emotions, control of their lives, control of where they’re going and where they’ve been.
“And the three areas we look at when we’re trying to help people is faith, family and friends because, no matter how you twist it, and no matter how you bend it, or no matter what way you look at it, those are the three things that get people through trauma of any kind in life and particularly trauma related to the Troubles.
Faith and prayer: “And we don’t criticise people, or judge people on what faith they have – I’m proud to be a Methodist, a son of John Wesley, that evangelist Christian man from a number of hundred years ago – but I have to say it’s faith and it’s prayer. And I think of the 94-year old man who died just a few weeks ago. He was our oldest member who lost his only son.
“He was a policeman and he told me when I asked him. We used to deliver to him every week the meals on wheels service, and I remember asking him one time: ‘how did you get through your trauma?’ and he said ‘Gareth, only for the Lord I would have never got through.’ And that man died knowing and he used to quote from John 13. It is in the hereafter we know why the burden has been placed on the people that we work with.
War criminals: “I believe in calling a spade a spade. I think murder is murder. I think if some of the people were combatants – and I know Jacinta will not mind me saying this – if some of the people were combatants, that they thought they were fighting a war, I believe they’re war criminals. I think to tie people into diggers and to drive them into … blocks and to go into men’s homes watching TV and shoot them in front of their wives and children. And it doesn’t matter which community was doing it and I don’t care if it was the British army or the police were doing it – if it was done with the intent to kill it’s murder.”
Respect: “And I believe quite sincerely that respect is what’s its all about. I respect my Roman Catholic neighbours and I respect the people in England and I have great respect for the people in the Republic. I’ve always thought of politics – perhaps if I hadn’t lived in Northern Ireland I would have lived in a normal society with a normal political system. Sadly in Northern Ireland it’s not a normal society in that sense – we have a legacy of tribal politics, conflict and religion, but we’ve all got to live with that. And I believe that respect helps to overcome a lot of those barriers. Our Breaking the Barriers project has opened a lot of people’s eyes to what people down in the Republic of Ireland really believe. And I think we’re all united in many ways and that is to try and help each other get through the problems of life – health, education, employment, dealing with old age – these are all basic subjects and apply to us all.
Divisions and barriers: “And I thinkit’s important to look at what unites us instead of what divides us. I believe that every murder committed in Northern Ireland in the last 30 years … has built the barriers of the border higher and higher. I listen to the words the Lord Mayor said. It is about respect, and I know in Lurgan it’s sectarian, it’s a bitterly divided town, but yet all of us have friends in both communities. I would love to think that in years to come our children will not have to go through what my generation went through. … Perhaps we’re just caught in a trap and there’s nothing we can do about it, but I think we can all try and do something small no matter how small to try and help. Our humanity is what counts – it’s not our religion which we’re born into … it’s respect and our humanity that we should look to…
Ethos of H.U.R.T: “The ethos in our group is to help in any way possible those who’ve suffered in the Troubles and we have a little saying that ‘helping others helps ourselves’ and I do believe that and I believe that everybody in our organisation is a volunteer, everybody can lift the phone and phone other people and help other people and they do it all the time and that is the true rationale behind a self-help group.
“Now I’ve probably rambled on too long but all I can say is I’m delighted to be here. It was a very serious address but we are a very very positive group and we welcome some craic later on. Thank yon all very very much.”
QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS (Summary only)
Chair (Michael Reade): Re search for truth and justice: “While you were speaking I couldn’t help but imagine if things were different in the morning, if Ian Paisley was to sit down and shake hands and start governing the North of Ireland with Martin McGuinness in the morning and all the paramilitaries and arms were gone ….. The search for truth and justice: I wonder what would happen should we ever reach that day or what should happen? Should we call in the South African model of a Truth Commission – something along those lines?”
Jacinta De Paor: “That is something that our group had looked at because I suppose in Glencree we try not to impose a point of view, we’re very careful about that, so we threw it out to the general populace and the answer came back loud and clear from the victim survivors: ‘No, no way, how would we know it was the truth we were dealing with? How would we know that it wasn’t someone ether being paid or else trying to get off a tougher sentence? What’s this business of amnesty?’… And we looked to South Africa and we said ‘well yes it worked but it was very very tough on the victims who had to give testimonies and there was an awful lot of resurgence of the trauma for those people who were giving the testimonies’ and they said ‘well really where’s it going to get us?’ I don’t know and a lot of people I’ve talked to said that the South African model would not necessarily work here. I don’t know what will work here but we’re trying to look and see what may come up. I haven’t got an answer as of yet but the first answer was to no to …a South African style Truth Commission.’
Gareth Porter [sound unclear in parts]: “There is a feeling that we wouldn’t get the truth – after all, the IRA is in denial about the Northern Bank robbery….. there is also the issue of traumatisation and what would be the benefit, and also the issue of an amnesty…”
Q.1: Rev. John Clarke (Rector of Navan). “This question is specifically for the Lord Mayor, Michael Nangle … It’s not really in relation to the bombings actually or in that context but perhaps in hindsight would you say that when a large number of people leave one shore to go to another that it is a healthy thing to remain in close community with one another? I think it’s the most obvious thing to do, the most natural to do where we find solidarity in like-minded people, but I think of those perhaps that come to Ireland from other parts of the world – parts of Africa for instance – they stay very much in close proximity to one another and perhaps don’t quite integrate to the same degree as the European immigrants… Do you feel in hindsight that it is wise that a community, an Irish community, should remain in such close proximity to each other? I’m not saying for a moment that you didn’t integrate or that you didn’t feel part of the wider community …”
Michael Nangle: “Well when you look at the history of the Irish that came over from Britain – a lot of them congregated around the Sparkhill area what was known as a large Irish community. Now this was a pretty down-market, area rent was cheap and it wasn’t the leafy suburbs of Birmingham where if you were looking to have digs you were going to have to pay a very high rent. As time went on and the first generation became economically well off they have now moved out and moved out all over the city. The highest part of the Irish community is out in Erlington which is I think about 4% of Birmingham.
Asian community: “What has happened since is that from the Irish moving out to other parts of Birmingham and becoming economically viable the Asian community now have moved in because it’s still down-market prices. You can get a property which is cheap and then you can maybe hope that you can get a grant to be able to get an inside toilet – which I have to do because I’m Chair of Urban Renewal which was then spending 25 million on mostly the inner city, doing the roofs and putting in new PVC windows.
“Now as the Asian community are becoming successful economically they are moving out into the leafy suburbs. And … I go into a club called the Beauford club – it’s a members club – and about a year ago there was a conversation going on within earshot of me that all these ‘Pakkis’ were coming in and buying the houses around Hodgehill. And there were about eight men there and it was all for my benefit as a local councillor. And one came over to me and asked me how was I getting on, pleasantries etc., so I said ‘take a message back to him who’s selling them the houses at inflated prices’, because as soon as they know that an Asian wants to buy the house they stick about £5,000 to £8,000 on the price. The Asian family that are economically viable now can afford to move out into the £200,000 and £250,000, and £300,000 houses.”
Economics: “And it’s all to do with economics again – people gather because of the economics of it all. Now how you break that up within Ireland and even within Dublin where you’re going to have cheap accommodation – people will look for cheap accommodation … so it’s all to do with economics. When I came back to Birmingham I lived in a number of houses and I lived in … Charles Road which is predominantly Asian and we bought a house. My wife is a nursery nurse and was running a playgroup in Bournville and she saw this little house down a lane and I bought it for £2,200. I sold it for £8,000 fifteen years ago!
“It is to do with economics – it’s nothing to do with people wanting to gather together to stay beside each other. They will do so to begin with but once they see the system and the system can tell them that they can become economically viable that they can have a four bedroom house they leap for it. …. It’s all to do with money and now the Irish community – most of them that are living in Birmingham – do not live within the inner city, they’re all economically well off. A small percentage of the first generation we have to look after – they didn’t pay any income tax, worked on the lump – they’re the ones that we have to look after in the welfare centre and build the flats to look after them so there is a small percentage still around. And the same with the Asian community, the same with any economic group that comes into any city will gather at the cheapest point.”
Chair (Michael Reade): “It would seem that when you ghettoise the communities you will have problems … whether it’s the Irish in Britain in the seventies or communities in the North today. You mentioned yourself earlier the necessity for people to sit round a table. Again you’re bringing people together from different sides of a very bitter conflict …. and it seems – although I’m going to be contradicting myself – that the solution is very very simple or the solution is very very complicated.”
Jacinta De Paor: “On the one hand I suppose it’s giving support to people to come together in circumstances like that in the first place so that they can at least see each other, get used to each other, see the humanity in each other but it’s also giving them the facility that they can keep their own identity which is hugely important as well and that is something that we have encountered and it’s certainly a fear amongst the unionist community at the moment.
“It was a fear amongst the nationalist community and it has extended into the unionist community, the Protestant community on the border areas in particular, that if they’re going to engage in this kind of work what’s going to happen? ‘Am I going to lose my identity?’
Dialogue and breaking barriers: “And that’s where we have an awful lot of our work to do, to reassure people that just because you engage in dialogue doesn’t mean you have to turn your back on your history, turn your back on who you are and where you came from, but it still means that you can listen to the other person, you can drop the barriers. We were talking about breaking the barriers. Look at and listen to the other person and see the humanity in the other persona and go away from it not necessarily agreeing with every thing they say. Often people when they hear the term ‘reconciliation centre’ will say ‘ah well that’s all very nice and lovely and people are going to walk in on into the sunset together.’ No it’s not about that at all its about understanding, just understanding each other, retaining your own identity and your own belief system, but the ultimate thing is seeing the humanity in the other side and I suppose that is the crux of our work, that’s what it is … and its always been – Gareth used the word ‘respect’ – about being respectful of each other.”
Q. 2. Fintan (Pax Christi, Dublin). Re election system: “Question for the gentleman from Northern Ireland… I was just wondering: with the elections that we’ve just had and the local elections the results which are coming out at the moment would you feel that the non-transferable, the first past the post system that you have in general elections, does it gear people towards voting for the hard right or the hard left? If it had been transferable vote would there have been a better chance to get people of the middle ground? It was spoken of in one particular constituency that ‘that man in Derry’ [Mark Durkan SDLP] ‘would never have gotten that seat on his own. It was only the unionists that put him in’.
Now that is as far as I am concerned the exact opposite of what should be said and that is, that he was in a position to get support from both communities. Thereby he is popular in both communities of the middle ground. Whereas the hard left, hard right unionists who wouldn’t want to see any sort of diminution of their power automatically voted out to the hard right whereas if it had been a transferable vote, the chances are Trimble and a few others possibly would have slipped through because they would have got some transferable votes from the others. Now in the local elections we see the other side of the boat where my theory is correct but I’d like to see what your opinions are. Also in Birmingham would you feel that the transferable vote system would be a better idea there?
Gareth Porter: “I wouldn’t have the two elections in one day with two different systems of voting. I wouldn’t have thought that unionism in Londonderry would have been renowned for tactical voting…. I believe that Mark Durkan would have taken that seat in any case. A number of unionists did vote for him but that didn’t change the outcome…I think as far as the Westminster system goes I see no reason to change it … As far as PR goes and the council elections I believe that the PR system should help the middle ground. But I think what has been happening for a number of years and we published a wee booklet called “The Forgotten Victims” in 2001 and it was a number of interviews with around fifteen people associated with our group, none of whom are involved in politics or very view who would understand the intricacies of the political system. In that booklet it was said in 2001 that the spin off now from the Belfast Agreement was going to leave within a short space of time to the DUP and Sinn Fein working out what they would bargain for ….Now there was nobody in that arena fine-tuned into the political system but the truth on the ground was that the other parties – for different reasons – were seen not to deliver.
“We have a North-South Rural Voice Project because we are also a rural group. Some of the folk from Glencree and across Northern Ireland and in our council area came to talk on a Friday night and were then hosted by the Lord Mayor of Craigavon on the Saturday morning. I’m pretty sure and everybody at that meeting was very aware that David Simpson knew he was going to win the election…. He finally did. But certainly he was going to win because of his work on the ground. I think the PR is the best system for the middle ground but I also believe that if you were going to achieve a lasting deal in Northern Ireland, a political deal, you are going have to get a position where there is an end to parties having paramilitary terrorist wings as they sit in government.
Belfast Agreement flawed: ‘I personally believe the Belfast Agreement was totally flawed in several regards. It was flawed in the release of prisoners which was not linked to genuine, open, transparent decommissioning. To me, you had given up all your cards on the prisoner releases and had nothing left to play. The fact that we stumbled on for a number of years with the twin-track approach of the ballot box and the baseball bat and the revolver on one’s own community because … it would be a breach of the ceasefire to shoot someone of the other religion but it is not a breach of the ceasefire to stab, shoot, or any other method of killing, people from your own religion. That hypocrisy … doesn’t sit easy with Ulster Protestants, they are too darned straight. They just don’t see the world in that fashion. That is why they do call a spade a spade and they saw the process as a political sell-out and it was only a matter of time to get to where we are today.
PR: “But I do believe the PR system, to answer the question, is the best system for the middle ground but I honestly believe that the middle ground was eliminated…. The problem with Unionism – politics isn’t being seen as delivering and I suppose people want something new. And a friend of mine once said “All politics ends in failure”. …but I wouldn’t change the Westminster system – “first past the post”. A number of years ago on the Shankill Road, the Shankill people voted for one or other parties – Michael McGimpsey’s [UUP] against Gerry Adam’s [Sinn Fein], but it was never going to change the election. …..
Michael Nangle: “It’s difficult to get them to vote anything. When you get them out…
…..The only good thing that might have come out of PR in one place would have been maybe Una Keane against George Galloway. ….. I always say to certain councillors that are coming to stand: ‘one is enough, one is enough to get you there’…. You have to work harder because the one thing about it is, if you’re a councillor and you’re not doing your work in your ward the people know about it- they know about it, and whether it’s PR or any other system they’ll take them out so it is a councillor’s ability to be able to say: ‘I’ve been a good councillor for you and I want to be re-elected and then it’s up to them ….”
Chair (Michael Reade): …Has Tony Blair let us down in asking Peter Hain, the Welsh Secretary, to double job?
Michael Nangle: “Well I don’t know. … I know that Peter Hain worked hard in relation to South Africa and he stuck his neck out. … I don’t think its going to make a great lot of difference in Northern Ireland politics in all honesty ….. and I think that’s the hard choice that they have to make on both sides: it’s either that they’ll have peace for future generations or else we leave a legacy which everybody can point that we’ve left the place in a mess.
Q.3. Gerry Carolan (L.I.V.E. group): “Mr Mayor…. You mentioned the Birmingham Bombing …I know two of the victims concerned ….. The real miscarriage of justice was against the victims, but according to the media, the real miscarriage of justice was against the perpetrators. I trust you are aware that Chris Mullen in his book claims to know the bombers but won’t reveal it. There’s a miscarriage of justice……….. It’s the duty of care of Birmingham City Council to continue to look for and arrest the bombers. ….It’s great to see positive things being done in Birmingham, but you can’t afford to build the new city with that unsafe foundation. Also Gareth has used the term ‘volunteer’. That has been abused by the Provos. I don’t like it being used by them, I don’t mind it being used by Gareth! “
Mike Nangle: “With regard to Chris Mullen, I don’t believe a word he says! ….I don’t want to keep you here all night, but I know a lot more about the six who were arrested because …. And three weeks after it was all over we ended up in a house chatting, so I do know a little bit about it and I know the threat that … [a certain MP] came under and my phone was tapped for 15 years….….all that was said is clouded in mystery. There have been so many words written about it now, you don’t know what is the truth and what is not the truth in all honesty …. If Chris knows the people he should name them. Murder was committed and that’s the end of it. People like Maureen Mitchell suffered. That’s the legacy. If I knew I would tell.
Apology needed: “We still want an apology – we won’t stop asking for it – for all the atrocities, all the paramilitaries have committed atrocities and that has got to stop. We’re going to leave a legacy that will never be forgotten.
Abstention from Westminster: “Our children need something better and that is the world people should be working towards… Somebody that is going to be made an MP and sit in the House of Commons to take their salary and be a backbencher and not contribute to peace – that is fraudulent. I don’t know what it is about. I get £40,000 a year to be a councillor. If I sat back at home I’d be out on my ear…… People want people to represent them. There is no point in getting £40,000 or £50,000 a year salary and not contributing to your society. They will hold an advice bureau and that is it. That is what any MP in Northern Ireland can do, hold an advice bureau and send the problems into the constituency for somebody else to resolve it. They are not contributing anything to the peace. All they’ll do is turn up at No. 10 Downing Street and have a chat with the Prime Minister and then walk out again and make a big announcement and within 48 hours it is all forgotten. …. They are taking money under false pretences, because they are not working for peace in Northern Ireland and that is all sides. Except for one or two, but the majority won’t sit down with one another unless the IRA surrender their arms……
Q. 4. Fintan: “Do you also feel Paisley wants peace?”
Mike Nangle: “Paisley is looking better now than for years! I don’t know. He’s a good MP. People hold it in their hands to give peace and tranquillity
Fintan: “I nominated Ian Paisley for President in 1990! But I feel he has an agenda that would be difficult to reconcile with the nationalist side”
Mike Reade: “Is it possible to get justice if you don’t have truth? To get closure?
Jacinta: “You have to give the people something where they can continue their lives
What are the people to do? Wait for people to say sorry. I say, by all means hope for an apology but you owe it to yourself to live your life to its fullest. Don’t let them win.
Gareth: “The justice issue is a very difficult one. In my area over 90% of IRA murders are unsolved and only 33% of loyalist murders were solved. There is a justice element to our group. … it is fair to say that our people have suffered the humiliation of knowing there would be no long-term imprisonment for a lot of these people. But they had reconciled – through going to me and from government ministers and the like – that if someone is caught, it will be two years in jail and out on licence. Now that in any society is unreasonable …. and there was a suspicion that the whole truth commission issue is about even extending those barriers. It is no surprise that for the two widows who are with me here tonight – again both cases in the 70’s and 80’s – the murders are unsolved. The situation is so bad that the local police are telling folks like ourselves, that even when we are giving evidence they don’t have the manpower to deal with it. Now we are looking at different aspects of that. But I think it is fair to say that as far as closure or assistance or dealing with the trauma is concerned, I think the fact that there is no justice adds yet another hurdle onto all the other hurdles and I think it is something that needs to be addressed. What happens is you extinguish hope and if you extinguish hope you leave people in a very difficult….dangerous situation for the generations coming down.
Third generation: “My fear is for the third generation and I’ve said this for some time but I think the grandchildren …. are probably the most vulnerable in our community and in our society. I believe if the governments addressed the whole sector of those lost loved ones, it could alleviate future trouble because who else has the right to claim under the hat of ‘victims’?
Cycle of violence: “So many of the killings that took place in Northern Ireland were tit-for-tat. They were a cycle of violence. We like to believe we can try to break the cycle of trauma but the bigger picture is we have to break the cycle of violence. … So often people went out and shot people because so and so had been killed. We have a case now – a lady in our group, her husband was killed. Three months later a young taxi-man, a Roman Catholic was killed and it was claimed in his name. I’m proud to say that the person in our group regularly talks to the mother of that young man from a Roman Catholic background on her own.
“I do believe resources in education etc should be pumped into the sector, but no one seems to be really interested except those directly impacted. I do believe it is right to continue to seek for justice. I can see the difficulties though.
Inquiries: “I said this openly to some people in the case of Bloody Sunday…a few of the police details…I think they have never got past “go” in a lot of the cases. The multimillions spent on tribunals has led to two difficulties: one is the hierarchy of victims – why were those 13 in Derry treated differently? £150 million could have done massive reconciliation work not only in Northern Ireland but on the island as a whole and on the mainland where there is a lot of grief. I think the government needs to look at that.
“But what happens in our own area? We now have six more inquiries. We have the Rosemary Nelson inquiry – she deserves justice as well. We have the Raymond Hamill inquiry from Portadown ….. And then we have the Wright case – all from Lurgan/Portadown areas. We don’t know the cost ….While widows on the ground try to prevent suicide and murder. We work on a shoestring. We have to try to achieve an outcome on justice. We have to demand at least the 2 years in prison
Mike Reade: “Is there a lot going on we don’t know about? Knock-on effect of the Troubles, eg a higher proportion of cancer among victims of the Troubles, and alcoholism and drug dependency, suicide feelings. The system gives them sleeping tablets etc
Gareth Porter: “There is a higher incidence of alcoholism and all of the above as Mike suggests. ….
Jacinta de Paor: “…. Yes, there is this secondary trauma and things that we’re seeing again – alcohol use like I’ve never seen alcohol being drunk, almost like in a desperation. I’ve never seen the level of drink that has happened around trauma. And we notice – and we always remark on it in the centre – the level of smoking. Ok we talk about prescription drugs but I mean people are seeking solace from all sorts of areas. The knock-on effect is huge and we’re not going to see it now until down the road, until things start to come out in behaviour problems with children. We’re seeing a little bit in crime figures going up and that, but until we really see – not alone the suicide numbers but the attempted suicides, and the real figures for the level of depression – I think we’re going to get an awful shock.
Inquiries – Bloody Sunday Tribunal: “I wanted to go back just quickly to when we were talking there about the Bloody Sunday inquiry, and having had some of the victims from that inquiry down with our group as well, there’s a further trauma – because people now point the finger at them and say ‘but you all got so much money, look you’re rolling in it, look at the millions you got.’ And there’s another trauma because they got none of that, they didn’t get a penny – it was the lawyers got it, and that’s what’s happening in every tribunal, and if we go ahead, if we seek justice in that fashion it’s not going to be going to the victim survivors, it’s going to be going to the lawyers and the solicitors and barristers. I just wanted to make that point strongly because we’re talking about traumatisation and further trauma and how it happens.”
Q. 5. Ray (Dublin): Re Prince Charles’ visit to Glencree: “This one is to Jacinta … I like you talking about Glencree because I know it very well. As a younger man I used to go up every Sunday and cut turf in Castlekelly … so I knew the place very well. The other reason I know it well is that the German War Museum is next door – a lot of people probably wouldn’t be aware of the fact that there was a very big young population of German children, mainly from the old east, and I was in class with four Germans and the father of one of them was a seaman and he was buried there. … I don’t know were you there when Prince Charles visited Glencree – is there any truth in the rumour that when he was being welcomed he said it was very nice to be in ‘Drumcree’ – did he say that?”
Jacinta de Paor: “To my recollection I think he may have done, but you’ve given me the opportunity to come back with an even more remarkable story that people may not realise from that time. … On that morning, I had the privilege to sit in a room roughly this size with him, and with victim survivors from the Troubles, and with people from all our programmes. And we were very taken first of all with the fact that he came on the morning of Princess Margaret’s funeral – that was happening that afternoon. But what was even more remarkable – a spine-chilling event that took place was that one of our participants was a former paratrooper and he started to tell the story of how his mother had been killed in Aldershot in retaliation for Bloody Sunday, and Prince Charles, as people know, is head of the Paratroop Regiment. And Prince Charles then started to talk …. and this is how our dialogues happen, maybe one person would start to tell their story and somebody else would start and match it back, and this time it happened to be Prince Charles who matched it back and talked about the time of Lord Mountbatten’s killing. Before he started his minders were telling him that it was time for him to go… and he said ‘no I need to stay here for another moment’ and then he started to talk about Lord Mountbatten’s killing and he said: ‘I was so angry when that happened, I was consumed with anger.’
“And then he talked a lot about what his feelings were like and then he said the words: ‘and I came eventually to a place of forgiveness’. And that was the chilling moment…. that was said in the room and … that was such an incredible healing moment. We’re talking about closure and we’re talking about healing…..”
Ray: “…At one stage Glencree was a reformatory, and the period I am talking about was what we called the Emergency and we cut turf during that period as there was no coal And the Christian Brothers ran that reformatory, and that particular reformatory was for young boys and deprivation there was outrageous, and I know as we used to call in there. … It was the way things were at that time. So when you say it’s now a place of peace I would immediately think of all the kids that went through there, mainly Dublin kids. It was a harsh regime. So thank you very much.”
Jacinta: “Thank you.”
Q.6. John Clancy (Meath Peace Group): Sharing in the closure: “Good evening. Just to bring it back to the last question – the point about healing moments and places of healing and all of that. One of the points about victims is that we have to realise that their feeling is part of our feeling. We must realise that – we must share in that. I haven’t heard tonight how that can happen … I’ve said this on other occasions … that, having seen the people that fought the war against the oppressor as they saw it, we’re not hearing with the same loudness or the same clarity the victims of that war …
“I’m not going to go down the road of right or wrong but they have to hear that story and I haven’t heard yet tonight how that story can be heard so that balance can be brought in so doing to this total catastrophe of the last whatever number of years we care to mention – 900 years, or 700 years or 30 years or whatever. We do need to do that as a nation. How are we going to do that? Maybe we could ask how we collectively share in the closure of the hurt of the victims.”
Gareth Porter: “That, I certainly believe, is a very difficult question – one of the key things is recognition and acknowledgment of what has taken place … and if this was shared and widened it would be a key part of the healing process. And you know we had perceptions in the North that the Republic was a safe haven for the IRA. We would still have problems maybe doing this type of healing in certain parts just on and around the border on security grounds or whatever. But that comfort and support was given to us as an organisation – and H.U.R.T. was the first group that would be perceived as a unionist or Protestant group in our sector to approach the Dublin Government for funding, and I know that we have no problem, and Jacinta will verify this because …. she’s been with us at various events, and I believe now there are something like six major groups in Northern Ireland that have been down to Dublin and have received funding and have received an open welcome and open support. So at that level I think it is important. I have to say, sadly, President Mary McAleese – while attempts were made to secure a meeting with her, while she had actually wined and dined the Ulster Defence Association, they did get a meeting, we didn’t. But I also do appreciate the good work that she and her husband are doing addressing social exclusion in that particular category. I have to say that maybe if we had been more militant we would have got the interview with her…..
Victims feel they’ve ‘become a burden’. “Sadly, so many of the people that we represent feel they’ve just become a burden, they’re an embarrassment, their pain and suffering is an embarrassment. And some people say ‘with the Belfast Agreement we want to move on, why can’t they move on?’
Building confidence and trust: “Most of the work we do is about building confidence, building self esteem, it is about building trust, and I know that the people from our organisation who have been down in the Republic and have met people and made friends, have that confidence. I could have brought 50, 60, 80 people down tonight to this meeting on a bus and their thinking would be no different to my views on the good people in the Republic of Ireland… and in Birmingham. And in one way it’s a slow process, we have to address both internally and externally those difficulties, but I think a more general recognition and understanding … I’m sad in some ways that in this period of our organisation – we’ve been established as an organisation for seven years – we’ve really only been funded for three and a half of those seven years. At a time that should have been a golden period for helping victims, for self-help groups, it wasn’t the case. And the sad thing was that it fell on individuals and funding bodies and individual senior civil servants in the North who actually took a view … as they knew best, about groups who were somehow political or could be deemed to have been influenced by political roots, yet there’s never been politics discussed in our organisation, never, and never will be. We very rarely issue statements….
“John, I hope that answers your question. It’s not an easy one. A lot of the work we do in our trauma programme – there are five key areas in trauma work: trust, self-worth, intimacy, control, security, and in those areas we tend to hope that we are overcoming the internal problems. As for external problems… I think it’s about recognition and support, and I think that has got to come at Prime Minister level and at Cabinet level and at high government level….
Churches: “I’ve been at sessions discussing why somehow the Churches failed to address the needs of trauma victims. And I understand, like many others, that fear of offending, of walking on eggs. You’re afraid to offend, you’re afraid to touch the raw nerve, but the challenges are there and have to be met at all levels.”
Michael Reade: “Unfortunately the time has got the better of us so Jacinta, although it’s a huge question, I would ask you to be as brief as possible in your response.”
Jacinta de Paor: “Ok very very quickly – I think we run the risk of concentrating around the conflict on the victim survivors and on the combatants or perpetrators, or whatever name you want to put on it, and that’s a very convenient thing because we let ourselves off the hook, and I’m speaking as somebody from the Republic here. What we have done in Glencree may be a start I don’t know, but it’s an idea of bringing in all parties to the conflict and its not just the victim survivors and the ex combatants but it includes the wider civil society and the churches and we have some initiatives happening where big business are asked to send people to our programmes to, I suppose, give an account of themselves in a way – that’s what we’re hoping will happen: where were you while the Troubles were going on? So it’s back to ‘what did you do in the war daddy?’ It’s ‘where was the Republic while all of this was going on? Where were we?’ And I’ve stood up in the North and said this and I get a very good response, but I think really now that we have this peace time we need to be asking these questions. I’ve probably given you the topic for another discussion but I think when you have the Minister for Justice here I think it might be a very good time to say well right that’s all very well but where were we and where were you as well when this was going on?
Chair (Michael Reade): “Well we’re close to the end now. Truly it has been a thought- provoking evening and appropriately we’ll ask John Clarke to take the stage for now…”
Closing words:
Rev. John Clarke: “May I, on behalf of the Meath Peace Group, extend our very sincere thank you to the panel here this evening and to all who asked questions and to you, Michael, for chairing the meeting so wonderfully well again. Grateful thanks goes to the panel members and the Mayor for travelling here this evening and for sharing with us. A very sincere thank you on behalf of all of us and thank you all for coming along…. And may I also thank the Columban Fathers for facilitating us here tonight.
Presentation: “There will be a presentation now for the Mayor and for the groups who have come here tonight, and that will be followed by a minute’s silence for those who died in the Birmingham bombs and all who lost their lives in the conflict.”
[On behalf of the Meath Peace Group, Mrs Philomena Boylan-Stewart presented books on Meath and it’s heritage to the Mayor of Birmingham, and to the representatives of the H.U.R.T., Glencree and L.I.V.E groups.]
Remembrance:
Rev. John Clarke: “We remember all who suffered and died in conflict and trouble in Northern Ireland, here and elsewhere. We think too of the bereaved, the survivors, the families and friends of the deceased. We remember too in these moments of silence all who died as a result of the Birmingham bombings.”
[Minute’s silence observed]
Meath Peace Group report. Taped by Judith Hamill and Jim Kealy
Transcribed by Elizabeth Clancy, Judith Hamill and Julitta Clancy
Edited by Julitta Clancy
©Meath Peace Group
——————————————————————————————————————-
Appendix: Birmingham and other bombings in 1974
[Extract from handout distributed before the talk]
Birmingham bombs: On 21 November 1974, 21 people were killed when IRA bombs exploded in the Mulberry Bush and The Tavern in the Town pubs in Birmingham city centre. More than 160 people were injured, many of them very seriously, and many of the dead and injured were from the Irish community. [names of those killed listed below]
The following account is taken from Lost Lives (David McKittrick et al, 1999):
“The first bomb exploded at 8.17pm, six minutes after a warning was telephoned to the Birmingham Post and Mail by a man with an Irish accent. The telephone warnings said the codeword was ‘Double X’ and went on: ‘There is a bomb planted in the Rotunda and there is a bomb in New Street at the tax office’. …The Mulberry Bush was situated on two lower storeys built into the Rotunda, a large office block dominating central Birmingham. A policeman who was driving towards the scene said: ‘We were about 300 yards away, just cresting the hill, when there was the loudest thunderclap and rumbling and ground shock. Debris was coming down all over the road. It was like a volcano had erupted, people running and screaming. The Mulberry Bush had sort of exploded out onto the pavement – rubble, half a staircase, glass, carpets, bartops and furniture blown to bits, and injured people staggering out….
“Further along New Street, at the Tavern in the Town, customers heard the explosion at the Mulberry Bush. The pub, which was situated below street level, was crowded with over a hundred young people when the bomb went off minutes later. One of the barmen said: ‘There was an almighty blast and there were screams and shouts from everywhere. The ceiling fell in and the bar blew back at me. It was just a screaming mass of people. I saw one man with the side of his head blown off.’ A police inspector described going down into the basement bar at the Tavern on the Town: ‘I could hear the sound of crying from people who were still in there. We could feel people reaching out to us as we stood there, but we couldn’t see them.’ A woman customer described the scene after the blast: ‘The lights went out and there was screaming and moaning everywhere. I flicked on my lighter and saw my friend next to me had lost her foot. I thought I was dead and that my spirit was just carrying on.’ Another device left at bank offices in the Ladywood area of Birmingham failed to explode.…
“There were harrowing scenes at the coroner’s court when, over the space of two hours, the families of the victims were led in turn to the adjoining mortuary to identify their loved ones for the second time. Many of the grieving family members were close to collapse during the ordeal.”
“The bombs triggered a wave of attacks on Irish community centres, bars and businesses. Thirty Midlands factories were hit by strikes held to protest against the bombings. Attacks on Irish workers were reported at some factories. At Manchester and Liverpool airports workers refused to handle flights bound for Belfast or Dublin. …
Within days the House of Commons passed into law the Prevention of Terrorism Act proposed by Home Secretary Roy Jenkins… That Act allowed suspects to be held for up to seven days without charge and allowed the Home Secretary to issue orders deporting people from Britain to either Northern Ireland or the Irish Republic.”
[Lost Lives, David McKittrick et al, 1999]
Birmingham Six: Six Irishmen, most of whom had been living in England for some years, were charged with the murders. The six were Richard McIlhenny, Johnny Walker, Paddy Joe Hill, Gerry Hunter, Hugh Callaghan and Billy Power. After a lengthy campaign their convictions were overturned at a second appeal hearing. The Birmingham Six were eventually freed at the Old Bailey in March 1991.
Deaths due to the conflict in 1974 (source: Lost Lives, David McKittrick et al, 1999)
A total of 303 people were killed in 1974: 206 civilians, 51 soldiers (7 from the UDR), 15 RUC members, 24 republican paramilitaries and 6 loyalist paramilitaries. Republicans were involved in 147 of the deaths, loyalists 131, the army in 15 and the RUC in 2.
Birmingham bomb victims, 21 Nov. 1974 (21 killed):
Michael William Beasley (30), Lynn Bennett (18), Stanley Bodman (51), James Caddick (40), Paul Davies (20), Jane Davies (17), Charles Harper Grey (44), Maxine Hambleton (18), Ann Hayes (19), John Jones (51), Neil Marsh (17), Marilyn Nash (22), Paula Palmer (19), Desmond Reilly (21), Eugene Reilly (23), Maureen Roberts (20), John Rowlands (46), Trevor Thrupp (33), Stephen Whalley (24) and Thomas Chaytor (d. Nov. 28, aged 28) and James Craig (d. Dec. 10, aged 34).
Dublin and Monaghan bomb victims, 17 May, 1974 (33 killed):
Breda Turner (21), Antonio Magliocco (37), Anna Massey (21), Edward O’Neill (29), Marie Phelan (20), Anne Byrne (35), Colette O’Doherty (21), Christina O’Loughlin (51), Maureen Shields (44), Anne Marren (20), Marie Butler (21), Simone Chetrit (31), John Dargle, Patrick Fay (47), Bernadette Grace (35), Mary McKenna (55), Dorothy Morris, John O’Brien (23), Anna O’Brien (22), Jacqueline O’Brien (17 months), Anne Marie O’Brien (5 months), Siobhan Rice (19), John Walsh (27), Elizabeth Fitzgerald (59), Josephine Bradley (21), Jack Travers (29), Peggy White (44), Thomas Campbell (52), Paddy Askin (53), George Williamson (73), Archie Harper (73), Concepta Dempsey, Thomas Croarkin (35), William Marchant, William Hanna, William Strathearn, Sammy Smyth
Names of victims of other bombing incidents in 1974, in chronological order:
John Dunn (45), Cecilia Byrne (51), John Haughey (32), Howard Fawley (19), Alan Brammah (31), Patrick Molloy (46), Jack Wylie (49), Hugh Thomas Devlin (82), Michael McCreesh (15), Michael Gallagher (18), Adam Johnston (28), Kevin Murray (27), Patrick McDonald (21), Frederick Robinson (45), Joseph John Hughes (22), James Mitchell (38), Joseph Donnelly (24), William Thompson (43), Howard Mercer (37), Paul Anthony Reid (17), Clifford Houghton (23), Linda Houghton (23), Lee Houghton (5), Robert Houghton (2), Leonard Godden (22), Terence Griffen (24), Michael Waugh (22), Leslie Walsh (19), John Hines (20), Stephen Whalley (19), David Harold Sinnamon (34), Norman McKenzie (25), Ronald Joseph Neill (25), Seamus O’Neill (32), Thomas Morrissey (46), James Doherty (53), Thomas Ferguson (48), John Gallagher (23), William Joseph Kelly (56), Albert Green (64), Francis Brennan (56), Eugene Owen James Martin (18), Sean McKearney (19), Martin McAlinden (23), Alfred Shotter (54), Michelle Osborne (13), John Harrison Forsythe (30), Gerard Majella Craig (17), David McKinlay Russell (18), John Walton (27), Thomas Braniff (25), Dorothy Household (48), John Conley (43), Charles McKnight (25), Michael John (45), Denis Alfred Leach (45), Patrick McKeown (29), Michael McCourt (31), Eugene McQuaid (35), Caroline Jean Slater (18), Ann Ray Hamilton (19), John Hunter (17), Paul Craig (22), Arthur Henderson (31), Dominic Donnelly (48), Alan Coughlan (22), Michael Swannick (20), Michael Gerald Meenan (16), Vernon Rose (30), John Charles Simpson (35), Richard Dunne (42), Alan Horsley (20), Robert William Forde (29), John Maddocks (32), Ethel Jean Lynch (22), John Raymond McDaid (16), George Arthur (34),
1974 Bombing locations: Derry city (6 dates), Ballymaguigan, Crossmaglen, Aughenlig, New Lodge (Belfast), Forkhill, Magherafelt (2), Dungannon (2), Greenisland, Upper Springfield Road (Belfast), Shore Road (Belfast), Sandy Row (Belfast), M62 coach (England), Lisnaskea, Portadown, Ormeau Road (Belfast), Elm Street (Belfast), Dublin, Monaghan town, Strabane, Lurgan, Belleeks, Ardoyne (Belfast), London (2 dates), Garvagh, Newtownabbey (Belfast), Drummuckavall, Newry, Pomeroy, Killeen (Belfast to Dublin road), Guildford, Stewartstown (2 dates), Castle Street (Belfast), Ballykinlar, Woolwich, Craigavon, Birmingham, Derrylin
Appendix to MPG report 56 (May 2005)
Taped by Jim Kealy and Judith Hamill
Report transcribed by Elizabeth Clancy, Judith Hamill and Julitta Clancy.
Edited by Julitta Clancy
© Meath Peace Group
Acknowledgments: Meath Peace Group would like to thank all who have assisted in the planning, organisation, publicity and recording of the talk, and those who prepared refreshments. Special thanks as always to the Columban Fathers for permitting us the use of the facilities at Dalgan Park, to the Dept. of Foreign Affairs Reconciliation Fund for assistance towards the running costs of the talks, and to all who have supported our work in any way.
Meath Peace Group Committee 2005: Canon John Clarke, Boyne Road, Navan, Co. Meath; Anne Nolan (Hon. Treasurer), Gernonstown, Slane, Co. Meath; Julitta and John Clancy, Parsonstown, Batterstown, Co. Meath; Philomena Boylan-Stewart, Longwood; Fr. Michael Kane, An Tobar, Ardbraccan, Navan; Judith Hamill, Ross, Dunsany, Co. Meath; Leona Rennicks, Ardbraccan, Navan; Olive Kelly, Lismullen, Navan; Catriona Fitzgerald, Warrenstown, Kilcock.
No. 54 – “The Good Friday Agreement: the Future?”
Friday, 25th February, 2005
St Columban’s College, Dalgan Park, Navan
Speakers:
Dermot Ahern, T.D. (FF) (Minister for Foreign Affairs)
Dominic Bradley, MLA (SDLP, Newry and Armagh)
John O’Dowd, MLA (Sinn Fein, Upper Bann)
Chaired by Michael Reade (Presenter of “Loosetalk”, LMFM Radio)
Contents:
Introduction: Julitta Clancy and Michael Reade
Speakers’ addresses
Questions and comments (summary)
Closing words
Appendix: written speech of Minister Dermot Ahern, TD
INTRODUCTION
Julitta Clancy: “…. On behalf of the Meath Peace Group I would like to thank you all for coming tonight at such short notice as this talk was organised very quickly…. It is a time of great concern. When we met here last November at the talk we had on “Policing, Justice and the Bill of Rights”, there was great expectation then that a deal was going to be done and that we would see within a few months a power-sharing government back up in Belfast. But that wasn’t to be, and a number of events have happened since then. A few days ago the Taoiseach said that the peace process itself looks like it could be unravelling. Let’s see tonight where we are at. We are here because this peace process belongs to us, it belongs to the people. It doesn’t belong to the politicians or the paramilitaries, or the governments. It belongs to us and we need to be there watching it and being vigilant. This Agreement was ours. Most of us ratified it, some reluctantly, for many it was a huge compromise. Some who had suffered greatly signed up and said ‘yes’ to that Agreement. We are wondering why after almost 7 years we still have not got what we voted for in the institutions, but in many other areas, the Good Friday Agreement has brought very important developments…..On behalf of the Meath Peace Group I would like to thank the speakers who have come here tonight and I will hand over now to our guest chair, Michael Reade, presenter of the morning “Loosetalk” programme on LMFM radio, a very worthwhile programme to listen to … We thank him very much for agreeing to chair the proceedings here tonight.”
Chair (Michael Reade): “Thank you. It really is a pleasure for me to be here. Even though this talk was arranged very much at the last minute, I’m not overly surprised to see such a good attendance because of the level of interest that there is on both sides of the border in the current impasse. I wouldn’t say too much by way of commentary, especially with the eminent politicians that we have here, I wouldn’t feel it appropriate. As a journalist, what I like to do is to listen and hopefully we will be able to hear what you have to say, and what questions you have to ask and to listen to what the politicians have to say here this evening.
“… As a journalist working on radio in the south of Ireland, I can’t remember ever seeing such a … level of interest in the impasse and related events. As Julitta said, I believe there is a lot of concern, I think there are people right across this island keeping their fingers crossed that there is some way forward. On the subject of listening to people I suppose the only relatively scientific thing we have to go on is the Millward Browne IMS poll that was published in the Irish Independent today which showed two significant things. There was a lot of opinion obviously on what happened with the Northern Bank raid but in terms of how it has affected the political situation, it’s very interesting to see that the President of Sinn Fein has plummeted in his popularity, he’s down by 20%, now the least popular leader … and perhaps it’s an indication that all politics is local but Sinn Fein has held onto it’s core vote, or maybe it has not transferred yet. I am sure all of our speakers will have a lot to say on the impasse, but the topic tonight is the future, what is the future? To us it’s unknown, but these are the people I suppose who can shape that future…. I now ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern, TD, to begin.
1. Dermot Ahern, T.D. (FF), Minister for Foreign Affairs
[Editor’s note: text of written speech of the Minister is reproduced in the Appendix below]
“First of all, ladies and gentlemen, could I just thank Julitta for the invitation to me to say a few words. She said this was organised very quickly, and it’s true to say that, given the fact that there is a by-election on in this constituency, when I got the request in I said I’d better do this or else Mike Reade will never let me forget it on his programme! I’m not altogether sure about the description of Mike when he says that he just listens, I have to say that, having been on the other side of the phone and the microphone from him he does tend to intervene quite a lot, something that I think most politicians don’t often want! But indeed I have to say that he does conduct a very good show. I want to thank him for participating and to thank my two colleagues also.
Border deputy and constitutional republican: “For those of you who may not know where I come from or what sort of background I come from, I’m a border deputy, I was born and bred and am still living in the Dundalk area. I literally look out every morning on the Mourne Mountains. I regard myself, I have to say, more as a Northerner than as a Southerner, in that most of what would have driven me politically, over my political life, and indeed before my political life given that my own particular area was very badly affected from my memory as a youngster. And I often wonder if the border had been on a different line, perhaps a little bit further south during the start of the Troubles, where would I have ended up?
“But I do say that most of what drives me and has driven me over my political life, which stretches back to 1979, is my view as what I would regard as being a constitutional republican, as John Hume time and time again has said: the need to unite the people on this island in peace and harmony.
Good Friday Agreement: “One of the tenets of the political and armed struggle conflict was, and an excuse for it – I don’t say that I believe that this is the excuse for it – was that 1918 was the last time that the Irish people, in a single act of self-determination on the island, voted as they saw fit. That was transposed by the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. The Good Friday Agreement was the first time since 1918 that the Irish people had, in a single act on the entire island of Ireland, self-determined what they believe was to be the position in the future.
Key principles: “Built into that were a number of key principles. One of the principles was that whatever happened would be on an inclusive basis, and with the consent of the people of Northern Ireland, but also that there would be a legitimate expectation on behalf of the people who voted that all those parties and individuals who were associated with paramilitarism would end that and that the future would be looked at in a totally democratic way, that all political parties who wanted to promote their ideals that they would do so in an exclusively democratic way.
Peace process – 1988 talks: “I have to say that, as Julitta has said, seven years on from the Good Friday Agreement I think it is a source of some dissatisfaction that we are where we are today, that we aren’t further down the road in that goal. The Hume-Adams talks started seventeen years ago. I was asked by the then Taoiseach, Charlie Haughey – he had been asked by Fr. Alec Reid, who was the instigator of the Hume-Adams talks, if Fianna Fail in the Republic would mirror the talks that were taking place at that time between Hume and Adams. It was agreed very secretly – this only came out maybe ten years later – that I, Martin Mansergh and one of your own in this constituency, Richie Healy, on behalf of my party would meet with Gerry Adams, Pat Doherty and Mitchel McLaughlin. In 1988 I was only a young deputy of a year, if it had got out that I as an elected representative, a TD, was meeting these people I think I wouldn’t be standing here today, at least politically. I would have lost my position, very clearly. In fact when I asked Charlie Haughey, he told me these talks were in effect secret, he didn’t know whether word would get out. I said to him that I would participate. I indicated to him that I didn’t believe what he’d said to me that if word of these talks had got out, that in effect I would be on my own. But in any event those talks took place, and the whole tenet of those talks which I participated in was on the basis of the historical comparison between the moving of my party from conflict into constitutional politics. Most of the discussion at that time was the comparison, the similarities. And most of what we were trying to say to the Sinn Féin representatives was in very very tough times, because during those meetings there were some absolutely horrific events taking place across the border which made us, particularly myself and Richie Healy, have great trepidation in the continuation of those talks. I say all that because that was nearly eighteen years ago.
Crossroads: “I fully accept that the situation is far better since then, I fully accept it and I think we all have to give everyone credit on all sides of the political process for the tremendous changes that have taken place on our island. But I believe, as I have said quite frequently in recent times, that we have reached the stage where we are at a crossroads, and particularly I think the Provisional leadership have to accept the will of the people as expressed by the people in vast numbers in the Good Friday Agreement just seven years ago.
Provisional criminality: “I believe that Provisional criminality is the impediment to the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. We met with Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness immediately after the Northern Bank raid took place. We said to them on that occasion that we on this side of the table were prepared – and they knew this – to do some very unpalatable things in the context of an overall settlement, a comprehensive agreement whereby there would be a total end to paramilitarism and criminality. We were prepared to do that, the British Government were prepared to do that. In fact as a result of the discussions that we had in 10 Downing Street – between the Taoiseach, Tony Blair, myself, Paul Murphy, Michael McDowell and indeed the PSNI chief, Hugh Orde and Noel Conroy [Garda Commissioner] – this was before the publication of the documents, there was discussion as to what the British Government had to do in relation to issues like demilitarisation etc. As a result of our meeting it was suggested that Hugh Orde might invite Gerry Adams over in the succeeding days in order to discuss the issue of demilitarisation.
That meeting took place, it was very successful, it was a significant meeting, the first time someone from Sinn Féin met with the leader of the Police Service in Northern Ireland.
Governments prepared to do unpalatable things: “So we were moving in effect to the final hurdle, and this was something that we said after the Northern Bank raid, that we – the British Government and ourselves – had carried out and were prepared to carry out all of the issues that were on the table that we had to do. Some very unpalatable things that would cause severe difficulty to us politically in the Republic and indeed to a certain extent to the British Government.
Acts of completion: two remaining issues: “We told Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness that while we had fallen at the last hurdle in relation to the comprehensive agreement – we published the documents – that there were still 2 key remaining issues:
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Full decommissioning, and
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An end to paramilitarism and criminality
1) Full decommissioning: “We accept and still accept that there was in words, and also from what our security sources told us, that there was a solid movement in order to provide full decommissioning. We fully accept that that was on the table, that that was possible. Obviously we had to accept people at their word, but the strong suggestion from our security sources was that that was available to us, and we have to come back to that.
2) End to paramilitarism and criminality. “One of the other issues that we said at our meeting after the Northern Bank raid was the issue of the end to paramilitarism and criminality. Tony Blair and the Taoiseach previously, in the Joint Declaration, particularly Article 13 of the Joint Declaration, said that they had to have “acts of completion”, that everything had to be dealt with in a comprehensive agreement. And one of the key issues was the issue of an end to paramilitarism.
IRA statement, December 2004 : “As you may remember in the run up to the publication of those documents in December, it was delayed for about a week, people were wondering why it was delayed. It was delayed purely and simply because – obviously everyone knew about the photographs issue, the transparency issue – but equally so one of the key issues was in relation to the words that would be used in a statement by the IRA. It was indicated to us very late, particularly after the unfortunate words expressed in Ballymena about “sackcloths and ashes” and “humiliation”, that the issue of transparency and photographs was completely off the agenda. It was indicated to us that, while some people within the Provisional movement had no difficulty with the issue of putting in words into the statement in relation to the safety of individuals, that others had. The governments decided, in or around the 6th of December, to proceed with the publication on the 8th December with what we saw was our best estimate of a possible compromise both in relation to the photograph and also in relation to the issue of the words used in the statement about an end to paramilitarism and criminality. Subsequently the IRA issued a statement which omitted the words that we required in the statement. You may say they were only words, but the omission of those words raised a very serious question mark on our behalf, and on the British Government’s behalf, as to why they were not prepared to say these words. What they were prepared to say was that the IRA would go into a new mode, that they were prepared to ensure that their volunteers would do nothing which would endanger the Agreement. What they were not prepared to do was to follow on with additional words and say that they would not do anything that would endanger the safety and lives of public individuals. The omission of those words and the fact that they were not prepared to say those words raised a serious question in our minds.
“I say all that because our impasse at the moment is unfortunate, it’s there, whether we come back to these issues tomorrow, in a year’s time after the election, or whenever, there will still be those two remaining issues: the issue of full decommissioning and the issue of an end to paramilitarism and criminality. We said quite clearly in our meeting that [while] we were prepared to do – and still prepared to do – all the unpalatable issues, we could not solve the issue of decommissioning or paramilitarism. It was only they, on the other side of the table, who could do that.
Commitment to inclusivity: “We make it clear to this day, that despite all that, we’re still in favour of inclusivity. Given the fact that the vast majority of the people on this island, both North and South, voted for a blueprint for the future of this island, we believe they did so on the basis of including both communities. So we believe, despite all the difficulties, that we still have a duty – given the fact that we brought the process so far to the eleventh hour, to the last hurdle – that we still have a duty to investigate and to try and bring it further, and to help those who have these two key issues to deliver.
Responsibility of Provisional movement: “As the Taoiseach said in the Dail this week, in response to the statement by Caoimhín Ó Caolain, we are listening to what you are saying but really, and this is our position, it is up to you. It is up to you to convince not only the governments but also the wider community that, despite all the difficulties of bank raids and previous robberies that have taken place – and we’re quite clear were carried out by the Provisional movement – and indeed by the punishment beatings and shootings that took place as if a tap had been turned on. We got an indication on the 6th of December that it was not possible to produce a photograph, that it was not possible to put in the words in the statement, in relation to not endangering the personal safety and lives of individuals. We published the documents two days later.
Punishment beatings and shootings: “On the 7th December, for the first time in months, the first punishment shooting occurred in Belfast, again clearly indicated not by the PSNI, but by our own sources – and we have officials in Belfast resident all the time. They indicated to us clearly that it was on behalf of the Provisional IRA. After that, from then on, quite a number – about four or five – punishment beatings took place. Before the 7th December, virtually none had taken place during all the discussions that we had.
Finality: “It raises the question: while there is a peace process, there has to be finality in relation to it. And we have to ask: do people want finality to the peace process, or do they want a never-ending peace process, a peace process that is always in crisis, that rumbles from crisis to crisis? This constant crisis, it really diverts attention, in our view, from the real politics that go on in relation to economic and social policies, and the real investigation and the questioning by people like yourselves, both North and South, about the type of policies that political parties have. And I think that’s even more so in the case of Sinn Fein. To a certain extent, everyone thinks that the only issue on the agenda is the peace process, and going from one crisis to the other. But there are other issues, and to a certain extent the constant never-ending peace process does divert Mike Reade’s attention, and all the other media people’s attention, and indeed ordinary individuals, from the type of policies that are being espoused by a party like Sinn Féin.
Why are we questioning? “The very fact that we are questioning – we as a government and I as a member of a constitutional republican party who have the same ideals of Irish unity, who are prepared to work for Irish unity, but not on the basis of violence putting it further and further back, not on the basis of 30 years of what in our view was detrimental to the unification of this country – the very fact that we are questioning the authenticity and the type of trust and confidence that we thought we had with the people we were dealing with is extremely significant, and I think it has to be, I suppose, put up in lights there. But someone like Bertie Ahern particularly, who has invested 10 years of his life in this process, a huge amount of work behind the scenes, a huge amount of work that he could be doing on other issues in relation to the running of this State. People have to ask the question: why are we questioning at this juncture? Because we believe that all the other acts of completion that Tony Blair referred to in that speech to do with the Joint Declaration, that all of the acts of completion are there on the table, the two governments are prepared to do their bit, the two final acts of completion are significant ones, they are the ones that are the key because they are the ones that the people on this island voted to finalise.
North-South bodies and all-island economy: “It is unfortunate that we have a peace process that is stop-start, stop-start. It means that all the structures, particularly the North-South structures, have been hamstrung. I as a constitutional republican, my party, our supporters and I think the vast majority of the people in the Republic and indeed in the North, had great difficulty in regard to the issue of Articles 2 and 3 in the Constitution and the deleting of those, but we did that and we sold that on the basis that the North-South dimension of the Good Friday Agreement was the way forward where we could in effect deal on an equal basis with bodies in the North to the mutual benefit of all of us on this island.
“So the quid pro quo for Articles 2 and 3 were the North-South bodies and the mushrooming of those bodies. Unfortunately they have been hamstrung by the constant stop-start of the peace process which is not good from our point of view or from indeed all of our citizens’ point of view. I say this as someone born and bred in the border area… I don’t want to be over-critical of parties, but for years and years we have heard about all-island and all-Ireland institutions. I well remember, and I say this as somebody who was a minister in the area of energy and telecommunications, we have parties now espousing all-island policies in relation to electricity: literally week in, week out, the electricity interconnector in my constituency was blown up. Again in relation to transport: we have policies coming out now about all-island transport policies: literally every week the rail line was bombed and people were injured. Thankfully we’ve moved away from that.
Practical benefits of all-island economy: “The benefits of an all-island economy are there for everyone to see. For the first time in my life my own area is blossoming, the way it should have done for decades but didn’t because of the conflict on the island, because we weren’t allowed because of the conflict. Who would come to our area, either as a tourist, or as an industrialist to look at our area because of the violence? What better place to site something, halfway between Dublin and Belfast, slap bang between the two centres of population, but it’s only now that the benefits of the peace process are being seen in that area. I say those things because that’s what we are losing, and the potential, if we don’t continue at it.
Gas pipeline: “I was part of a government who dedicated 12.7 million euro towards a gas pipeline in the North. The Department of Finance told the government quite clearly – as they normally would anyway – that there was absolutely no economic rationale for the southern Irish taxpayer giving money across the border for a gas pipeline. The government decided we would do it anyway, we decided that in the interests of cross-community and cross-border cooperation we would do it.
Electricity interconnector: “I was Minister for Energy in relation to electricity particularly. As a result of discussions that have gone on between the Northern minister and myself we now will have a better and bigger electricity interconnector which we badly need in order to transfer electricity particularly from North to South. …These are all practical things that will benefit if the politicians are allowed to get on with the issue of the peace process.
Sometime back, as you know the economy is burgeoning here, there was a difficulty in relation to the capacity of electricity. As a result of a ten-year contract between the ESB and Ballylumford in the North, hundreds of jobs – not nationalist jobs, most of them would be unionist jobs – were saved…..That plant in Ballylumford was actually going to close. That’s a practical manifestation of the benefits.
Again the issue of road and rail interconnection, the issue of tourism which is now dealt with on an all-island basis, mainly for the benefit more particularly of the North rather than the South. We need to get on with these acts, these practical aspects. We can’t do it at the moment because we are hamstrung. We would far rather do it on the basis of dealing with people from the North as ministers, from both traditions, working in harmony because they know and we know that this island can be better and better.
Responsibility on all to promote the peace process: “I agree with Julitta when she said the peace process was not just for the politicians. I’ve said it constantly time and time again that we can only put on paper what we believe are the parameters that the people live to and work with. It is up to trade unions, the employers, the voluntary community sector, the farmers and all aspects of Irish life North and South to promote this peace process more and more. I do say, not in a critical way, that we have to adopt this attitude given that the two remaining key issues are something not in our part… but the sooner that the impasse is over, the work on the Good Friday Agreement in relation to north, south, east and west, will accelerate.
IRA have to go away: “I would just finally say at this gathering, I would appeal to the Provisional movement to listen to the will of the Irish people. It is the epitome of republicanism that those people who espouse republicanism would listen to the will of the people. And the people’s will was expressed, whether they like it or not, in 1998 under the Good Friday Agreement. I’ll end by saying that Gerry Adams said ‘they haven’t gone away you know’, but I say they have to go away.”
Chair (Michael Reade): “Minister, before we go on to the next speaker, just on a point of clarification: you mentioned about the photograph which is to some degree a secondary issue but obviously a very significant issue if a deal is to be reached. You said that you were told in December that it wouldn’t be possible to produce a photograph. Was there an indication as far as you were concerned that that was around the corner last December?
Dermot Ahern, TD: “There was clearly an indication, and there was discussion about a photograph. Constantly as always in these discussions it would be said to us ‘that’s a matter for the IRA’ and ‘we have to go to the IRA’. Now again I would remind people of our solid view based on solid Garda Siochana intelligence that there is no dividing line between the Sinn Fein leadership and the IRA leadership, so, as far as we were concerned, when we were discussing the issue of a photograph, it was clearly on the table, but I have to say that whatever possibility there was for a photograph was blown out of the water, I think we accept that, after Dr Paisley’s speech in Ballymena.”
Chair: Our next speaker is Dominic Bradley, MLA for Newry and Armagh, SDLP candidate in the forthcoming Westminster elections and the party’s spokesperson on Education and the Irish language…..
2. Dominic Bradley, MLA (SDLP)
“…Tá an-athas orm beith anseo I gContae na Mí leis an Grúpa Síochána anseo….. I would like to thank the Meath Peace Group for inviting me here today to speak on where now for the Good Friday Agreement. I was in the College here previously, I came as a schoolboy playing in a basketball tournament, and stayed for the weekend and really enjoyed my time here. It is nice to be back in Dalgan Park again.
“As Michael said, I am the MLA for the SDLP in Newry and Armagh. I come from South Armagh. I was brought up in a small linen village called Bessbrook which is a mixed community. I was brought up side by side with people of a unionist outlook and I am glad to say that the village is still mixed and that community relations there are excellent to this day. My mother used to say to me: “son, wherever you go don’t tell them you’re from Bessbrook.” I was a bit baffled by that so I said to her one day: “ma, why shouldn’t I tell them I’m from Bessbrook?” And she said, “they’d only be jealous of you!” So I’m proud to be from Bessbrook, from County Armagh and from South Armagh.”
Referendum on Good Friday Agreement (1998): “Just to focus in on our topic for discussion here this evening… I think it is useful to look back on where we have come from. To start with I would like to go back to the day that the Good Friday Agreement was approved by the people of Ireland, because, as a party of true republicanism, what the Irish people have willed is what the SDLP is determined to uphold. That day in May 1998 was one of great optimism for the people of Ireland, both North and South, a day when all the people of Ireland were able to vote together for the first time. Their first act of self-determination since 1918. And on that day by clear majorities North and South, the Irish people voted for partnership. They voted for progress and they voted for peace.
Situation today: “Yet now we find ourselves in the position that our institutions have been frozen by suspension. We find progress halted by the dead hand of direct rule and we find our peace threatened by criminality.
What has gone wrong? “Well we might ask ourselves at this point in time: what has gone wrong? Where has the hope and the heady optimism of 1998 gone? Some people argue that the Good Friday Agreement has let us down. But it is my absolute conviction that the Agreement has not failed us. Rather, parties and paramilitaries have failed the Agreement. First of all, we had David Trimble who tried to breach the Agreement by demanding prior decommissioning. Then we had the DUP. They tried to overthrow the Agreement by demanding renegotiation. Now we see the Provisional movement undermining the Agreement through criminality. None of this is what the people of Ireland voted for in May of 1998. None of this is what they want. All of this is a perversion of the will of the people of Ireland. There are some people who don’t take seriously what the people of Ireland voted for. Some people who believe that you can change whatever you like and fall short whenever you need to. I disagree with that. When the people of Ireland express their will, it is the duty I believe of all true democrats to follow.
Duty of Provisional movement: “That is why it is the duty of the Provisional movement now to wind up, as the Minister has said, their criminality, to scrap their guns and to work with the rest of us to secure the rule of law in every part of Ireland.
Loyalist paramilitaries: “The same applies to loyalist paramilitaries who terrorise the nationalist community and who poison their own communities with drugs. They don’t have much of a democratic mandate, but they have a democratic obligation to comply with what the people of Ireland, North and South, voted for.
Nationalists did not vote for criminality: “And just because Sinn Fein does have a democratic mandate, it does not mean that they can cite it to excuse, diminish or deny IRA crime. Because no nationalist voted for Robert McCartney’s throat to be cut. No nationalist voted for Sinn Fein to try to cover up the truth about his murder. No nationalist voted for families to be held hostage and threatened with death. When Sinn Fein hide criminality behind their mandate, they fall short of the democratic standards of the Irish people. And they insult the decent standards of their own voters. Nationalists did not protest for civil rights only to have the right to life of families threatened. Generations did not campaign for justice only to find their elected politicians covering up murder.
Criminality is wrecking the Agreement: “The SDLP respects Sinn Fein’s mandate. We have opposed silly sanctions and exclusion. It is time that Sinn Fein showed the same respect for their mandate and, instead of covering up criminality, worked to end it. Because criminality is ruining the peace process. It is wrecking the Agreement. And it is playing right into the DUP’s destructive agenda, just indeed as Sinn Fein in the negotiations played right into their agenda, they gave the DUP sweeping new vetoes. They accepted not a single extra North-South body or area of cooperation. They even colluded with the DUP to create a new form of automatic exclusion to be used against democratic parties. Why? Because Sinn Fein were not negotiating for national interest. They were protecting the Provisional movement’s self-interest. Getting a blind eye turned to their criminality. Getting an amnesty for the on-the-runs. Ensuring no sight of their decommissioned guns. And what in the end of the day was their “deal breaker”? Release of the killers of Garda McCabe. So much for an Ireland of equals.
SDLP alternative: “The SDLP offers an alternative. The SDLP offers a better way to a better Ireland. We stand strong against paramilitarism and we stand strong for the Agreement. We stand for both a lawful society and an inclusive democracy. We are convinced that this crisis can be overcome and the battle for peace and inclusive democracy won.
Message to the Governments: “Our message to the Governments is clear. Press ahead with the Agreement. Implement it in full. If you want people to know the Agreement is the only agenda, you must show them that it is the only agenda. The announcement of the closure of Girdwood and Oldpark barracks was an important step in the right direction. Now deliver more to ensure a normal, equal, shared society that the Agreement promised. Above all, get politics working again. Just because we cannot get an inclusive Executive right now, there is no reason why things should be left in stalemate. The SDLP have proposals for getting the Agreement moving. They get us out of the rut of suspension without taking us down the dead end of exclusion. They deserve to be implemented. Under our plans, we would end suspension right now. We would restore the Assembly and the North/South institutions straight away. The Assembly would then have six weeks to appoint a new inclusive Executive. If they do, well and good. But if, as may be likely, they don’t we should not just accept suspension of all the institutions just because we cannot get the Executive working right now. Instead, the two Governments should nominate people to run the departments and all of the rest of the Agreement can work on.
Message to the paramilitaries: “Our message to the paramilitaries is firm. Your day is done. We want all paramilitaries – loyalist and republican – off our backs so that our communities can get off their knees.
Message to the political parties: “Our message to the parties of Ireland is strong. Now is the time to reconvene the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation. Now is the time for all parties to set the standards for democracy on the island of Ireland for the 21st century.
We can stand together against paramilitarism, be it republican or loyalist. We can stand together for the Good Friday Agreement. We can remind the DUP, and indeed Sinn Fein, that while they have a mandate, it is not greater than the mandate that the people of Ireland gave the Agreement.
Message to the people: “Above all, our message to the people is sound. The SDLP will work for a stronger mandate to protect the Agreement. Our approach at Leeds Castle in the face of DUP wreckers could not have been better and our mandate will be stronger. If people support parties that have let the Agreement down, they will only keep letting the Agreement down. If they back people who deliver less, they will never deliver more. Above all, what gets rewarded gets repeated. The best way to force the pace on unionists and to force peace from paramilitaries is for people now to show stronger support for the approach of the SDLP. Go raibh mile maith agaibh.”
Chair (Michael Reade): “Just briefly, have the more recent talks been inclusive enough to your satisfaction?
Dominic Bradley: “I think we were probably disappointed that the approach taken by the two governments was to concentrate on the two largest parties, the DUP and Sinn Fein, and to some extent ourselves and other parties were left out in the wings. This has not been helpful. That approach has not delivered comprehensive agreement. The SDLP policy has always been inclusivity, and I’m glad to hear the Minister echoing that here tonight. It was an inclusive approach which led to the Good Friday Agreement in the first place and I think it is an inclusive approach which will lead to the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement in the future.”
Chairperson: “Thank you very much, Dominic… Our third and final speaker is Sinn Fein’s John O’Dowd, MLA for Upper Bann. He is the party’s spokesperson on health in the Assembly and also Sinn Fein’s group leader in the Assembly.
3. John O’Dowd, MLA (Sinn Fein)
“First of all I would like to thank the organisers for their invitation tonight. I used to holiday around here in my early teens, my uncle lives across the back fields here and I used to swim in the outdoor pool in this area as well, as a young child. I have very fond memories of around here, and indeed a local priest who attended to my father when he was very ill was a Columban who is buried here……so I’m back on familiar ground. I listened attentively to the Minister’s speech tonight. I was pleased that we are having a diplomatic but firm and structured conversation. Megaphone diplomacy is not going to solve this problem. Insulting each other is not going to solve this problem. I was disheartened by Dominic’s approach but during the question and answer session we can deal with all of those bits that people have on their minds tonight.
Sinn Fein will not tolerate criminality: “As a republican representative I have responsibilities, as has my party. I will answer and live up to those responsibilities as will my party. We do not underestimate the seriousness of the situation. People across Ireland are concerned that the peace process appears to be in free fall and that ten years of good work and progress is being cast aside. But let me state this again, as a republican representative, as a SF elected representative and as leader of the Assembly group in the Assembly: no republican worthy of the name, whether they be a republican in the Fianna Fail party, or a republican in the SDLP, can be a criminal. They have no room in the ranks of Sinn Féin or any other political party. We in Sinn Fein will not tolerate such behaviour. Our opponents know that, but some can barely disguise their glee at the recent turn of events. There has been trial by media. This night last week, every security journalist on this island was popping up in front of the cameras telling us the rank of each of those people who had been arrested, what rank they were in the IRA down in Cork, how long they had served in the IRA, how many years, what their rank was, what they were doing. Each and everyone of those people has been released, except for one who has been charged with membership of a dissident organisation. And that person has the same right to a fair and open trial as everyone else.
“The only Sinn Fein member arrested on that night has been released without charge, no papers sent to the DPP, nothing. And remember, in this State you can be sentenced for IRA membership on the word of a senior Garda, so if there was even an inkling of guilt there a senior Guard could have stood up in a court of law and said “I believe that person to be a member of the IRA”, and the judge could sentence him to five years. None of that happened. So I say to people here: do not listen to the Jim Cusacks of this world. Listen, and let the Garda investigations continue, and let the truth come out as to what happened.
Criticism of Sinn Fein not new: “Sinn Fein will weather the storm. We’ve been through all this before. Yes this is an intense time of criticism of Sinn Fein. I joined Sinn Fein when I was 18, nineteen years ago. I cannot remember this time when we were great pals with all the other political parties. Journalists will now tell you that Sinn Fein is going through a very bad time, they are isolated from the other parties. I never remember a time when we weren’t, I never remember a time when Sinn Fein was treated like any other political party. Yes certainly Bertie Ahern, Albert Reynolds, all have done massive work for the peace process. We have moved this country on, beyond anyone’s belief even ten years ago, but don’t try and kid me that all those political parties were doing Sinn Féin a favour. Some of the people involved in the whole peace process and across the board were genuine, so they were. I have no doubt that Bertie Ahern, Albert Reynolds and indeed the Foreign Affairs Minister are genuine in what they are doing, but they are not doing it to drag Sinn Fein in from the cold. Sinn Féin elected representatives were brought into this process by their mandate.
Irish unity: “Moving on to Mr Ahern’s comments in relation to all-Ireland work. I am delighted at the work he outlined here tonight. I am delighted that the Minister recognises the need for all-Ireland work, and I hope it continues. This morning I was in Dublin where Sinn Fein launched its campaign for a Green Paper on Irish unity. In 1992 Sinn Fein published a document Towards a Lasting Peace in Ireland, which set out our party’s present peace policy. That document set out the development and evolution of the peace process. This morning we set out our road map for Irish unity, to urge the Irish Government to bring forward a Green Paper and to begin effective planning for Irish unity now. Caoimhin O Caolain said, and I say now, that no party, including my own, has a monopoly on unification. The struggle for Irish independence is not something that is owned by a political party, or a brand useful for electoral purposes.
South Korea: “I acknowledge the Minister has said that his party is committed to unification. I acknowledge Dominic’s party a number of weekends ago in Derry published a document outlining their road map to reunification, and I welcome and congratulate that initiative. But it’s not enough. Let me use a rather different country as an example. In the mid 1950s the South Korean government set up a Ministry of Unification. The sole role of this body is to work for the reunification of Korea. For decades this body has been building links… working on economic initiatives, bringing divided communities together across the most militarised border left in the world. And driving it all is the certainty and hope of the Korean people to be united. It is a certainty I am sure my colleagues on this platform share about the future of the Irish people, whatever community they belong to. But the difference is the South Koreans are planning for it, preparing for it, facing the challenges that will come about with the merger of the two health systems, two economic systems, two education systems.
Government’s responsibility: “We’re conscious that Sinn Fein don’t know all the answers, but we want the debate to start. We want the search for the answers to begin, and the onus of responsibility for this must lie foremost on the Irish Government who need to transform the aspiration for Irish unity into a real goal and to work towards that goal. We are urging the Taoiseach to commission a Green Paper on Irish Unity as the key starting point. All strands of opinion represented in the Oireachtas should be participants in this, and that is why we want to see an all-party Oireachtas Committee on Irish Unity established. We are proposing that a Minister of State should be appointed by the Irish Government with specific responsibility of driving forward the developing policies, actions and strategies to advance the outcome of the Green Paper and to direct and coordinate the government’s all-Ireland politics. Participation by people resident in the North in the democratic life of the nation should be facilitated immediately: bring in Northern representation in the Houses of the Oireachtas and voting rights at Presidential elections. That was one matter in the deal that came apart that Fianna Fail could now move on with. Are they telling us that because Sinn Fein and the DUP can’t agree that Northern elected representatives shouldn’t have speaking rights in the Dail? That doesn’t make sense to me.
“The Irish Government in consultation with the social partners and the community sector, and the non-governmental organisations should begin a process of economic planning on an all-Ireland basis. I emphasise this is not just about the achievement of Irish unity at some time in the future. It is about making a real difference to people’s lives in the here and now. We need to see …coordination of public services, like health, education and transport, maximising the benefits for everyone who shares this island
“I want to invite ordinary members and supporters of Fianna Fail in particular to engage in this debate, and to begin very seriously to assess how the stated aim of their party can be achieved. I would like to invite anyone with an interest to borrow from our ideas and to bring forward their own. Sinn Fein has no copyright on the road map to Irish unity, but most importantly this is an opportunity for the people the length and breadth of this island to play their part in the great project of reuniting our country and our people.
Unionist and loyalist community: “We acknowledge our obligation to reach out to the people on the island who presently do not see a role for themselves in a future Irish Republic, who see themselves as British or unionist. An Irish Republic that is not inclusive of these people as it must be inclusive of new arrivals to our shore from Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe, is not the republic I want to build. We need especially to reach out to the unionist and loyalist working classes who find themselves economically marginalised and abandoned by unionist leaderships.
Sinn Fein support: “Some might ask if the republican cart is before the horse in terms of coming forward with these ideas in the current political climate… The accusations of criminality against Sinn Fein are without foundation. People looking at the Independent poll in this morning’s newspaper will no doubt be asking themselves why in a period of most sustained political and media onslaught on our political party since the historic ceasefire in ’94, our party’s support has remained static. Indeed, Pat Kenny wondered this morning on RTE radio what their continued support for the party said about these people. Pat should understand that these people are ordinary everyday Irish citizens. Sinn Fein voters do not have horns on their heads, their eyes are not closer together, they are ordinary people from every section on this island, 342,000 of them come out in a secret ballot of their own choice, go into the polling station and vote for Sinn Fein. The reality is that the people of this country, and the growing republican vote repudiate… attacks on our party, the baseless accusations made without any evidence, they compare this to their personal experience of Sinn Fein. They compare their experience of Joe Reilly, delivering for the people of Meath, as an innovative campaigner in his local community, as a tireless fighter to vindicate the rights of his constituents. They compare the slurs on the character of Aonghus Ó Snodaigh, T.D., with the picture they have of the man motivated in politics not by greed or careerism, but from a desire to better his community. In short they see through the nonsense, they see through the lies, and more and more they ask themselves: what is the agenda behind this?
“…I spent part of the day in the main shopping centre in Navan, canvassing along with Joe [Reilly] and a few other colleagues. Only one person asked me about the Northern bank robbery, everyone else wanted to know about road infrastructure, schools, hospitals, jobs, etc. That is the debate that is going on out there, not about the Northern Bank robbery. Let me tell you that Sinn Féin will continue to build political support and adopt dynamic policies. The importance of this cannot be over-stressed. It’s worth remembering that in the North we are the largest pro-Agreement party and on the island itself we are the third largest party.
DUP walked away from the deal: “So what of the IRA? No doubt the question will arise tonight, it’s already been mentioned by the Minister and by Dominic… The work of republicans – imagine a republican saying this ten or twenty or thirty years ago – the work of republicans is to create a situation where the IRA no longer exists…. Can you imagine that being said 20 or 20 or 30 years ago? I see Roy Garland in the audience. Through Roy’s experience that has to be an unbelievable statement. What the IRA offered in the December talks, and indeed in October 2003, if it had been offered in any other field of conflict across the globe, it would have been snapped up.
“The DUP decided to walk away from it. I’m glad that the Minister recognised tonight that the statement made in Ballymena by Mr Paisley – the “sackcloth and ashes” – destroyed that. It wasn’t an unfortunate statement. It was a planned statement. It was written by his son, Ian Paisley Óg, who is opposed to any agreement on any grounds, not only with republicans but with nationalists. On the platform that night with Ian Paisley and Ian Paisley’s son was Alan Murray, former head of the RUC Special Branch. Alan Murray led the raid by the PSNI into Stormont buildings 27 months ago which brought down the Stormont Executive. 27 months on from then, not one of the five people who were charged have been brought to trial, in fact two have been released without further charge, no evidence, and the serious charges brought against those people, of spying on the NIO, have been dropped. Now, people ask us to join up to that police force, people ask us to have faith in that police force! Alan Murray was the sidekick of Ian Paisley the night Ian Paisley destroyed the chance of an agreement. “
British Army presence: “Sinn Fein’s role is to remove all guns from Irish politics. When the Minister looks out his window in the morning and looks across the Mourne Mountains and across the North, I wonder does he see the British Army spy posts that ring South Armagh, does he see the British Army helicopters, does he see the British Army foot patrols as do people in my constituency? The British Army still control my constituency, after 7 years of the Good Friday Agreement.
IRA not the only difficulty: “The IRA have a responsibility to deal with the issues that the IRA have. The republican goal is to remove the IRA from the field, but they are not the only difficulty facing the Northern peace process. Dominic referred to the DUP as the wreckers. We haven’t heard that since December. When the deal fell apart, young Alan McBride, who lost his wife and his daughter in the Shankill bombing by the IRA, and who has every right to hate, despise and mistrust republicans, turned round in a media interview and challenged Ian Paisley as to why he walked away from that deal. I think that was the fear more than anything, that ordinary workingclass Protestants were beginning to question their own political leadership and that is why we are in the crisis we are in today. Thank you.”
Chair (Michael Reade): “Thank you… Very briefly, I get the impression that you implied there was some sort of slur campaign against Joe Reilly in this [by-election] campaign, did I hear that right? Has Joe Reilly been in some way targeted in this by-election campaign because of the impasse?
John O’Dowd: “No I don’t believe so.”
Chair (Michael Reade): “I didn’t understand you correctly. Now I’m going to take questions and I hope people will be as brief as possible….”
QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS (Summary)
Q1. Henry Mountcharles: “I have two questions for the Minister, and two questions for John O’Dowd.
(i) Release of McCabe killers: “First of all, Minister, you referred to ‘unpalatable things’. I wanted to know whether you were specifically including in this the release of the killers of Garda McCabe?
(ii) Sinn Fein’s economic policy: “Secondly, in my view quite rightly, you made reference to this constant crisis in the peace process and that this distracted political parties from real politics. In that context I wanted to know whether you agree with your colleague, Dr. James McDaid, who described Sinn Féin as being economically illiterate?
(iii) & (iv) Murder of Robert McCartney: “John O’Dowd, in your remarks you said, with reference to criminality, “Sinn Féin will not tolerate such behaviour” In that respect I would like to ask you a few questions: do you know the identity of the person or persons who were responsible for the murder of Robert McCartney, and would you recommend anyone who does know the identity of the person or persons who killed Robert McCartney to go to the PSNI?
Dermot Ahern, TD: (i) “In relation to the unpalatable things, yes, the release of Garda Jerry McCabe’s killers was one of the unpalatable things which was put on the agenda as one of the key issues that had to be addressed in a comprehensive agreement. It was put on the agenda by Sinn Féin and they made it quite clear that it had to be one of the issues dealt with in the acts of completion, the comprehensive settlement. It was indicated in the context of an overall settlement, that if all of the issues including full decommissioning and an end to paramiltarism etc… that the Government would look at that issue.
(ii) Sinn Fein’s economic policy: “In relation to the constant crisis, while I wouldn’t particularly agree perhaps with the hyperbole of “economically illiterate”, I do make the point very strongly that this constant crisis in the peace process does divert all our attentions, particularly in the Republic, from the economic policies of Sinn Féin. I made a statement in Hillsborough which was misconstrued. I said that I do look forward to the day when Sinn Féin are in government. I didn’t say that I wanted them in government with Fianna Fail. In fact, they would be the least likely party as far as I would be concerned with whom I would want to coalesce, particularly in relation to the issue of economic policy.
“Because I don’t think there is anybody in this room who actually knows what the policy is in relation to dramatic increases in taxation which they put into their policy document no later than the last local election. Nobody questioned them in the media. The only organ that I actually saw doing a forensic examination of Sinn Féin’s economic policies, and their desire for a 32-county socialist republic, the only organ in my view was an excellent article, or series of articles, in the Irish Examiner where they went through line by line the implications of the economic policies of Sinn Féin which was, in effect, I would say, all things to all men and women. So, while I wouldn’t describe them as economically illiterate – I do think that we have to pay respect to political parties and the policy documents that they bring out – but I do say that our attention, the public’s attention, to their other policies has been clouded and diverted by the constant crisis in the peace process.
Chair: “Thank you. John O’Dowd, if I could ask you to restrict your answer to the two specific questions asked of you…
John O’Dowd, MLA: (iii) & (iv) “…I personally do not know the name of the person who killed Robert McCartney. But I repeat what was said the day after that murder happened: anyone who feels comfortable going to the PSNI with information should do so. Anyone who does not feel comfortable going to the PSNI should contact a solicitor or a respected member of the community. Now, while that stance of Sinn Féin has been criticised, especially by the SDLP, it is worth noting that after the investigation by the Police Ombudsman into the murder of Sean Browne, a senior GAA official in south Derry … and the Ombudsman’s office found that the police investigation was a shambles, when the PSNI went to reinvestigate that murder, they published leaflets and posters stating “anyone who does not want to contact us, go to their solicitor, or local priest”…And Mr Adams turned around today and said – reflecting the views of Mr Ahern – that it “is the patriotic duty of anyone with information on the murder of Robert McCartney to bring that forward so that the families can receive justice…”
Questioner: “I think I am right in saying that unless statements are given directly to the PSNI, they are hearsay and not admissible in court. I’m sure the Minister as a former solicitor could confirm that?”
John O’Dowd, MLA: “Perhaps you could ask the PSNI as to why they issued those leaflets in south Derry when they reopened their investigation into the murder of Sean Browne?”
Dermot Ahern, TD: “While people could give statements to solicitors, the key issue is whether they would go into court and publicly give evidence. I didn’t refer to the McCartney issue, I don’t want to be accused of playing politics, but I will say this: the family clearly stated to me that they knew the people involved and that literally everyone in the community knew the people involved, that there were at least 50 people who were clear witnesses to the incident and none of them have come forward. And many of them were leading members of Sinn Féin, who worked for Sinn Féin, in the area, and are well-known as workers for Sinn Féin. So, it’s quite clear, and I am just making the point that was made to me, I am not making it in a political way, that they said to me while statements of Gerry Adams publicly exhorting people to go to the appropriate authorities, whatever they were in his mind, that the action on the ground has not been followed on by those people. And they were people saying that who quite clearly and specifically said that they voted for Sinn Féin over the years.”
Chair: “Just one point, is it acceptable to Sinn Féin if the end result in this McCartney murder is that senior members of the IRA, or IRA members of any description, are arrested by the PSNI and then taken to court?
John O’Dowd, MLA: “Whoever is guilty for the murder of Robert McCartney, whether it was a republican or otherwise, we support the terms of the family in this, that they receive justice, and in the family’s terms that is through the courts”.
Q2. Cllr. Brian Fitzgerald (former Labour TD for Meath); disappointment with Sinn Féin: “….Like a lot of people I feel badly let down, because I, like others took a lot of risks over the years to try to bring Sinn Féin in from the cold. You claimed that the only reason Sinn Féin were being brought in from the cold was because of their mandate. That is not correct. They did not have a mandate when they were brought in from the cold, because they only had then started to recognise this State, they refused to recognise our courts, they refused to recognise Dail Éireann, and in fairness to people like Albert Reynolds and the Downing Street Declaration was the real commencement of bringing Sinn Féin in from the cold. And the reason I feel so disappointed is when I read on a daily basis the refusal of Sinn Féin and their colleagues to define what is a crime. There is no doubt in our minds as to what is a crime. A crime is a crime whether we are talking about Robert McCartney, or any other person, or indeed Dominic’s colleague, John Fee, who was beaten within an inch of his life. That is a crime in my eyes.
“So please don’t come here and start telling us we are all against you. We have not been against you. We’ve bent over backwards to bring you in from the cold, as Dermot has already said. We’ve done everything possible. What I would like to ask you is, if you’re not prepared to decommission, if you’re not prepared to end criminality, will you please ask the IRA to say three words: that their military war is over, and that will go a long way in restoring peace on this island.”
John O’Dowd: “Could I just ask what political party are you a member of?”
Cllr. Fitzgerald: “I’m asking you…” [interruptions]
Chair: “He’s an independent, former Labour TD…”.
John O’Dowd, MLA: “…. I’m delighted to hear more and more people are taking an interest in the peace process… but if you had been following the whole issue right up to December, and had seen what the IRA were prepared to do, the IRA were prepared to leave the field of conflict, they were prepared to put all their weapons beyond use by Christmas, and the DUP walked away, and were allowed to walk away. This issue of criminality was brought up by Mary Harney in the Dail when she got Bertie Ahern out of the room. She brought it up in the Dail when Bertie Ahern was out of the room… Now who is the lead party in the Coalition? Is it the PDs or is it Fianna Fail?
Chair: “We’ve gone a bit away from the question…”
Dermot Ahern, TD; re IRA statement in December: “I just want to make a point. That was the first time the issue was vented in public. There was constant discussion on the issue of the words used and the inability of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness to arrange, call it what you like, that the words “not endangering the personal safety and lives of public individuals.” They were not prepared to put those into the statement, which, well before Mary Harney got up on her feet, raised the issue as to why they were not prepared to say that …I want to make that quite clear. The efforts to try and suggest that there is some tail wagging some dog in government, that is not correct. We are absolutely ad idem in relation to this.”
Chair: “I’m just getting some information that I am sure will be of interest… apparently in the last hour there was a statement issued by the IRA stating that three IRA members have been expelled in relation to the Robert McCartney murder… I’ll take the next question.”
Q3. Roy Garland (Ulster Unionist, Belfast); re Irish unity: “I was very interested in all that has been said. I’m particularly struck by the way that John O’Dowd emphasised the Irish unity thing. I want to ask you why?
“You said that in Navan the questions people were asking were about housing, social issues and so on. It begs the question… It seems to me that many working class unionists whom you talked about would find no problem with that, in fact I think you could get votes if that was all it was about, ordinary everyday issues. But the united Ireland thing, in view of the fact that the unionist community has faced 30-odd years of constant barrage, killing, shooting and maiming, obviously a complex issue, towns and villages absolutely destroyed. I grew up in the Shankill, I know Alan McBride, I knew the fish shop that was blown up, the time that Alan McBride’s relatives were killed, in fact a distant relative of mine was killed there, I went in there as a kid with my mother, I still remember it. That community was devastated by what the IRA did. If you’re promoting unity, particularly if you still have an armed wing, and in view of the hurt that has caused, is it not first of all counter productive, and why do you insist on it as being so important, I thought you were going to say it was a sacred duty, and when it is so alienating to us as unionists, why do you persist when it seems so counter-productive?”
John O’Dowd, MLA: “I’m not the only person at the table who supports a united Ireland.
In fairness, the unionist community are not the only people who suffered during the 30 years of conflict. The uncle that I mentioned at the start, the reason he had to move was because his two sons and his brother were shot dead in the house on the one night. The unionist community are not the only people who suffered….Now, in relation to Irish unity, it is the stated political goal of Sinn Féin that we believe in reunification of the island of Ireland. We believe in it because it is economically viable, and it is the right of the Irish people to live in the one nation. Now, we want the unionist community to come in on that debate. I don’t expect the unionist community to roll over …..they have a major role to play in any re-unified State. They will make up over one million of the population in a united Ireland, they are less than 2% of the United Kingdom. Where do their economic loyalties lie? I am not lecturing unionists but in my opinion, unionism will flourish better in a united Ireland than it has done under partition.”
Dominic Bradley, MLA: “Could I come in here? The SDLP also believes in Irish unity. We believe that the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement can work within a united Ireland and that the unionist population will have the same rights and protections afforded to nationalists currently under the Agreement. But I think that the way we get to Irish unity is through cooperation, working together and persuading the unionist population. And I think it is a democratic principle that political parties have the right to persuade those who are opposed to them to come round to their point of view. And indeed the SDLP has done this down through the years. Sunningdale was opposed by Sinn Féin, by the DUP and by elements of the Ulster Unionist Party. The SDLP worked at that formula, they didn’t give it up until it was encapsulated again in the Good Friday Agreement.
“If Sinn Féin seriously want to persuade unionists that they can be trusted to be partners with them in a united Ireland, well they are going to have to become a totally peaceful and political party. The Provisional movement at the moment, as the Taoiseach has pointed out, and as those of us who live in the North know, is two sides of the same coin. There is a military wing and there is a political wing, and there is an overlap in membership somewhere there. We are aware of that. If the criminality which the Minister mentioned earlier on continues – for example my own constituent Frank Kerr was murdered in a post office robbery in Newry, constituents of mine have been beaten up in punishment beatings, horrific punishment beatings where they were battered with nail-encrusted sticks within an inch of their lives to the extent that their skin was torn off their backs – if this continues, it’s not going to convince anybody that Sinn Féin can be trusted as partners in a united Ireland. Danny Morrison once espoused the policy of “the ballot box in one hand and the armalite in the other”. That policy, as far as I can see, still continues. The ballot box is still in one hand, it might be more stuffed with votes now, but the armalite is still there as a silent threat, the paramilitary wing is still there as a silent threat, and those things are used as bargaining chips in the peace process and this stop-start element in the peace process suits that type of bargaining.”
John O’Dowd, MLA: “Could I just ask Dominic, if all these things are true, why did people in Newry-Armagh, in his constituency, go into the privacy of a polling booth and outvote his party in Sinn Féin’s favour two to one?
Dominic Bradley, MLA: “I think that nationalists in the North, like people in the SDLP and in other parties, have attempted to give Sinn Féin the space to rid themselves of criminality and of the connection with a paramilitary organisation. I believe that Sinn Féin have not yet lived up to the expectations of that mandate. “
Q4. Steve McColl (Ulster Unionist, Belfast). “I have two questions…
(i) “Question for John O’Dowd, what does the principle of consent mean in the Good Friday Agreement? What does that mean to you?”
(ii) “Question for Dermot Ahern: “how long do we have to wait on Sinn Féin? You are the government of the Republic of Ireland, not the IRA army council, surely you have responsibility to be the government, not to tolerate this group of people?”
John O’Dowd, MLA: “…. In terms of consent, what I believe consent means in the Good Friday Agreement is that the Irish people have the right to make their own decision without coercion from an outside force …
[tape break]
Steve McColl: “Do we have any say in our destiny?”
John O’Dowd, MLA: “Yes.”
Steve McColl: “And if we vote against Irish unity…”
John O’Dowd: “If there’s a vote of 51% for a united Ireland are you going to respect it?…I respect the right of the Irish people to make free choices without outside coercion…”
Dermot Ahern, TD: “Could I come in here? … John Hume said that the question of uniting Ireland is more about uniting the people who live on the island. It goes to the issue of consent. And I would just pose this: if the day comes when there is a 50% + 1 majority on the island, as per the Good Friday Agreement, in favour of a united Ireland, under the Good Friday Agreement that’s to happen. But we all know, our history tells us, that unless we have…. And that gives the allegiance of the desire and the hope for us who espouse a united Ireland to work to, but I am one of those people, and I think my party is one of those parties, who believe that we have to create the conditions long before that is to happen, whereby it is absolutely accepted that instead of the nationalists in the North being a small minority, or a relatively big minority in the North, that the unionists in an all-island context – post 50% + 1 – are not a very dangerous and unhappy minority within the all-island context. I haven’t read the Sinn Féin document in relation to Irish unity, I will eventually read it. I will say this before I read it – and I have to read the document – that the blueprint for anyone who espouses republicanism or nationalism is the Good Friday Agreement, for a united Ireland. It is up to us well in advance of the day that there is a 50% + 1, if that day is ever reached, to have the conditions created where, as a businessman just last night said to me, from clearly the unionist tradition, clearly even a DUP supporter, that he understood as most ordinary unionists understood that there is an entirely legitimate reason why we should work on an all-island basis for the benefit of all our people. We can work on those things but it has to be done on the basis of mutual understanding and consent. In my view, the blueprint for any nationalist for a united Ireland is not the document of Sinn Féin, or of the SDLP, or of Fianna Fail, it is the Good Friday Agreement which has the entire mandate of the Irish people.”
Questioner: “I accept what you say but you still haven’t answered my question. How long do we have to wait for Sinn Féin?
Dermot Ahern, TD: “Sorry, I was answering the first part. How long do we have to wait? The main tenet of the Good Friday Agreement is inclusion, and, whether we like it or not, the electorate in the North have dealt the cards in the last election and that is the DUP on the one side and Sinn Féin on the other. We as governments have to deal with the situation as dealt with in the democratic decision. Even the SDLP accept that we cannot move ahead to the exclusion of Sinn Féin on the basis that the principle of the Good Friday Agreement was on the basis of inclusivity of a settlement. The SDLP have some very good proposals as to how we get out of the impasse, and Dominic referred to them earlier and my Department is looking at them. The only problem is they don’t have the possibility of cross-community agreement. Similarly the unionists have proposals for a voluntary coalition, but equally so, those proposals don’t have the element of cross-community consent. So we have to find ways to move things on. But I can assure the listeners that we will proceed with all of the elements in the Good Friday Agreement that we can operate, and that can be operated in and around the issue of unfortunately the lack of movement in regard to putting back in place the Assembly and Executive….”
Chair: “Could you be more specific in that Minister? ….Will that be in 2007?
Dermot Ahern, TD: “I can’t say that. I do think that time is not on our side in relation to all of these things. Every time there has been a vacuum, there have been difficulties. I think unfortunately for the last number of weeks there has been megaphone diplomacy, and that’s not a good thing because ultimately we have to pick up the pieces. Some things have to be said but as long as we can understand that the trust and confidence has to be built. I mean I question, what would have happened if the DUP had gone into government in March and this bank raid or the punishment beatings had taken place? What would have happened?”
Q.5. Jim Owens; re helping people in other conflicts: “Minister, your brief is local but you have a global brief as well. You and the other speakers have spoken about the long years of work … working through this particular conflict and how to cope with what you called unpalatable aspects. I’m asking you how you can use this painful learning to be tolerant of other countries, in particular in the developing world, and I have a particular interest in Sierra Leone in Africa, to support them in coping with their conflicts and to recognise the incredible amount of resources and energy and time it takes. We can learn from this local issue and help other communities …. We have to acknowledge it is a big investment. … Could you as Minister comment on that?”
Dermot Ahern, TD: “Just very briefly, a fortnight ago I spent some time in New York and I met with Kofi Annan and his senior adviser and other UN officials. We offered, on behalf of the Irish Government and the Irish people, any resources, particularly in the post-Presidency situation in which we built up quite a lot of expertise. We offered the UN our services in any of the conflicts in the world that Kofi Annan wished to delegate us to. You might have seen recently, one of the Assistant Commissioners of the Garda Siochana was nominated to head up the investigation into the murder of the former Lebanese Prime Minister. That was the first manifestation of our offer to use our experience of the discussions in relation to the peace process in order to assist in other conflicts. And indeed Julitta referred to the grant that the Meath Peace Group got from my Department, we grant-aided also a specific grant to the Glencree Centre in order to allow them to bring people in from the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to Ireland on a regular basis, over a three-year period, in order to learn from the experience here in Ireland.”
Q. 6. Marie MacSweeney. “I am not affiliated to any political party or organisation. Before I make my comment, I’d like to clarify with the Minister when he talks about ‘public individuals’. I presume you mean citizens and not just people who are as important as you?”
Dermot Ahern, TD: “Oh yes citizens.”
Marie MacSweeney; re degradation of language: “Thank you. I was one of the people who voted against the Good Friday Agreement and I did that after much thought because I considered the part that provided for the release of prisoners, people who may have committed murder yesterday or last week or last month or last year, I felt that to release people like that and to reward them for their violence was to give violence energy. I was very concerned about that so I voted against it. But it was supported by the majority of the people and I supported their decision after that and I thought it would work. I expected in the beginning that the decommissioning would start very soon and I think the Minister has said that military ways should have been abandoned early on. I checked with friends of mine when I became dismayed that this wasn’t happening. I asked them did they feel that the Agreement meant that decommissioning should start soon and all my friends and people I asked said yes.
“But in the public arena something different was happening and this is where the ‘F’ word came in, the big ‘F’ word which I think has been responsible for a lot of the disasters in the peace process, and the word is ‘fudge’… One of the early casualties of the Agreement has been language, the use of language, and it’s still with us. Caoimhín Ó Caolain in the Dail last week, later on when he became converted to pacifism, said that he was against any kind of criminality and that Sinn Féin were against any kind of criminality. I think perhaps 99.9% of English-speaking people in the world would know what that meant, but we don’t know what he meant.
“And that’s part of the problem. I would suggest that the degradation of language has been a huge problem, and if there are any further proposals and plans to be made as part of this peace process and as part of the requirement for decommissioning, that the language should be luminous, that each word should be clear and unequivocal and precise so that everybody knows what they mean and everybody knows what everybody else means and we can take it from there. Thank you.”
Chair: “Thank you, I think that was a statement rather than a question so I will take another question…”
Q.7. “I’m a voter, I voted for the Good Friday Agreement … … I want to comment on the Dublin –Monaghan bombings and the fact that nobody has been brought to justice over those terrible atrocities. Also, the McCartney killing was a terrible act, a dreadful act.
Dublin and Monaghan bombings: “…that was a crime, murder, but nobody has been brought to bear… …. why hasn’t the British Government, the Irish Government, why haven’t they brought those people to bear? …The forensic evidence was there, fingerprints, everything. … Really and truly, everything to do with collusion must be put on the table. If there is any trust to be brought to the PSNI, and indeed to our own Garda Siochana……I can’t believe that our own State and the British State – that these people can go about their business with no accountability whatever.”
Chair: “Minister?….”
Dermot Ahern, TD: “Like your comment on the last speaker, I would regard that as a comment rather than a question. …
Chair: “Well, let me put the question… perhaps you would address the refusal of the British authorities to cooperate in terms of the investigation?”
Dermot Ahern, TD: “There have been inquiries in relation to the Dublin and Monaghan bombings and in fact I was instrumental at Cabinet level recently in making sure that not only would the Dublin and Monaghan bombings be investigated but the ones in Dundalk which happened as well, where people were killed as well, and some times are forgotten about….. I mean there’s no easy answer in relation to why we don’t have finality in relation to that. Obviously proving cases in court is… you know we live in a democracy and the Guards may have views in relation to it… Similarly in relation to the Northern Bank, while the Government were able to give our opinion based on intelligence that the Garda Siochana had given us, the issue of prosecution ultimately will be for the authorities in the North as regards prosecuting people ultimately for that particular incident. So we have made, and this government particularly has made, every effort we can and every exhortation to the British Government to provide assistance and cooperation in relation to the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, as we have done in relation to the Finucane, Nelson, O’Neill and all the other incidents where it is believed that collusion has been part of it. So I can assure you that these issues are constantly on our agenda in raising this with the British Government.”
Chair: “It’s ten o’clock. We said we’d finish at ten o’clock but we’ll take a couple more questions. We have a long list of people and we’re going to have to leave some disappointed. John O’Dowd, I think you want to respond?”
John O’Dowd, MLA: “I think it’s important to remember this. Collusion was IRA propaganda for 25 years. None of the other political parties on this island were prepared to stand up to the British Government which was acquiescing with loyalist paramilitaries on this island to kill nationalists. The Dublin and Monaghan bombings are a clear example of that there. The British Government, who are now lecturing Sinn Féin on ensuring that evidence is given in relation to the McCartney killing, is hiding evidence from the Irish Government in relation to the murder of citizens in Dublin and Monaghan. The British Government at this present time is putting legislation through the House of Commons to restrict evidence to the Pat Finucane inquiry, the Rosemary Nelson inquiry…. All that is going through, and these are the same people on the high moral ground in Westminster and every where else lecturing republicans on justice. Those are the serious questions that need to be answered. “
Q.8. John Clancy; timeframe for end to paramilitarism: “I have a question for John O’Dowd. First of all, welcome and it’s great that you have come here and we are having this discussion. The Minister has been very clear, and he said, as I understand it: an end to decommissioning is one of the prerequisites, the end to criminality and paramilitarism. Now I understand you to say that one of the parts of the peace process as far as you are concerned is creating the situation where the IRA is no longer required. …Now I’ve asked a specific question… Has that situation arrived? If it hasn’t, is it another 6 months, 1 year, 20 years, before the IRA is no longer needed?”
John O’Dowd, MLA: “No, I haven’t used the word ‘needed’…. With respect, your notes aren’t neutral. What I said was that republicans were creating a situation that the IRA would no longer be in the field of conflict….”
Questioner: “Can you answer – is it 6 months more for the IRA to be there?”
John O’Dowd, MLA: “Ask the Minister ….” [interruptions] ….Do you want me to answer the question…..?”
Chair: “Let him answer the question…”
Questioner: “I beg your pardon…”
John O’Dowd, MLA: “Exactly, show a slight bit of respect. Ask Minister Ahern. Minister Ahern is telling us that there mightn’t be talks until 2006, 2007, and indeed some political pundits in the North are telling us that there won’t be political talks until after the elections here in the 26 counties. So, I want to create the political situation where all armed groups leave the scene, including the IRA, and that’s my goal in politics…”
Dermot Ahern, TD: “Lest anyone think that I said that the talks wouldn’t take place until 2007 or after the next election here in the Republic: we are ready, willing and able to – and we accept that the public may have a different view – but we are still prepared to engage in an inclusive basis with a party like Sinn Féin, but we have to make it absolutely clear. We believe we are at a crossroads in this regard, in that 17 years on from Hume-Adams, 7 years on from the Good Friday Agreement, that it is quite clear that the move to exclusively democratic and peaceful means is now, in that the two remaining issues are decommissioning and paramilitarism.
Twin track approach: “And the fear is, and the breakdown in any trust that we as a Government had, that the British Government had, that the wider community, not least the unionist community had, is that the political project as we often hear talked about by Sinn Féin is a project, and they’re getting a mandate, there’s no doubt about that, but are they doing it on the basis that there ‘s a twin track and that they are prepared to continue the twin track approach … as long as they are able to do that and the more they can do that the better it is, that they will ultimately go exclusively political but that they will do it in their time. And in the meantime, robbery to fund very substantially their organisation, but also the threat of general going back to war, the threat that’s always unspoken and the difficulty of the soft man/hard man within the Provisional movement, this sort of thing that’s always said. We saw a bit of it in one of the tabloids this week, you know, that there are hard men in the organisation who want to go back to war and of course there are soft men who want to do all the nice things that we all want to do, and that’s to be democratic.
“Be under no illusion: there is no space between the Sinn Fein leadership and the IRA leadership in relation to this. Be under no illusion. And that raises the question with us which was confirmed by the bank robbery but also the turning on of the tap of punishment beatings and based on security advice. I mean Tony Blair did say in 10 Downing Street, that there had been creative ambiguity over the last number of years to try and bring people … we are now stating quite clearly, and we are ready, willing and able to engage in discussions again but it has to be on the clear understanding that the goal will be reached very quickly in relation to the issues of full decommissioning and paramilitarism etc.”
Chair: re IRA split: “Very briefly Minister…. on the question of a pending split in the IRA Gerry Adams said he wouldn’t be drawn, that he couldn’t speak for the IRA. What’s your opinion: are you fearful of a split in the Republican paramilitary movement?”
Dermot Ahern, TD: “I’m not going down that road because I don’t believe – particularly based on the security and intelligence advice that we get – that there’s a question of a split. There might be one or two who are unhappy and there might be one or two who go off and do their own thing but the hold that the leadership of the Provisional movement, and I include everyone, on the organisation is absolutely rock solid. I don’t think that the public should be under any illusion, and that’s why people like Bertie Ahern, who’s not particularly known for his tough stance – people often say that he’s a conciliator – he is absolutely resolute on this on the basis that he believes that the time is now for people to decide. There’s a fork in the road – is it that way towards politics, or is it that way towards a bit of politics and a bit of criminality and the threat behind it all?”
Q.9. Ann McQuillan (SDLP, Fermanagh): “…First of all, I would like to say to John [O’Dowd], I remember well the murder of your people, that was a most appalling act among many appalling acts that took place in that area at that time. I have a feeling that a few of your people were also in the SDLP?
John O’Dowd, MLA: “My father was, yes….”
Ann McQuillan: “I’m very sorry that you aren’t!”
Inclusivity and December deal: “Now, this question of inclusivity, with reference to the agreement in December, it seems to me to be very flawed. I sat on the executive of our party for 10 years at least and I have seen a lot of people, John Hume, Seamus Mallon, our present leader, a lot of people working very hard to bring peace to our country, to build and build and build what became the Good Friday Agreement.
“There’s been many disappointments, many setbacks, but we built it and those people worked for it. They didn’t just work in the last 10 years, they worked for the last 30 years, more, for that kind of inclusivity. Now when this last agreement came out I was very disappointed to see that the Agreement had been changed, that instead of the Leader and Deputy Leader being chosen as one unit, and the idea of that as I understand it was so that they would have to act as a unit. That’s now been put aside so that Sinn Fein could elect their man and the DUP could elect their man, so everybody could be in their own little corners and they could split the country as they liked into republican or DUP. Then came the matter of inclusivity. When it came to voting on those things, it was to be that the DUP voted for their man, Sinn Fein voted for their man, and if the SDLP and/or the unionists decided not to vote for them they could not become ministers. Now where is the inclusivity in that? We have heard nothing, particularly from Sinn Fein… Is the inclusivity exclusivity? Then it transpired that if Paisley resigns as leader and Peter Robinson comes in, then any other party who doesn’t vote yes is automatically excluded. Can you comment on that?” [tape break]”
Dermot Ahern, TD: “First of all, it was built into the Good Friday Agreement that there would be review after a period. … Given the political cards we were dealt with, the DUP and Sinn Fein being in effect in the driving seat in the negotiations…. but we did keep the SDLP and all the other parties fully informed on a constant basis…..there was confidentiality on some issues but the general basis was explained. I can assure you we got the Attorney General’s advice on this issue…. I know that the SDLP alleged that some of the tenets of the Good Friday Agreement were watered down. That was not the case. The Attorney General was absolutely satisfied, the principle of inclusivity was sacrosanct.
“In relation to the tactical issue of voting, again in the document it’s built in… We had to deal with the situation that people in the North didn’t really believe that Paisley would sit down with Martin McGuinness and work together as First Minister and Deputy First Minister. That had to be put up to them. We put it together in such a way that that would have happened in March of this year. We had to put it up to them, and that there would be no fall-back position.
“I can assure you that one of our overriding principles was to ensure the parties like the SDLP and Ulster Unionists were fully involved in the project…”
Dominic Bradley, MLA: “My understanding is that these changes did not come out of the review of the Good Friday Agreement, the review was never actually completed, but they came out of negotiations involving the two main parties. In the original version the joint election of First Minister and Deputy First Minister was a key part of the Good Friday Agreement, it was the flagship symbol of cooperation and we believe it was changed to suit Ian Paisley who didn’t want his name to be on the same ticket as Martin McGuinness.
“It was wrong… it sent the wrong message out. Instead of sending the message out that this whole project was about reconciliation and partnership, it sent the completely opposite message out. And you’re right when you say that parties like the SDLP who would have voted against that under the new arrangements they would have been excluded from ministerial office…..
“But on the wider issue of peace and inclusiveness, we are at the stage now where, as the Minister said, all parties must be operating on an equal footing, they must be all operating on totally democratic and peaceful means, and that means that parties which are not operating on that basis will have to ensure that they are, as the Minister said, in the very near future.”
Chair: “I’m conscious that a lot of you have long distances to travel. We’ll take one final question.”
Q.10. Pat Lynch: Re ambiguity: “This problem with the Northern Bank robbery and the attendant analysis that has taken place, up to now it’s been all politics, now it’s real, it’s about money. And the question is what republicanism means, what big ‘R’ republicanism means, and what the physical force tradition is….Up to now there has been a certain ambiguity in some of the republican parties. There now can be no ambiguity… some people have alleged that Fianna Fail started the Provisional IRA… There needs to be an unequivocal denial of any government involvement in any armed organisation…. Will something good come out of this? Will we question our values as to the physical force tradition?”
Dermot Ahern, T.D. “I don’t think that anyone other than yourself could believe that Fianna Fail started the Provisional IRA.”
Dominic Bradley, MLA: ”I believe we have come to a defining moment in the process. We talked earlier on that a certain amount of space had been given to the Provisional movement to become totally and exclusively democratic and political. That hasn’t happened but recent events have underscored the need for that to happen. People in Sinn Féin will have to start seriously addressing these problems. That is demanded by the people of Ireland and by all the parties in the country, and it’s going to have to happen sooner rather than later, and I think that good will come out.”
CLOSING WORDS
Closing the evening’s discussion, Michael Reade thanked the speakers for their contributions and he thanked the Meath Peace Group for a very interesting meeting. On behalf of the Meath Peace Group, Canon John Clarke thanked everyone for coming and paid particular thanks to the chairperson, the speakers and to St Columban’s College for facilitating the talk. He announced that the next talk, “Where do we go from here?” to be held on Monday 7th March, would be addressed by Professor Paul Bew, Sean Farren, MLA (SDLP) and Jim Wells, MLA (DUP).
Meath Peace Group report, May 2005 ©Meath Peace Group
Taped by Judith Hamill (audio tape) and Jim Kealy (videotape)
Transcribed and edited by Julitta Clancy
This is the 54th public talk since the series commenced in September 1993. Reports and/or summaries of many of the previous talks are available on request from the committee (contacts below) and are also on the website: www.meathpeacegroup.org
Meath Peace Group would like to thank the Dept of Foreign Affairs Reconciliation Fund for grant assistance towards the expenses of running the talks.
Meath Peace Group Committee 2005: Julitta and John Clancy, Parsonstown, Batterstown; Anne Nolan, Gernonstown, Slane (Treasurer); Fr. Michael Kane, An Tobar, Ardbraccan; Canon John Clarke, The Rectory, Boyne Road, Navan; Philomena Boylan-Stewart, Longwood; Leona Rennicks, Ardbraccan; Judith Hamill, Ross, Dunsany; Olive Kelly, Lismullen; Catriona Fitzgerald, Warrenstown, Kilcock
APPENDIX: Text of written speech of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern TD, to the Meath Peace Group, Dalgan Park, Navan, Friday, 25th February, 2005
Introduction
Ladies and Gentlemen, I want to speak tonight not so much as a Minister, or a public representative, but as an ordinary Irish republican. As someone reared next to the border. Who knows at first hand how it affected communities and families. Who knows no higher mandate than the will of the Irish People. Whose personal political agenda is Irish unity, peace, justice and equality. As a republican, I believe the best way to advance this agenda is through the Good Friday Agreement. And, in 1998, the Irish people – in the first act of all-Ireland self-determination since 1918 – supported that view.
Present Impasse
As I have already stated, that Agreement created the legitimate expectation that criminality and paramilitarism from all quarters would end. And almost 8 years later they have not.
That’s the major cause of this present impasse – nothing more complex. It is the clear and simple failure of the various paramilitary organisations, including the Provisional Leadership, to heed the will of the Irish people. In their failure they are impeding the implementation of the Agreement.
They are hindering North/South Co-operation and the agenda of peace, justice, equality and Irish unity. The continuation of this trust-sapping paramilitarism represents the single greatest impediment to realising the full promise and potential of the Agreement. I say that in sadness not in anger.
Ladies and Gentlemen, The primary impediments to implementation of the Good Friday Agreement are clear to all:
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Decommissioning
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Criminality and Paramilitarism
If we are to move forward – particularly if a prospective unionist partner is to be found – these issues must be dealt with and resolved. In this context the quandary for the Irish Government is clear – we can’t order the Provisional movement to deal with these issues.Only the Provisional Leadership can – and that’s exactly what we have asked them to do. After the Northern Bank Robbery we asked the Provisional leadership to reflect on how trust and confidence – which had been massively damaged – could be restored We made it clear that the major onus now lies with them. The solution does not lie with ordinary Irish nationalist and republicans – it requires the Provisional Leadership to take a major initiative that restores some sense of confidence and positivity. Regrettably, as each day passes without a positive response, trust fades further. And while we refuse to play the politics of exclusion. And while we will refuse to feed into any victim complex – It cannot now be business as usual. It’s up to the Provisional Leadership now to fully internalise and positively respond to the challenges which it faces – bringing all forms of paramilitary and criminal activity to a definitive end. As the Taoiseach said in the Dail this week we are listening carefully and we want to hear back on these crucial issues sooner rather than later.
Peace or Process
Ladies and Gentlemen, On Wednesday as I sat with Robert McCartney’s devastated family, the Provisional Leadership laughed and staged snowball fights for the cameras. And that juxtaposition really brought home to me the depths of the present crisis. For 18 years now we’ve had a Peace Process. And after Wednesday, I like many others before, was compelled to reflect on whether the Provisional Leadership wanted a final peace – a settlement – at all, or just the never-ending Process. As you may be aware, a sceptical thesis has recently suggested that while we were focussed on the Peace – others were focussed on the Process – and the Press, and Publicity and PR and which crisis after crisis has brought? The Provisional Leadership needing support to bring them fully into the peace – but never fully getting there. This dispiriting thesis suggested that a Provisional Movement- born out of conflict – needed to maintain its resonance and allure because behind the dynamics of conflict lay only another banal Party with bland policies which must compete on the same basis as everybody else in the political marketplace I have not formed a final judgement on the validity of this thesis. I want to believe that it is wrong and honestly hope that the evolution of events in the coming period will disprove it. But the fact that I, and many other people who are committed to an inclusive process, are now reflecting on its possible validity is significant.It shows the degree of corrosion caused by recent events. It indicates the challenges that Sinn Féin and the IRA must meet if they are to repair the damage caused to trust and confidence. Because, after the Bank Robbery. After the murder of Robert McCartney by IRA volunteers,, trust and confidence have practically evaporated
But we’re not going to give up. In fact, the Irish Government intends to redouble its efforts to protect the gains of the Agreement thus far – particularly in the critical area of North/South co-operation.
North/South Co-Operation
One of the most regrettable impacts of the present impasse is the negative impact it has on the full operation and development of the North/South dimension of the Good Friday Agreement.
In particular it has stalled the strengthening in specific areas – and for sound, practical, commercial reasons – of the all-island economy. As a direct result of the deficits of trust and confidence caused by continuing paramilitary and criminal activity, the stop-start operation of the Agreement in recent years has negatively impacted on the development of North/South co-operation. The North/South dimension is a fundamental part of the overall accommodation which the Agreement represents.
This Government is determined to protect the achievements of the Agreement, including in the area of North/South co-operation. Obviously we would much prefer to be in a position to do business with locally-elected Northern Ireland Ministers within the North/South Ministerial Council. Unfortunately, that is not possible at present. Nevertheless, we have a duty to take forward the mandated work programme of the NSMC to date. We are continuing to identify and follow-up on new possibilities for co-operation – where such co-operation is clearly for mutual benefit.
In practice, as the Taoiseach noted recently, North/South co-operation is not just about politicians or civil servants. The private sector, trade unions, the voluntary and community sectors and the farming community are but some of the actors involved .The business community, in particular, have long recognised the benefits of closer economic links on the island. In many ways, they have been ahead of the rest of us in seizing the opportunities arising out of the new landscape created by the Agreement.
Over the past ten years, total cross-border trade has grown by over thirty-five percent. One third of all Northern Ireland companies now export to the South. These are encouraging statistics when you consider the ignoring or the lack of awareness of business opportunities closer to home which characterised the decades before the Agreement. Organisations such as the Northern Ireland Business Alliance, IBEC-CBI, and the Chamberlink venture between Chambers of Commerce on both sides of the border have all played their part in this work.The North/South Body, InterTradeIreland, was specifically established under the Agreement to tackle the barriers to North/South trade and to help businesses to realise the full potential of an all-island market. Headquartered in Newry, InterTrade has developed a range of initiatives aimed at facilitating trade and business contacts across the island. A major focus of its work is highlighting the need for improved business competitiveness in an all-island economy. Last year’s report of the Enterprise Strategy Review Group identified the key challenges in the South which must be addressed if we are to maintain the economic performance of recent years. Its prescription included enhanced expertise in international markets and increased technological and applied research and development capability. The absence of devolved Government in Northern Ireland, and the consequent inability of the NSMC to meet, means that Ministers from North and South are not engaging on these issues; are not talking to each other about agreed strategies and actions that respond to these challenges.
The losers here are ordinary citizens on both sides of the border who rightly expect their political representatives to address these challenges and arrive at policy solutions that will improve their lives. The current impasse is not just a political stall, it is also represents a failure in economic and social terms. Despite the difficulties and constraints caused by the destabilising activities of others, the Government is nevertheless determined to protect and develop the North/South axis of the Agreement and will continue in the weeks and months ahead to advance this agenda with the British Government and with the parties. The close working partnership between the two Governments has been the fulcrum of stability in this process. Both Governments are determined that a political vacuum will not be allowed to endanger progress nor to degrade the achievements of recent years. We will proactively use the machinery of the Agreement – in particular, the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference – to ensure that the gains of recent years are protected and developed. In that regard, the Taoiseach again signalled to the British Prime Minister on 1 February that the North/South dimension of the Agreement is a key strategic interest for this Government. It, moreover, was one of the main reasons the people in this State changed our constitution in 1998. The North/South axis of the Agreement represents a win-win agenda for everyone on this island. It threatens nobody’s interests or identity. Its maintenance and development is simply the application of good common sense in the interests of mutual practical benefit. The sooner the current impasse is resolved, the quicker we can all go fully back to business in the interests of every citizen on this island.
Conclusion
Ladies and Gentlemen. The causes of the impasse are clear. The solution is equally clear. It lies principally with the Provisional Leadership. I appeal directly to them to act on the authentic vision and ideals of Irish Republicanism – to heed the will of the Irish People, who backed the Agreement, who sought an end to paramilitarism and an end to criminality.
[Dermot Ahern, TD]
ENDS
Meath Peace Group report 2005 ©Meath Peace Group
Meath Peace Group Talks
51 – “THE DUP’S VISION FOR THE FUTURE”
Monday, March 29th, 2004
St Columban’s College, Dalgan Park, Navan, Co. Meath
Speakers:
George Dawson, MLA (DUP)
Mervyn Storey, MLA (DUP)
Chaired by Ercus Stewart, S.C.
Contents:
Introduction: Ercus Stewart
Speakers’ addresses
Questions and comments (summary)
Closing words: Julitta Clancy
Biographical notes
Appendix: Extracts from DUP paper Devolution Now
[Editor’s note: Prior to the talk, the two new members of the Northern Ireland Assembly, George Dawson and Mervyn Storey, were welcomed by local TDs John Bruton (former Taoiseach), and Damien English, who wished them well in the upcoming talks.]
INTRODUCTION
Ercus Stewart, S.C. “Good evening … Our first speaker, George Dawson, is convinced that the structures established under the Belfast Agreement are “top-heavy, bureaucratic, wasteful and inefficient”. At first I thought he was talking about some of our institutions, but no, he tells me it’s the other side of the border – but maybe he’ll teach us how to improve! Furthermore – and this is important to us here – in his various media statements he consistently highlights the unfairness, undemocratic nature and appeasement of terrorists in the current political process, and again this is one of his important points.
“Just a few points on his background: apart from joining the DUP in 1979 – he hasn’t yet told me at what age, I can tell you Mervyn Storey joined the DUP at age 14 so both of them have a long involvement with the DUP – but his grandfather signed the Ulster Covenant. Now, I’m going to share with you my ignorance and see if anybody here can help me apart from the people sitting up here – how many people do you remember from your history signing the Ulster Covenant in 1912? I did not know, I guarantee you – it was in the order of about 400,000! I’m now going to ask George to address you.
1. George Dawson, MLA: “I would like to thank Damien [English] for the welcome from the political representation in the area and we were delighted to meet Mr Bruton when he joined the group earlier this evening. We were very pleased that he was able to be with us and to welcome us to the event this evening.
“The reference has been made to the Ulster Covenant, and I believe there are people here tonight from Monaghan and Cavan. My grandfather signed the Ulster Covenant in Dartry parish church between Monaghan and Cavan on Ulster Day, 1912. He was from that particular area and so the people here tonight from counties Monaghan and Cavan have a friend and perhaps a relation in me this evening. I proudly own the Covenant which he signed in his own handwriting and I also own his Ulster Volunteer Force armband from that particular time as well, they are very valued heirlooms within the Dawson family. We still have relatives in that particular area, so it’s a home-coming for me to some extent to be here this evening.
NI Political landscape: “Turning to the main meat of the evening, the Northern Ireland political landscape changed on the 26th November last year. On that occasion, the Democratic Unionist Party became the largest political party in Northern Ireland, it became the largest unionist party in Northern Ireland, and it is the only party with a representative in every single constituency across Northern Ireland. For the future of unionism that has been a dramatic shift and of dramatic importance for our people in Northern Ireland. That has given to our people a degree of confidence which they lost with the signing of the Belfast Agreement. The strength and the confidence and the ability of our people to represent themselves was sapped away with the signing of the Belfast Agreement which we opposed at that particular time. And if there is one single event which has given heart to our people, courage to our people and confidence to our people, it is that single election result which occurred on the 26th November last year. Because they realised – unionist people have come to realise – that the appeasement to terrorism, the concessions to terrorists and the one-way traffic in political life has come to an end. Sadly, the leaders of unionism prior to that time were all too willing to do whatever had to be done in order to appease IRA/Sinn Fein. But on the 26th November that ended, it will not recommence again, the appeasement is over, the concessions are over and, on our watch, there will be no more recognition of terrorism in the heart of government. And that is a message which Mervyn will reiterate when he comes to dealing with our attitude to terrorist organisations.
Border not a question: “The result of the election in November also very clearly outlined once again that the question of the Border is not a question. Because, of the representatives who were elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly, 65 out of the 108 representatives are of a unionist persuasion of various shapes. Over 60% of the poll is unionist, leaving 40% or thereabouts of the poll supporting a united Ireland. So the question of the Border is not a question. The Border is there to stay and will remain in place for quite a significant period to come. And that is again a very clear result of the election which occurred. So there will be no change to the Border.
Failings of the Belfast Agreement: “We have in place in Northern Ireland, currently, under the Belfast Agreement, a structure of government which has been delivering concession after concession to terrorists, a structure of government which is one-sided, a structure of government which was designed to undermine unionism and undermine the unionist position. It is not stable, it is not democratic and it is not accountable. I think the lack of stability is clearly evidenced by the fact that it has collapsed four times. No government, or no system of government, which collapses so easily and so dramatically can ever be a system of government which a democratic country can accept.
Instability: “What we want to achieve is a stable system of government which lasts, a system of government which will survive regardless of what the terrorists do, a system of government which will take all of our people forward into the future, a system of government which has the support of unionists and the support of nationalists. The Belfast Agreement certainly had the support of the nationalist community within Northern Ireland. It is questionable whether it ever had the support of the unionist community – Roy [Garland] might disagree with me on that. It is questionable whether it ever had the support of a majority within the unionist community but certainly today the Belfast Agreement does not have the support of the unionist community across Northern Ireland. It is an agreement which was unstable.
Undemocratic agreement: “It is an agreement which was undemocratic because it brought into the heart of government those who were still wedded to, and using, violent means to achieve political ends. Yes, they may say that the guns were silent, but the guns were being used as a bargaining chip within … negotiations. In effect, the IRA was saying to Government, North and South: ‘Here is a pile of weapons, give us a series of concessions and we will deal with this pile of weapons.’
Decommissioning: “Now much of the decommissioning which was proclaimed as taking place was, I believe, a conjuring trick with guns. Because we don’t know how many guns were ever decommissioned. We don’t know where they were decommissioned, we don’t know how they were decommissioned and we cannot verify the fact that anything was decommissioned, except we have the word of the Decommissioning Commission that some acts happened which were significant, but when questioned on the meaning of significant, the General in charge of the Decommissioning Commission said that a small quantity of Semtex would be a significant act of decommissioning. So of all of the vast shipments of weapons which the IRA had, many of them are still intact within North and Southern Ireland. And indeed we already know that they have been importing further weaponry since the time of the signing of the Belfast Agreement.
Agreement not stable: “So the Agreement was not stable. The Agreement was not democratic in that it introduced terrorism into the heart of government.
Accountability: “And the Agreement was not accountable because Ministers in their fiefdoms could make decisions without reference to the Assembly, without reference at all to the democratically elected representatives of the people of Northern Ireland. They could take decisions in their Departments without having to come back to the Assembly for the Assembly to ratify those decisions. As a result of which, the Minister for Education wiped out the 11-plus Examination in Northern Ireland, the transfer of children from primary school to secondary school. As a result of which the Minister for Health, Bairbre de Brun, decided that the maternity hospital for Greater Belfast would be in her constituency, because of the fact that she could make those decisions against the wishes of the Assembly
“So the Agreement was not stable, it was not democratic and it was not accountable. And for all these reasons and others we have consistently opposed the Belfast Agreement.
Devolution Now: “Recently we published a document, which you can get a copy of this evening, called Devolution Now. And the Devolution Now document is consistent with our election pledges, it is consistent with the documents we used during the time of the referendum on the Agreement, and also since that time in critiquing the Agreement, in which we set out seven principles and seven tests. And you’ll be able to read those for yourselves later on if you wish to take a document with you. [Editor’s note: extracts from the Devolution Now document are reproduced below in the Appendix to this report]
Breaking the log-jam: “Having recognised that there are principles and tests which we will apply to any Agreement, having recognised the failings with regard to democracy, stability and accountability within the current Agreement, we have proposed 3 possible methods of breaking the log-jam.
Voluntary Coalition: “Our first and preferred method of breaking the log-jam is to enter into a Voluntary Coalition with other constitutional parties. We will not enter into a coalition with IRA/Sinn Fein while they maintain their terrorist arsenal, while they continue to exile people from Northern Ireland, while they continue to target members of the security forces, while they continue to beat people in the streets who don’t agree with them, while they continue to kidnap people because they take a contrary view to IRA/Sinn Fein. While all of those activities go on we will not regard IRA/Sinn Fein as a normal democratic party, and we will not enter into coalition with them while all of those activities continue. But we are prepared to enter into a voluntary coalition with any constitutional party in Northern Ireland, and that includes the SDLP because they are a constitutional nationalist party. And we would enter into a voluntary coalition with them very similar to the type of arrangement which you would have here where, post-election, parties will get together, have discussions about a programme of government, have discussions – and horse-trading – about the things which would be included in a programme of government and move forward on that agreed basis to implement a governmental arrangement within our jurisdiction. So option number one – our preferred option – is a voluntary coalition existing within Northern Ireland. We have to say that at this moment in time we don’t believe that that preferred option is likely to happen. There are some indications that the SDLP may be moving in that direction but apparently they are not ready for that particular move. Sadly they are afraid to break away from the militant nationalism of IRA/Sinn Fein, it would seem. We wish they would come with the rest of the democrats and the constitutional parties in a voluntary arrangement. We believe there would be benefits for them electorally if they were delivering to their people on the ground many of the things that a government, an Executive, in Northern Ireland could deliver and we would wish for them to make that particular break. We have suggested some ways of them enhancing their position within the body politic in Northern Ireland, perhaps with arrangements on a North-South basis which I don’t want to get into this evening.
Mandatory Coalition: “The Mandatory Coalition which, under the Belfast Agreement, includes IRA/Sinn Fein, is not something which we would be moving towards now. As I say, if Sinn Fein/IRA stopped all of the paramilitary activities and paramilitarism went away, that would transform the situation but again we see no evidence of that happening in the very near future because they seem wedded to their paramilitary past, wedded to their paramilitary present and it would seem to us that they are wedded to their paramilitary future.
Corporate Governance: “Given that the Mandatory Coalition option is closed at this moment in time, given that the Voluntary Coalition option – it would seem – is closed at this moment in time, we have proposed another method of governing Northern Ireland which we have called the Corporate Governance model. During all of the time of Northern Ireland’s political and paramilitary difficulties the local authorities – the councils in Northern Ireland – operated with all parties in membership and attendance at the local councils, Sinn Fein included. All parties were elected to the local councils, all parties participated in local council structures, all parties participated in local council decisions. That has worked, that has been stable, that has delivered for people on the ground all of the services that you would expect local government to deliver on a day-to-day basis. While we have said that it is not our preferred option, and we have said while it is not something which is the best – because it is obviously not the best – it may be that it is the only option which is available now for Northern Ireland to move from where there is no devolution to a period where devolution is possible, looking at it from the best possible case scenario.
IRA activities: “And we’re fundamentally of the view that the IRA Army Council should not be able to dictate the pace of political progress in Northern Ireland. At the moment the Assembly collapsed four times because the IRA Army Council failed to do what they were supposed to do. And it cannot be right in a democracy that the army council of a terrorist organisation has a veto on political progress in any jurisdiction, whether it be in Northern Ireland or any place else in the world. Under the Corporate Governance model, it would operate and continue to operate regardless of the activities of the terrorists beyond the doors of Stormont, regardless of what activities they got up to because within the Assembly, within the Corporate Governance model, the activities of Sinn Fein/IRA would be irrelevant.
Key Vote system: “Now you would say to me, I’m sure: ‘what protection do those models hold for members of the nationalist community?’ Again we have addressed this matter. Within the old Assembly there was a designation system – when you became a member of the old Assembly you had to designate yourself either nationalist or unionist and on important votes or votes which required a cross-community voting mechanism there had to be a majority of the nationalist community and the unionist community voting together before such a vote would pass. Again we have said that we are happy for that to be maintained within the new system – there would have to be a majority of both unionists and nationalists voting together for a matter to pass which was controversial. But we have also proposed – and this is something which we are in agreement with the Alliance Party on. The Alliance Party as you probably know is a centre-ground party and the Alliance Party have felt that under the designating system that their votes have been somewhat of an irrelevance because the Alliance Party votes are not counted, as it were, as either unionist or nationalist – and so to accommodate that position we have said that alongside the weighted majority system or the majority of both communities a matter could also pass if there were 70% support within the Assembly at large. Now obviously to have 70% support within the Assembly at large you would need the support of at least one part of the nationalist community to support a particular vote in order for that particular vote to pass. So, under the Key Vote system, within both the Corporate Governance model and within the Voluntary Coalition model, the rights and responsibilities of minorities are fully protected and the minority position within that model would have nothing to fear whatsoever.
DUP ready for government: “So we have a way of moving Northern Ireland forward from being held back by terrorism to a position where government can happen immediately. And I can say to you this evening that we are ready for government tomorrow. We are ready for government either in the Corporate Governance model or in the Voluntary Coalition model which we have indicated both to the parties in Northern Ireland and to both governments and to the electorate at large. We would welcome the opportunity of getting into government on that cross-community basis, with the Key Votes which I have clearly outlined to you.
Efficiency Commission: “Now alongside the political issues which I have outlined, we have proposed an Efficiency Commission because, as has been outlined in the introduction, certainly from my business background and from my experience of interfacing with government departments, Northern Ireland is over-administered. For a population of 1.7 million people, we have11 Government Departments, we have 108 Assembly Members, we have 26 local authorities, we have 5 health boards, we have 4 education boards, we have 130 non-Departmental public bodies, we have I think around 400 quangos at the last count, all in Northern Ireland, seeking to administer government within that place. Now I don’t think you need to be a graduate of any of the universities of Ireland to understand that that is an awful lot of administrators for a very small piece of territory and a very small population. So there is need for efficiency and there is need for cutting through many of the layers of government. We have proposed that the Assembly be reduced from 108 to 72. That obviously would mean that some Assembly Members from my party would lose their seats, that would mean that some Assembly Members from other parties would lose their seats as well, but we are ready for that, we are happy that that would be the case. We have proposed that the number of Departments should be reduced to at least 8 Departments, possibly more but at least 8 – down from the current 11 Departments. We are putting proposals to the Review of Public Administration with regard to the number of local authorities we should have and the other non-Departmental public bodies which we have. There is a real opportunity to save money within the political structures of Northern Ireland so that money can be put to front line services such as health and education and housing. It may interest you to know that of the total budget for housing in Northern Ireland, 80% is spent on administration! On the total budget for education in Northern Ireland, a similar proportion is spent on administration. Now that cannot be good for any country, and we must get a way of cutting away that wastefulness out of government so that more and more of the money can be put to meeting front-line services such as health, education and housing and other aspects. If you came to Northern Ireland you would find that the waiting lists for our hospitals are a disgrace. We are the worst in the United Kingdom with regard to the waiting lists in our hospitals, and yet health equates to more than 50% of the total Northern Ireland Government spend… Those things must be dealt with in an efficient and effective manner. And those are the sort of things that we would want the Efficiency Commission to have a look at as well.
North-South arrangements: “Now I’ve concentrated very largely on the arrangements within Northern Ireland because those are the details that we have published to date. You may be interested in the arrangements we will be proposing for a North-South relationship. Now what I cannot do this evening is go into those in any great detail because they have not as yet been published – they were to be published about three or four weeks ago but when the IRA kidnapped Bobby Tohill on one Friday evening in Belfast everything was put on hold. Our Assembly team has been divided into three groups – one dealing with the internal Northern Ireland arrangements, one dealing with the North-South arrangements and one group dealing with a range of other matters pertinent to the Agreement. Group Two had the arrangements for North-South ready for printing when the Tohill affair broke. Everything was put on hold at that particular moment, and we are still on hold, again because of the activities of the Provisional IRA.
“But I think within the Devolution Now document you can see some key principles. Just as the Departments of Government in Northern Ireland have to be accountable to the Assembly, so any arrangements on a North-South basis would have to be accountable to the Assembly. Under the previous arrangement a Minister in his or her own Department could make whatever arrangements they wanted to make on a North-South basis without reference back to the democratically elected Assembly in Northern Ireland. That could not continue, and so whatever arrangement develops on a North-South basis it would have to be accountable to the Assembly.
“I would also say that whatever arrangements develop on a North-South basis they would have to be driven by need and not politics. Some of the North-South structures which developed previously developed – it would seem to us – because there was a political desire to have certain things done and certain things said. That is no good reason to develop North-South structures. If there is a need, a clearly demonstrated need, to cooperate North-South, then there should be no bar on our part in putting those arrangements in place. And there are a range of activities where North-South arrangements could be put in place very quickly and on a structural basis. But it has to be driven by need and not politics.
Lasting settlement: “And just in conclusion, and I thank you for your patience with me, let me throw out something which may or may not appear in our documents. You will recall that when South Africa – which is much promoted as a model to us in Northern Ireland – came through all of its political difficulties and reached a settlement which was going to last, and let me use that as another point – the settlement in Northern Ireland which is developed as a result of the political discussions which are underway must be a settlement which will last. Part of the reason for the failure of the Belfast Agreement was that it was not in fact a settlement, it was at best a series of Heads of Agreement, because so much was left undone. And again it was not a settlement because the IRA kept coming back for more and for more and for more, and the undoing of David Trimble was the fact that Sinn Fein still kept coming back for more and for more because there was no agreed settlement.
Commonwealth: “So there must be a settlement which is going to last. And part of the settlement which South Africa achieved was that South Africa would rejoin the Commonwealth. Now I throw that out as a challenge this evening, to this audience. If you are serious about North-South relations being on an equable and fair basis, if you are serious about reaching out the hand of friendship to your brethren and sisters across the Border, why would you not rejoin the British Commonwealth of Nations? Thank you very much for your patience.”
Chair (Ercus Stewart): “Thank you. Our next speaker, Mervyn Storey, has had a very very long involvement in politics and is also a member of the Assembly. He is also actively involved in the Loyal Orders. Thank you Mervyn…
2. Mervyn Storey, MLA:
“Can I say how delighted I am to be here this evening and to have this opportunity along with my party colleague and personal friend, George Dawson, to represent our party on this occasion. Can I also give a word of thanks to our hosts in the Meath Peace Group? This is not the first time that George and myself have been in the Republic, and we count it a joy that we again were invited. Circumstances have somewhat changed in our own personal political journeys as has been described. The last occasion we were here we weren’t elected, and some might have even said we weren’t electable! Thankfully, being a good Calvinist, I believe and I trust that the rafters of this building won’t fall around me for having made such a statement as that! I believe in Providence and George and I were elected on the 23rd November 2003 to the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Dr Ian Paisley: “I have had the personal joy and privilege for many years in being associated on a personal and on a family and on a political level with the leader of our party, Dr. Paisley. To some that may be looked upon as being an awful burden to bear and as being an awful association to have but I count it an honour to have had such an association, and I can assure you that the public perception that is given of our party leader is far from the reality of the person that he really is. I have found in him a great source of encouragement, and I believe I have the great opportunity in serving probably one of the best political apprenticeships – from the year 2000 through to 2003 I have had the opportunity of working along with him in his constituency, with Dr Paisley and with his family and Ian Junior. Then in 2003 we were elected in the same constituency as Dr Paisley. I was just sharing with our friends when we were having a meal, some people would say that it is not good to be associated with Ian Paisley. I will just give you a practical example of how it benefited me – as you know in Northern Ireland, the same as here in the Republic, we have proportional representation, and for me to be elected on that particular occasion I required somewhere in the region of 6,000 first preference votes. When the votes were counted I had 3, 700 so I was considerably short, but whenever the surplus which Dr Paisley had, and the surplus which Ian Paisley Junior had, I ended up almost having 8,000 votes, with a surplus that had to be divided. So I said to Dr Paisley when the count was over, and he was getting somewhat irritated with me because I was very nervous and I was walking up and down in the count centre and he said: ‘will you sit down, you’re making me nervous, you’re like a father waiting for a child to be born, everything’s going to be fine”, and so we did, and everything was fine.
“I always find it difficult to move onto issues of substance coming after George Dawson because he always says the things you want to say… I see we have members of the clergy with us tonight and it reminds me of the story of the young man who went to hear a great preacher and he was enthralled by the preacher, he was just riveted by every word he said, and he had preached on the text ‘Peter’s wife’s mother was sick’. And the young man was totally enthralled and he said ‘that was the greatest exposition I’ve ever heard.’ Some months later, he heard that the preacher was back in another town and he went to hear him. And, lo and behold, as he sat waiting to hear the text announced, the preacher got up and announced his text and it was ‘Peter’s wife’s mother was sick of a fever’. And so the young fellow was somewhat disconcerted about that but he thought, ‘well, I suppose, if you’ve a good sermon you will use it again’ – and if you were George and I you would use it again and again! But a few months passed again and he went to hear the same preacher and, lo and behold, he preached the same thing. On the way home, he was getting into the train and the preacher was in the same carriage and they sat in the same carriage and the preacher, looking out the window, said ‘oh look there’s a funeral going past’. The young man said ‘it must be Peter’s wife’s mother’! So there we have it.
“I want to read you something tonight: “We must not decommission democracy to accommodate those who must decommission weapons.” That was a statement, not from a DUP politician, but from your own Justice Minister, Mr McDowell. And I could give quote after quote in many of the things that he has said in relation to the attitude of the current Irish Government as to the activities of Sinn Fein/IRA. George has given us an overview of the issues in relation to the political situation in Northern Ireland. Just let me pass some comments in regard to those issues.
Subversion of democracy: “The people of Northern Ireland were promised a ‘New Beginning’ in the April of 1998. That New Beginning was to be delivered by the Belfast Agreement – that was to be the vehicle to deliver a new dawn for Northern Ireland. At the time, our own party warned that such a deal would bring neither peace nor stability to the Province but would create an environment in which decent law-abiding citizens would find democracy subverted to accommodate unrepentant terrorists. When that was said, we were laughed out of court. We were told that that was not the case, that those who had committed themselves to the Belfast Agreement and to the Mitchell Principles and to all the mechanics that were being presented to them would deliver. Unfortunately, the contrary is the case. Terrorism was whitewashed and legitimised. Its front men were regarded as socially concerned politicians, of genuine principles, who were really about jobs and health and education and peace. And the murder of our friends and families was a distraction, a side issue. There was a wholesale release of terrorists of the worst kind, both loyalist and republican, onto our streets, to peddle the slow lingering murder that drugs bring, and to incite rioting and fear.
Paramilitary crime: “I’ve come today from a meeting with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. A most amazing meeting, one that could only take place in Northern Ireland. That meeting was to discuss a factory in my constituency, Gallagher’s Tobacco Factory. It’s ironic that I should come here tonight on the smoke-free day and the commencement of the new dawn for smokers in this country! But today I was representing Gallagher’s … at a meeting with the Secretary of State. That meeting wasn’t to argue about the issue of the tax/levy on tobacco sales. That meeting wasn’t to discuss more investment for a manufacturing base in my constituency. That meeting was to discuss the safety of the delivery of tobacco from Ballymena to Dublin because the IRA had – in the terms of the Secretary of State – engaged in a ‘heist’ at Christmas time and stole almost a million pounds’ worth of cigarettes. We could get no guarantee that the main route between the two cities in Ireland could be safeguarded! That is an absolute shame and a disgrace. Let me tell you what Gallagher’s are now doing – and they’re going to have to pay the price of the events of today, the Government legislation – but what are they doing to get their product to the Republic of Ireland? They are taking it from Ballymena to Belfast, they are shipping it to Liverpool and then they are shipping it from Liverpool to Dublin.
“And we are told we have peace.
Uncontrollable mafia: “You see what we have done, and it’s so sad, is that we have now taken those who have been engaged in violence for over thirty years, and they were engaged in activities that I know everyone in this room would condemn – the murder of our kith and kin – and they have legitimised them. And now they have become an uncontrollable mafia along the border. I think, ladies and gentlemen, in the light of all that we hear across the world we ought to rise with indignation, not only against the activities in Madrid, and in New York and in the United States on September 11, but also against the activities of rogues on this island, both loyalist and republican.
Loyalist paramilitaries: “Because, let me tell you, I treat with the same indignation and disgust those loyalist paramilitaries – so-called – who have peddled and still do peddle their trade in destruction and death. My wife works in a post office, and just a couple of weeks ago the post office was robbed… it was a horrendous experience. But I have some idea that those who were involved would have been loyalist paramilitaries, given the location, given where the car came from, and so on. A week later, I was in the Assembly and I met David Ervine, the leader of the Progressive Unionist Party, linked to the UVF. And of course he shed crocodile tears, he said ‘Mervyn it was terrible what happened to your wife’ and I said ‘yes, and David, probably some of your colleagues were involved.’ Because that’s the reality.
“Those days have to go, and those who have given political cover have to be exposed.
Moral challenge: “And so we find ourselves in the situation in Northern Ireland where there is a challenge, but I think that George has very eloquently and very succinctly given the political context and the political challenge, but I say to you at all times there is a moral challenge that we all face. And the moral challenge is this: it would be easy for me to come here tonight and to sound as though we were high and pious and everything was somebody else’s fault. But the moral challenge is to ensure that we collectively do not allow those who still are wedded to violence to have their agenda continually on the table.
Concessions are over: “And for me the election in November 2003 did give that signal of hope, that the concessions were over. You know there’s a great attack by us as a party politically on David Trimble, for all the right reasons – he has given away everything but the family silver. The mortgage was on the table, everything was up for grabs, unfortunately. But in November, that ended, and those concessions by unionists came to an end and now there are unionists – ourselves – at the table. We are not going to be unreasonable, we’re not going to be unfair, and our requirements are no less than those of your own Government.
Trust and friendship: “I was honoured when John Bruton came tonight to welcome us here. I’m sure you’ll find this strange, that a close colleague – and I count him a personal friend of mine – is Eamon Ó Cuiv, a Minister in your Government. You may think that is the strangest alliance, the grandson of de Valera who has a personal friend in a Protestant Calvinist in the person of Mervyn Storey! You might think that strange, but you know friendship ought to know no bounds. And the one thing that marks out Eamon – and he comes from a republican background, he comes from a history that I would not sit comfortably or content with – but the one thing that is different today is this: I trust him. Because when he says that his aims and objectives will only be pursued by political means, I know he means it. But I sit on a council, a local authority, with a representative of Sinn Fein/IRA, and I have to say I don’t trust him. Why? Because the evidence stacks up against his party. Remember Gerry Adams said – and he didn’t say this ten years ago, he didn’t say this some fifteen years ago, he said this back in 2002 at an IRA commemoration dinner – he said that the campaign of the IRA was ‘noble and honourable’.
“Ladies and gentlemen, in my view there was nothing noble and honourable about the devastation and destruction that was heaped on Northern Ireland – on Roman Catholics and on Protestants, because death knows no religious boundary. And whatever your political ideology is, if it has to be sold at the barrel of a gun, it is not worth it
Sinn Féin in Government: “The DUP has been accused in the past of having some strange alliances. I know that Roy Garland is here tonight – I have to say that I sort of look to Roy with great admiration. He almost destroyed my political career! He writes a column in the Irish News in Northern Ireland, and he said of me on one occasion that Mervyn Storey wasn’t a bigot. Well, I was really disappointed in that! And Dr Paisley pulled me in the next day and he questioned me for four hours to see if this was the case! “There are those who would say that in the past our party had some strange alliances and friendships. But I have to say this: the DUP has as its goal and its aim the same political requirements as your own Government. Remember the Dublin Government and Administration said that Sinn Fein was unfit for government. Well I have to say, respectfully, that if they are unfit for government in Dail Éireann, they are unfit for government in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Why? Because we don’t recognise or respect their mandate? I do respect their mandate, but Hitler had a mandate, and a mandate never justifies mass murder. And we have to face up to that reality.
Challenges that lie ahead: “In the weeks and months that lie ahead there are challenges for us, there are challenges for us within the institutions and beyond the institutions, but I think that we are up for that challenge. I believe that we have conviction.
Honesty and integrity: “You know, there are some people, even within our own party, who look sceptically at George and me because we are always the two that are wheeled out to come across the border and do these things, so we’re sort of looked upon with a wee bit of suspicion. But you know, for too long, I have to say this, almost for too long we allowed unionists to come to groups like this and they sold you a message that wasn’t the case, that wasn’t the reality.
“And they weren’t prepared to say the things that were true. I have no intention of, I trust, offending anyone in this gathering tonight, and if I have, I don’t do it intentionally, but I want you to see that there is something of honesty, there is something of integrity, there is something that palpitates within my breast that wants to ensure that what is good enough for the people in the Republic is good enough for the people in Northern Ireland.
Republican movement: “And I trust that we can, on the basis of our own proposals, see movement politically, but I am not convinced, as is the Irish Government, that the republican movement is up to that challenge. You ask me: how do I make that conclusion? Ask yourself this question: why did the IRA want to take out Bobby Tohall? He was one of their own. He was highly respected within the armed wing of the republican movement. Why did they want to take him out? What is going on within that organisation and why have we had such a cloak of secrecy over the activities of the leading members of Sinn Fein? These are questions that I leave with you.
Conclusion: “It’s been a joy and an honour for us to be here tonight, and I trust that when we come back – someone reminded me that it was three years since we were here before, not at this location but another location – that when we come back, if we are invited, that George will probably be a junior Minister, I know he’s a lot older than I am but he’ll be a junior Minister, and I’ll get the opportunity to drive the car …and I trust that we will have changed things and I look forward on that occasion to being in your company!
QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS (summaries of main points)
Chair (Ercus Stewart): “Thank you. I will now open the discussion to the floor – does anyone want to start the ball rolling?”
Questions 1-5
Q.1: “Is it fair to say that others have done the hard work and you are reaping the benefits of their labour? Do you not feel that they have broken the ground and you have benefited in terms of votes?”
George Dawson: “From my perspective they have given us a harder job. They haven’t done the hard work, they have taken an easy route. Because it is always easy to give things away. The job we have now is to draw back and to get some of the concessions which were given away brought back again to our community, and to stop some of the one-way traffic. Certainly the unionist community have walked away from the Ulster Unionist Party in great numbers and will continue to do so, but they have suffered that because they have not had the confidence to stand by the unionist convictions. If they’d had the confidence to stand by the unionist convictions, they’d have been saying what we were saying, they’d have been doing what we were doing, and they would not have given us the very very difficult job that we have today.
Mervyn Storey: “I think it’s more difficult to keep terrorists in jail than to open the door and let them out. It’s easier to open the door and let terrorists out than to keep them in. It’s easier to give in and cave in on key issues, rather than fight your corner in a normal democracy and say ‘there are certain things that we will not do’. We haven’t reaped the benefit, we have reaped the harvest, and it’s been an awful harvest. Violence has increased. You only have to look at the statistics in relation to the activities that have taken place recently, and we published this document on the Joint Declaration and it makes it abundantly clear on the figures that were given in the House of Commons as a result of a question by one of our MPs. During the period before and after the signing of the Belfast Agreement until 2001, shootings were up 16.7%, bombing incidents were up 61%, and devices found were up 217%. That is not reaping the benefit of the hard work of others. I think that’s reaping the harvest.
Q. 2: “Listening to you speak, it strikes me that you seem to have omitted to talk about the SDLP. It’s quite extraordinary that you all the time emphasise Sinn Féin. After all, the SDLP is a nationalist party, it was at one stage the largest nationalist party. Also, I feel you’re making an incorrect assumption that drugs and cigarettes etc are part of political activity. It may be implemented by people who were IRA or whatever, but it is a police job to monitor and to stop those activities. It’s nothing to do with politics. It’s nothing to do with the Good Friday Agreement. And it seems to me that it is quite true that the bombs have actually stopped, the explosions have stopped. What’s happening up there at the moment, as far as I can gather, is that various paramilitaries are kneecapping each other. But the bombs have stopped, they are silent. And it would seem to me better if you emphasised the actual relative peacefulness that is there as a result of the Good Friday Agreement”
Mervyn Storey: “Could I just say in relation to the issue of the cigarettes and the contraband – yes, that is the case that we unfortunately would have that in what might be deemed a normal society. There are criminals in every jurisdiction. But I think that what you have to remember is that the Belfast Agreement initiated the Patten proposals with regard to policing, and we now have in the PSNI one of the most demoralised police forces in western Europe. Because the high expectation in paper of how that force is expected to deliver has been raised but the resources to accomplish that expectation have not been given. In fact, the contrary is the case. We have somewhere in the region of 2, 500 officers who have left the police force since the imposition of Patten. And those officers are at the highest level and rank with some of the greatest expertise in their field. And no one will convince me either in economic terms or in manufacturing, business or any other industry, that you can take out key personnel from any organisation and you can replace them with new recruits just out of a training depot and that you will have the same service delivery. It just won’t work.
Border: “And the issue of along the border: the police are not welcomed by republicans along the border, and there is a clear political agenda that is followed to ensure that ‘sensitive’ policing is carried out. And of course republicans and the IRA have taken full advantage of that, and in the absence of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, and in the absence of the backup from the British Army, they will have a field day, and that is what they are having. And we have to set it in the context: we are not talking about Ballymoney in my constituency where windows are broken on a Saturday night and so on. We don’t analyse those figures in terms of terrorist activity and non-terrorist activity. That’s criminality. But along the border it is a completely different issue. One third of all fuel in Northern Ireland is smuggled, and it’s smuggled by the Provisional IRA. Now that is a statistic which is undeniable, and we cannot allow their political representatives to reap the benefits of that and also the political process. They have to make a choice.
George Dawson: “With regard to the SDLP, as I said in my speech, we would be more than happy tomorrow to enter into a voluntary coalition arrangement with the SDLP. That is our preferred option of government, and we would be delighted if the SDLP would join with us in a voluntary coalition for the governance of Northern Ireland. That’s clearly our preferred option, and the option which I outlined during the talk. So the SDLP are, as we see it, part and parcel of the governance of Northern Ireland for the future and we would be very happy if that were the case.
IRA activities: “In relation to the other part of your question. I trust you’re not suggesting to us that because somebody stops bombing us that we should automatically reward them by giving them a place in government. I trust that was not what your suggestion would be this evening. Because I don’t accept that. If somebody’s shooting me and they stop shooting me, well they shouldn’t have been shooting at me in the first place and they don’t deserve a reward for stopping. Our Prime Minister, in the House of Commons on the 1st of May last year, admitted that the IRA at that stage were still involved in paramilitary activity, they were still involved in military attacks, they were still involved in training, they were still involved in targeting of members of the security forces and politicians. They were still involved in intelligence gathering, they were still involved in the acquisition and development of arms and weapons and they were still involved in the preparation of other terrorist campaigns. As well as that they were involved in punishment beatings … and involvement in riots. And also sectarian attacks and intimidation against vulnerable communities. Those are the things that the IRA are still involved in today in Northern Ireland in order to get their political will within the political process.
“And alongside that they are seeking to trade guns for concessions: ‘we will give you this amount of weaponry if you take away the watchtowers along the border, we will give you this amount of weaponry if you take some further steps with regard to imposing a united Ireland on the people of Northern Ireland.’ That cannot be right in a democracy. So, the bombs may be silent, to take your point, in relation to being exploded, but they are certainly not silent in relation to politics because they are speaking more loudly today in achieving concessions than they ever spoke when they were being exploded in the streets of Northern Ireland.
Mervyn Storey: “I think too, on the issue of the SDLP, it is very sad that a nationalist party that I would have no difficulty having a working relationship with, took a decision to clutch the viper of militant republicanism to its breast, and ultimately that viper has spread a poison through the body politic of Irish nationalism, from which the SDLP will not recover. The political reality is that the SDLP are now facing political annihilation at the European elections. But remember John Hume, who has contributed, from a nationalist perspective, much to the ‘peace process’, was more keen to take on board and to sanitise Sinn Féin/IRA than he was to have a deal with unionists. But he has paid the ultimate price. And his party, very sadly – and I take no comfort in the demise of the SDLP, but there are political realities that we have to face in Northern Ireland. People have to question why that has taken place…”
Chair (Ercus Stewart): “And if they take up your invitation, what would the effect be on them at the next election?”
George Dawson: “I believe that if they were seen to be delivering good government on the ground, and delivering better housing and delivering better education, and better health results, to the nationalist people of Northern Ireland, I think their vote would recover.”
Mervyn Storey: “And I think that people would see – even people here would see – that when it comes to the real politics, Sinn Féin are not at the races. They are good at the propaganda. Look at their European allies – who they are going to align themselves with if they are successful in the European election. The most extreme elements, the most Marxist elements, within the European establishment. So if we lift the lid of their politics – that’s where the SDLP, if they were to take up our offer, people would begin to see the SDLP within an administration, and a unionist administration, working in conjunction with ourselves, we would be able to deliver for the people of Northern Ireland. I think that would be a challenge, and it is a challenge.
Q. 3: “I was amazed to hear these two gentlemen speak about integrity… integrity is the ability to listen and to talk to everybody else. Any party who sits up there and says ‘I will not talk to somebody else who is elected’, I don’t think that they should be there themselves. Now Nelson Mandela in South Africa was willing to talk to everybody else, he was willing to look at what the other people stood for, and if you cannot look at the beliefs of other people, well then you’re stuck in your own beliefs, and you’re assuming that your own beliefs are absolutely true. None of our beliefs are absolutely true. We have to look around, we have to see what people fought for, what people stood for, where people are now and where people want to go to. I’m not saying you’re wrong … But I can’t see where there’s any health in not talking to, and listening to, and deciding among yourselves what’s good for the whole lot of you together.”
Mervyn Storey: “Well I think on that issue, we haven’t excluded Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin have excluded themselves. And our bottom line is no different from your own Taoiseach, from your own Justice Minister, and from your own Cabinet. And that is, that’s what not good enough for Dail Éireann is not good enough for Northern Ireland. And remember, Sinn Féin/IRA have, by their associations, excluded themselves from what everyone of us in this room deems to be normal democratic principles. And you can’t have both. It’s not that I want to be obnoxious, and overbearing and so self-righteous that I have all the answers and nobody else is right. That’s not the case. But I only come to the table with no other mandate than the mandate that I’ve been given via the ballot box. And remember, one of the Assembly Members of Sinn Féin/IRA, Francie Molloy, said during the last process that, if republicans didn’t get what they were looking for – his words – they would go back to what ‘they do best’. And what was that? Enniskillen [1987] – 11 Protestants blown to pieces. La Mon [1978] – Roman Catholics and Protestants burned to death. Murder after murder after murder. I hope you’re seriously not suggesting that, by talking to people like that, until they have given up and renounced their violence, that that is a logical and a sensible way forward.
George Dawson: “I have no difficulty talking to anybody … the difficulty I have with IRA/Sinn Féin is that while I come to the table on the basis of my argument and the strength of my argument, on the basis of the strength of my mandate, they would come to the table with those things, granted, but they also come to the table with arms, with semtex, with bombs, with murder in their heart. Now, there is no equality within that.
Questioner: “But you’re assuming, and you’re generalising – as was Ian Paisley, who is your master, he is an extremely great one for generalising and for rabble-rousing. All of us here must accept the reality that other people have beliefs. Unless we sit down and we talk to them we have nothing. ….
George Dawson: “We have engaged with many people from the nationalist community, and the SDLP, over a long period of time. We have engaged with your government in dialogue across the table, and we will continue to do so. We will continue to engage in dialogue with the SDLP, but we will not engage in dialogue with those who hold weaponry across the table from us. When someone is prepared to shoot me if I don’t agree with him, or her, I will not discuss the future of my country with that group of people. If they put the guns to the one side, if they renounce violence, and the guns are silent and completely silent, they can come to the table on the basis of democracy, the same as everybody else. And I will listen to their argument. But while their argument is found in the barrel of a gun, I’m sorry, my ears are closed and will continue to be closed.
Questioner: “But what’s democracy so? These people were also elected…”
Mervyn Storey: “Can I just say that I have proved, I think, in my short political life, that even those who I would deem as being at the other extreme politically from me – Eamon Ó Cuiv is a prime example, I have already cited that, I am not saying this now to try and scurry under the table with an excuse. It is a clear record of fact that Eamon O Cuiv comes from a political background that is totally adverse to everything I believe, both religiously and politically. His [grand] father was the founding father of this State and I have grave difficulties with all that history, but the difference with Eamon Ó Cuiv and Martin McGuinness is that I can trust him, I know that he only has in his heart moral political arguments. We live in Northern Ireland. We know what Sinn Féin/IRA have done and are doing, and there is no indication that they are prepared as a body in totality to move from their stated position of violence being morally justifiable. It was morally justifiable, Gerry Adams said, to murder 3,000 people. Well I’m sorry, I concur with George – until they leave their past behind and their ideology does not justify murder, the same as September 11th or what we’ve seen in Madrid. Remember, President Clinton said that the Oklahoma bombers ‘had no place in a democratic society’. If that is the benchmark for democracy, then Martin McGuinness – and he has publicly stated – self-confessed commander of the IRA in Londonderry at a time when 27 members of the security forces were murdered and he has never once been interviewed, he has never once been questioned about those murders. He was the commander in chief at the time when those men were put to death. Now, if they’re prepared to shift and change. I’m not asking republicans to come down on their hands and knees and kiss my feet. I’m not asking for them to be humiliated. I’m not asking for them to go into acts of contrition that please my political persuasion, but I am asking them – the same as Bertie Ahern… the same as any other democrat across the world – you can’t have violence and politics. They have to make the choice. If they make the choice, then I believe the DUP has clearly committed itself to ensuring that there is a future and that future they can participate in.
George Dawson: “With all of that no one is excluded from the democratic process. Democracy, in this jurisdiction, across the world, allows people to be elected to the Dail, or to the House, or to the Assembly. But democracy does not afford to any party automatic rights to government. And that’s the difference. Rights to government are for democrats alone. They are fully entitled to their privileges of the democratic process, to be elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly, just as they are fully entitled to be elected to Dail Éireann. But they will not be in government in Dail Éireann because your government and your ministers have said that they will not be in government in Dail Éireann. What’s good for you is good for us.
Q. 4: “Tony Blair had the guts to go and meet Colonel Gadaffi. Would it not be appropriate for Dr. Paisley to meet Gerry Adams? ….”
Mervyn Storey: “Probably if there was oil or gas or some other very worthwhile commodity found in West Belfast, anything is possible, but I think that it is clear, unfortunately our Prime Minister I believe made a very miscalculated judgment in relation to Colonel Gadaffi. I believe that it was done not for the real reasons of normalising politics but for personal vanities, or for financial gain and benefit. I think there is more to the issue of meeting Gadaffi. And there is no evidence, there’s no evidence that Gadaffi or his regime has changed. And I do not agree that he should have met him. I think it was a calculated mistake, and I think he will ultimately pay a big price for that misdemeanour.”
Questioner: “But after all he is your Prime Minister!”
Mervyn Storey: “Yes, and I am entitled to disagree with him!
George Dawson: “In the past of course, our government and the American government have supported Saddam Hussein, and Osama Bin Laden. They were wrong then and they are wrong today.
Q. 5: “I’ve been at most of the meetings here over the years, most of the people here would know my background, I’m a moderate person. I’ve spent 14 years in the six counties, worked there and enjoyed every minute of it. I’m a constant visitor. In the last two weeks I’ve been all over your area – Ballymena, Portglenone, Castle Dawson… I know it intimately and I have to say I’m utterly saddened at what I hear today. I really am. In the last 2 weeks I’ve met a huge cross-section of people who I would consider as being from the unionist population. But I haven’t heard those attitudes. I thought they were consigned to the bin, and that we were getting into constructive politics… Not about the people of 1912 who signed the Covenant. Some of them did it in blood… you’ve got to get away from that. Someone mentioned earlier about the SDLP. You didn’t mention them at all…
George Dawson: “That’s not true. I’m sorry, you must have been at a different meeting than I was at. Because I referred to the SDLP.
Chair: “He actually did refer to the SDLP in his presentation…”
Questioner: “Maybe once. There’s another man here, he is a unionist. I said to him at a meeting here: ‘I came here to listen to something constructive and all I heard all night was IRA/Sinn Fein.’ … That sort of talk should be gone to the bin long ago. People should be more constructive and looking to the future. Now I know you don’t like the Good Friday Agreement – and I notice tonight you called it the ‘Belfast Agreement’ …. I remember years ago someone used the term “PTAs” and I said ‘what’s that?’ And he said ‘protestants’. And I said ‘do you mean Protestants?’ And he said ‘No’, I mean protestants – those people are professional protestants.’ You are always protesting. Why not come with a little bit of joy about what you are going to do, not what you are going to block?
Commonwealth: “You said about the Commonwealth. If you look around the world today and you look at Cyprus – the Brits were there. Look at Palestine – the Brits were there. Look at Iran – the Brits were there. Look at Iraq – the Brits were there. Look at Afghanistan… They were everywhere. They were down in Africa. Why would anyone want to get involved with that sort of thing? I mean if you thought about it, you would put it out of your mind. You might be better employed getting involved with the people in the South…
George Dawson: “From your long list of the places where the Brits were involved, I take it that I have to forget the history of Northern Ireland but you’re not prepared to forget the history of Britain in the world!
Deal that will stick: “Leaving that to one side, we put three positive proposals with regard to devolution in Northern Ireland. The unionist community are happy with the result of the last election. The unionist community are vibrant as a result of the last election. The unionist community are ready to engage as a result of the last election. And more than that, we are ready to engage to such an extent that whatever deal is struck it’s a deal which is going to stick. The deal which we do with your Government, the deal which we do with the SDLP, the deal which we do with the British Government, is a deal which is going to stick. So from your point of view you should welcome the fact that we are prepared to engage at that level. The deal which David Trimble did was a deal which fell 4 times. The deal which David Trimble did was a deal which he could not sell to his own community. When we do a deal, I can guarantee to you that that deal will last because we will make it last. We will sell the deal to our community. We will go to the length and breadth of our community to make sure that that deal sticks. And the three basic elements which we put to you are very simple. Tomorrow we can go into government with the SDLP. Not a problem. I stated that during the course of my speech. I stated it again to our friend across here…
Questioner: “You are repeating yourself – we all know that.”
George Dawson: “But you said I didn’t mention the SDLP…”
Questioner: “You mentioned them once…. And I don’t know if you know the pub where that poor fellow [Bobby Tohill] was taken from. Do you know the pub?”
George Dawson: “I know where it is. I don’t know the pub.”
Questioner: “Well it’s known as ‘Kelly’s Tavern’ …I know the pub. And that started off as a pub brawl…”
George Dawson: “This is Gerry Adams’ propaganda!… There are three concrete proposals on the table from our party which potentially can take Northern Ireland forward in a deal which is going to stick. Either a voluntary coalition with the SDLP, a corporate governance model which includes Sinn Fein if they wish to be there, and indeed we are prepared for a mandatory coalition – we don’t like it – but we are prepared for a mandatory coalition when Sinn Fein/IRA meet all the requirements which our Prime Minister – and your Taoiseach – has put upon them. Now when they meet those requirements we are happy to do business with them as well, but at this moment in time we are sticking with the Prime Minister on this matter and we are sticking with your Taoiseach on this matter.”
Questioner: “I am not into propaganda… For 14 years I exhibited at the Royal Show in Belfast and on one year in my category I won 1st prize, and guess who gave me the rosette? Rev. Ian Paisley! He’s a man with a great sense of humour.”
George Dawson: “He is indeed!
Questioner: “And he came down and we had a good time together. He’s not a drinking man as you know… but he stayed and he treated us in the nicest way possible. I’ve got nice memories too, but honestly I think you should change.”
Mervyn Storey: “Can I just answer in relation to the issue of negativity of our presentation? I quote from an article in a newspaper which has never normally been a friend to the DUP – the Belfast Telegraph of February 6th, 2004: ‘when a party that is notorious for saying ‘No’ comes up with constructive proposals it behoves everyone to sit up and take notice. Today the DUP unveiled its blueprint for political progress in Northern Ireland and nobody should dismiss it.’ And then they concluded by this statement: ‘the pragmatism of the DUP’s proposals may surprise some in both sections of the community, but they have been carefully drafted and are worthy of serious debate and consideration. It could well be a case of devolution now or never.’ And I have to say: it is not disingenuous – we have a history, and I am not wanting to forget my history, I am not wanting to in any way dishonour those who were needlessly put to death and then, at a whim and a fancy, bring those who supported their deaths into government when their mandate gives them no other rights than any other democrat. I think we have to be real, we have to face up to those realities….”
Questions 6 – 12
Chair: “I’m going to take 2 or 3 questions on this side and 2 or 3 on this side together because we are getting obviously short in time.”
Q. 6: Roy Garland (UUP member and co-chair, Guild of Uriel): “My name is Roy Garland, a member of the Ulster Unionist Party.. I’m a supporter of David Trimble…. I am very pleased to see Mervyn and George here today. I’ve known them a long time. I come from the same place – I used to attend Dr Paisley’s church, for a number of years, I’ve been at his home, I’ve broadcast from his home, I’ve gone on parades, I paraded around Westminster with banners. But there came a point when I began to wonder – I was also involved in paramilitary organisations which Dr Paisley knew about. I also began to reflect on where we came from – the Northern Ireland State and how it was set up was mentioned earlier, the Ulster Volunteer Force, the Ulster Covenant. It was reactivated in the 1920s, unofficially reactivated in the 1930s, and, I believe, was reactivated in the 1960s. You also had the UVF, Tara, LVF, UDA, all these organisations. Now I am not suggesting that the DUP support those but I think it’s a bit hypocritical for unionists … and I am not trying to make a snide political point. I feel, having engaged in conversations with republicans of all kinds – and I make no exception, whether they are involved in violence or not – and I am not doing it as a politician, it’s me, and I think that as long as we don’t talk, and we don’t reach out we don’t understand…
Reaching out: “I once shared a platform – and I was nearly thrown out of the Ulster Unionist Party for it – with Martin McGuinness in 1995, in Conway’s Mill on the Falls Road, and the place was absolutely packed with working class republicans from the Falls Road, plus one or two Orangemen, believe it or not and one or two unionists. And the atmosphere was absolutely electric… My feeling after being in that meeting and seeing the hope in those people, the one thing that came into my head – and it is still there – was ‘why did you never do this before? Why did you never reach out to nationalists on the Falls Road, never mind the republicans?’ We never did it. I am reading a book at the moment by Mark O’Halloran on O’Neill’s era, and what comes across is that the nationalist community at that stage was quiescent, quiet, they weren’t doing anything. I was in a wee business which sold to all around the Falls Road, the Shankill Road and other parts of Belfast. There was no militancy. In 1962 I wore my Ulster Covenant badge down the Falls Road. I paraded as an Orangeman on the Falls Road, and nobody ever lifted a finger. Eventually in 1969 I was told not to come back, but that’s another story.
Civil rights movement: “It seems to me that nationalists tried to get a place in society and we didn’t give it to them. With the start of the civil rights movement – and ok I know there were IRA in the civil rights movement because I am actually friendly with some of their relatives and I know there were – but they were demanding ‘One Man One Vote’ and a fair allocation of housing. Simple demands which should have been met. Some of my friends went and protested and tried to block Armagh city and other places against them. I had the wit then to know – even though I thought it was a republican conspiracy – that to deny people their civil rights in that sense was wrong. And it seemed to me that there was as much violence coming from one side as the other and when people were denied, the anger came about and there was bitterness and there was violence on both sides. And some of my friends were defending their area – loyalist Shankill where I grew up – and the republicans were defending the republican areas… What I am trying to say is that it is such a bitter horrible and awful history that until we begin to talk together…. I know there are hard decisions to be made … and I don’t see things that are done as necessarily concessions, but I do believe we have to understand. Until the talking starts and continues we will never make peace. And I welcome the progress that the DUP has made, but I believe that until they break that we will never have peace, because it’s like a slap in the face. I was with Gregory Campbell, one of your MLAs, when he met some republicans actually face to face, and they tried to welcome him to the Falls Road. I knew Gregory didn’t want to do this but he felt it was something he had to do… And I know some republicans and I know they genuinely welcomed him there, and I feel it’s just rubbing their noses in the ground, and I feel we could open this place up. And I believe that as soon as possible the IRA should seriously decommission and get rid of the IRA. I believe that’s a real possibility …”
Q. 7: “I’d like to say a few words to George Dawson. Early on in your speech, you mentioned the Belfast Agreement and I take exception to some of what you said. You said on a few occasions that the Belfast Agreement was undemocratic. Now 95% of this State voted for the Good Friday Agreement and in Northern Ireland there was a huge majority as well. For all its faults, and the United States Government, and the British Government, your Prime Minister and our Taoiseach, worked hard for it. It has been accepted that it was the best that was available at the time, despite its faults. … Politics is the art of the possible. I think it is a bit disingenuous of you and your colleague to be ridiculing it and not to be offering hope to people. This is what people want, they want hope for the future, to see that politics works. And the fact that you didn’t take part in the discussions that led to the Belfast Agreement, I think it is disingenuous of you to be saying it was not democratic, because it was voted for by the people.
Q. 8: “I’d like to compliment and thank our guests for their honesty, their integrity and their directness in coming down here into what they might believe is the lion’s den. …It’s been a very stimulating discussion. … I just want to bring a bit of perspective. History is a long haul. Patrick was a slave boy, he was brought up to the hills of Antrim, he was starved and beaten, he went away and came back and everyone wanted to poison him and knife him… yet 100 years after his death we were an island of saints and scholars…Now this is a Columban house, a house of missionary activity. There have been many great missionaries in the British expansionist tradition, even though, let’s be straight about it, British expansion also involved the gun. One hundred and fifty years ago, Daniel O’Connell held huge popular democratic meetings at Clontarf and Tara and the British brought in the gun. That wasn’t democratic.
“Sin, evil and crime are a continual battle. I am delighted to hear the moral tone, particularly coming through from Mervyn… and he’s a law and order man. ….. Civilisation calls for leadership. It’s a huge ebb and flow. It’s a battle. For reformative success we need a divinely inspired discussion that will lead to effective and functioning democracy. That, and only that, with the power and the hand of God will combat evil in all its forms. Now I just want to go back on another perspective, a global situation…. Where we have resource problems, environmental degradation and so on. We have so many problems, and there will be many more situations like Madrid [bombing]. There will be many more problems. It behoves us all to sit down in a spirit of honesty and decency and decent Christian fellowship and pull things together and get our house in order We are a small population, about 5 million on the island. I’m not shouting about a united Ireland. You only unite things through the heart and communal activity. We all claim to follow Christ in one form or another and I often think it is time we took Christ off the cross in terms of the Good Friday Agreement and had a bit of Easter Sunday, a genuine resurrection.
“That being said I want to say that you are very very welcome here and we are delighted to have this discussion. Long may there be discussion as, without it, the alternatives are frightening.”
Q. 9: “…George talked about corporate social responsibility work. It has been documented that a lot of new investment in Northern Ireland, since the beginning of the peace process, has been in relation to the arms industry……I am wondering do the DUP have a policy on investment in Northern Ireland given that Britain in general has relied heavily on the arms industry as part of its economy? Do the DUP have a policy on ethical investment in Northern Ireland, and specifically on the arms trade?”
Chair: “That’s a straight question. I’ll just take a question from this man here. How many more want to ask questions?…”
Q. 10: “I would like to ask George one simple question: he talked about overgovernance, and structures being over elaborate in Northern Ireland. Does he think that the structures that existed before that were adequate, democratic, pluralist and inclusive? To Mervyn, I am not speaking for any political party, I am asking personally: Mervyn puts his faith on the table and says he is a Calvinist on conviction. Does he believe in forgiveness and redemption?”
Chair: “Another two straight questions. Thank you.”
Q. 11: “…..Would the DUP be prepared to admit publicly that for a nationalist it is a noble aspiration to look for a united Ireland, to be won of course by peaceful means through mutual respect, mutual trust, and the gun to be taken completely out of Irish politics?”
Chair: “That’s a straight question, thank you. Are there any more because I am going to ask our speakers to conclude? …”
Q. 12: “I would just like to make a comment. Mr Storey was talking about the way in which John Hume clasped the poisonous snake to his bosom and he was troubled by it. The trouble is unfortunately, and I think it was admitted by another gentleman, that if there were a coalition between the SDLP and the DUP, it would destroy the SDLP. In other words, what I am saying is at the moment that one of the facts of life is that the biggest representatives of the nationalist community in the North are people who are called Sinn Fein. Others call them ‘Sinn Fein/IRA’, and unless there can be a central accommodation between all these people you’re back to the position that you were in in the old Northern Ireland that didn’t work – where you had a minority, a substantial minority, excluded from the processes of government, and if they are perpetually excluded the result unfortunately is being sour and they want to destroy, as it were, the State. And I don’t see any alternative except something like the Belfast Agreement where the republicans are involved in the processes of government. ….
“I will just finish by saying: you talked about Bertie Ahern not letting Sinn Fein in government. But in the North, for better or for worse, they seem to represent a growing number of the nationalist community. And in fact if perhaps the SDLP are going in the way they seem to be going they will be the representatives of the nationalist community. They can’t be left out in the cold. Thank you.”
Replies to questions 6-12
George Dawson: Re discrimimation: “Just coming to Roy’s point first of all. You’ll not find any support from me for any of the allegations of discrimination which can be levied against Northern Ireland in the past. I’m a unionist. My family was unionist. The pedigree of my family is in the notes which were given out this evening. But my father had to pay for the key of his council house in Northern Ireland, just the same as nationalists had to pay for the key of their council houses. We had no privileges as a working-class Protestant family in Northern Ireland because, at that stage, Northern Ireland was ruled by a fur-coat elite. Big House unionism ruled the day at that time in Northern Ireland and you will find no support from me for any emergence of Big House unionism. I take the point which Roy made. A previous MP for County Armagh, the late Harold McCusker, wondered on one occasion in the House of Commons how being a unionist benefited him in his terraced two-up two-down house with a dry toilet out the back, just the same as his nationalist colleagues who lived on the street around the corner. So there were many unionists – ordinary working-class unionists – in Northern Ireland who suffered the same discrimination that some working-class nationalists suffered in Northern Ireland in the past. I will not issue any support for the actions which the party to which Roy belongs is responsible for.
Engagements and discussions: “Coming to the comment with regard to the ‘lion’s den’. We are happy to be here, delighted to be here. I don’t regard it in the slightest as being the lion’s den. It’s part of an engagement with those who traditionally we would perhaps not have engaged with. And I’ve been engaged in this type of activity for quite some time and will continue to be engaged in this type of activity. I was engaged in this type of activity before I was a member of the Assembly and, as I’ve said to some people, I haven’t changed because I’ve become a member of the Assembly. I’m happy to come south, I’m happy to engage with all democrats of whatever persuasion, listen to what you have to say, reflect on what you have to say, factor in what you have to say to my thinking, and yes, I have to say that over the years my thinking has developed and a lot of the thinking of our party has developed over the years as a result of engagements and discussions such as this.”
Environmental issues and CSR: “One comment was made with regard to environmental degradation and that type of activity. Yes, I would agree that there are issues of environmental degradation and CSR [corporate social responsibility] issues which come to the heart of the areas of cooperation which I mentioned could be possible between North and South. Because those are issues which are to do with substance and not simply political optics, because the environment knows no boundaries political or otherwise. And emissions from factories etc., know no boundaries, our waste problem doesn’t recognise the border and indeed you are exporting some of your waste to us at the moment and dumping it illegally. I’ve already raised with our Department of Environment in Northern Ireland, based on the ‘polluter pays’ principle, that the area of origin of that particular waste should be the area that pays for the clean-up of that particular waste. Those issues are areas of cooperation which are very real and practical and can develop.
Arms trade: “With regard to the arms trade, and the CSR issues, Northern Ireland currently has less than 93,000 manufacturing jobs in the entire economy. We welcome inward investment from wherever that inward investment will come. We need more manufacturing jobs in Northern Ireland to build the economy of Northern Ireland from where it currently is. And, yes, there have been companies come to Northern Ireland based on the arms trade, but I take a view which was taught to me many years ago in negotiations with the trade union movement as I was at one side of the table and they were at the other. Felix McCrossan was the full-time trade union official in the business that I was involved in, and we had many difficult discussions and many difficult negotiations but often at night we would sit back in the office and reflect upon the difficulties of the day’s work. And I remember saying to him on one occasion, ‘you’ve given me a hard time today with regard to the deal that we are trying to do’ (with regard to the wages going forward and all those types of things), ‘and if you were giving inward investment the same type of hard deal as you’re giving to me, I doubt if some of the inward investment would actually land in Northern Ireland’. And he had welcomed another clothing company to Northern Ireland at that particular time, and to be frank, the terms and conditions of that company were far worse than we were providing to Felix’s members at that particular time. Felix’s answer was very clear and straight to me.
He said: ‘yes, George, but when I get them in I can then work on them to improve the situation. I’ll take the jobs, I’ll get them in and then I’ll work to improve the situation.’ My attitude to those arms companies is exactly the same. I’ll take the jobs and while they’re there in our jurisdiction we can work on those companies to improve their corporate social responsibility within our jurisdiction. The arms trade is a fact of life, it’s run by governments. Sadly, it’s run by governments. The world-wide impact of that can’t be affected by a small factory based in Derry or whatever…. But while they’re within my jurisdiction we can do all that we can to improve their responsibility to the community and to the environment in the area in which they are. …
Structures prior to Belfast Agreement: “”With regard to the structures of Northern Ireland prior to the Belfast Agreement. No I don’t think they were the best. They could have been improved upon as well. And that’s part of the task that we have, is to not accept the past, but to try and move into a future which is better for everybody and has the agreement of both sides of our community, and clear up some of the legacy of bad government in the past as well as the additional bad government which has been added to us by the Belfast Agreement.
SDLP: “With regard to the SDLP, I don’t believe that if the SDLP broke free from Sinn Féin that it would lead to their destruction ……… …. Coupled with that, if they were delivering good effective measures for people on the ground in Northern Ireland, I think that their fortunes could be significantly enhanced. That’s a personal view, that is not a party view.
United Ireland: “With regard to the question on a united Ireland, it is absolutely legitimate and honourable for a member of the nationalist community – and nationalist parties – to pursue their goal of a united Ireland by democratic and peaceful means. I have absolutely no difficulty with that whatsoever. That is a legitimate right and I would defend to the death a nationalist’s right to express those views and to campaign for those views. “
Questioner: “Could the DUP admit publicly that it is a noble aspiration for a nationalist to aspire to a united Ireland to be won by mutual reconciliation?
George Dawson: “Of course”
Questioner: “Would Dr Paisley stand up and say that? It would make the IRA say ‘at least Rev. Paisley admits that those who work for a united Ireland are aspiring to a noble idea.”
George Dawson: “I think he actually has said that, in the past. I think he has put on record – I think it was in the House of Commons – I think he put on record that it was a legitimate, I’m not sure if he used the term ‘noble’…..
Questioner: “Would he admit that it is a noble aspiration?”
George Dawson: “I’ll put it to him, but I think he has come very close to using those words in the past and he has no philosophical objection whatsoever to a nationalist or a republican aspiring to a united Ireland…”
Belfast Agreement: “Just one further comment, I used the term ‘undemocratic’ with regard to the Belfast Agreement. That was based on one underlying principle: that was the fact that it included within it at its heart the undemocratic use of violence for political ends. And that is why I have consistently said that the Belfast Agreement was undemocratic in its structure, and will continue to say that the Belfast Agreement is undemocratic in its structure, regardless – and it’s my democratic right to oppose that, and I will continue to oppose that.
But, moving beyond that, what we need then is an agreement which has the support of nationalists, and unionists, within Northern Ireland. It’s not good enough to have an agreement which has the support of one side of the community. It must have the support of nationalists and unionists. That’s what we want to try to get to…..”
Questioner: “It’s very interesting to hear you say that, but your party, the DUP … did not take any part in the negotiations so it’s a bit rich for you to be saying that….”
George Dawson: “They were part of the negotiations until IRA/Sinn Féin were introduced …”
Mervyn Storey: “Some of the ground rules were completely changed … everybody changed the goal posts to ensure that Sinn Féin/IRA had an unfair advantage in relation to what they were bringing to the table. The Mitchell Principles were completely and absolutely thrown out the window, and I think that 6 years on from the Belfast Agreement we have seen the lip-service that Sinn Féin/IRA have paid to the Mitchell Principles. And I have to disagree – Bobby Tohill being taken out of the bar in Belfast. It was not a brawl, it was a highly sophisticated IRA operation to take out completely Bobby Tohill. … all the paraphernalia and all the equipment necessary to end life. Bobby Tohill owes his life to the PSNI.
Segregated education: “Now can I just conclude by saying that, first of all, the issue has been raised about permanently excluding nationalists. I think it is somewhat ironic that now nationalists in Northern Ireland continually ask to be included, when from the inception and creation of Northern Ireland in 1921, they purposefully excluded themselves. And remember – and George knows this is a personal hobby horse of mine – but if we want to see real change in Northern Ireland where should we begin? I don’t believe that we should begin with the politicians. I don’t believe we should begin with the voters. I believe we should begin with our children. Now if we want to get to the heart of sectarian division, it begins in primary schools in Northern Ireland because in 1943 there was an insistence by the Roman Catholic Church to educate its own children in its own schools, separate from Protestant children.
“Now we have lived with the legacy. I believe that segregation until this present day has been extremely detrimental to the whole concept of equality, inclusion and partnership, the very aspirations of the Belfast Agreement. There was a campaign not to join the civil service, in the 1920s and 30s. There was a campaign not to join the police force. There was a campaign to denigrate anything that was deemed to be part and parcel of the new Northern Ireland.
Civil rights and discrimimation: “And when we come to 1969 – and I was only a young boy in short trousers at that time – but George is absolutely right: Big House unionism discriminated against my parents, my grandfather. … George and I now sit in the Assembly at Stormont, and you can see why unionists behaved the way they did. It was the best gentleman’s club in Europe, and it was to their shame, to the colleagues of Roy’s party, that they allowed the situation to deteriorate the way they did. But the difficulty that they had was that there were those who were prepared to exclude themselves and they eventually gave rise to militant republicanism. And so I don’t come tonight with some form of guilt. Sometimes there is this impression that unionists should run around with their heads down and wear sackcloth and ash, and that we should somehow be remorseful and have a guilt complex about how nationalists were treated. My family, my father and my grandfather, were treated with the absolute same disdain, and that is why since I have had a vote I never ever voted for the Ulster Unionist Party in my life. Because of Big House unionism. For the DUP has come from a completely different perspective and I think that if there is going to be inclusion we are not in the business of permanently excluding anybody other than those who by their own credentials exclude themselves.
Forgiveness and redemption: “Now a gentleman asked about forgiveness and redemption. Yes I believe in forgiveness and redemption but I believe also in repentance. I don’t want to go down the road tonight of a theological exposition or else I think this might be Peter’s wife’s mother wake instead of her funeral! I have to say that there is no forgiveness without repentance. And I have to say that those elements of Christian faith are very dear to me but it’s not – and I have to clarify this – it’s not that I want to humiliate anybody. But is there anybody in this room who really believes that the campaign that the IRA conducted for over 30 years in Northern Ireland was morally justifiable? Is there anybody?
Questioner: “I believe that it started out of a justifiable cause because you would say in your own right you were only a boy… You don’t understand how the people felt, how the people were down-trodden….
Another member of the audience: “Does that give people the right to take up violence and kill people? … Violence is not the answer. You weren’t up there at the time were you?
Questioner: “When violence erupted I was there. I felt it. …I am not saying that killing people is the answer, but that is the way it developed and it was the only way that it could develop at the time because at the time the people were downtrodden and nobody gave a damn. It was similar to the case in South Africa, it was similar to most other countries where British imperialism ruled”
Mervyn Storey: “All I can say is if that is the basis of the explanation for the campaign then why did unionists from my community not take up arms against the British state? Because remember we were discriminated against. And this is a facet that people conveniently forget. But behind it there was an opportunity seized by those who had lain dormant within republican circles to take their moral high ground and use the circumstances as the justifiable reason for their deeds. And I have to say, in the light of all that has happened in Madrid, and September 11th, and all the other atrocities around the world, surely we haven’t still people who believe that if you can’t get at the table politically your argument across, that you still have to resort to bombs and bullets. I thought that Ireland had moved on substantially from that ideology. And we have to move away from it, and republicans, whether they like it or whether they don’t, if they want to have the fruits of normal democratic politics they have to be prepared to be at the table on the same basis as I am. The only mandate I have is the mandate that people gave me in November 2003. …. “I sit on Ballymoney Borough Council with a representative of Sinn Féin/IRA and one night he was giving us all the issues that were so bad about Northern Ireland, a police force that was unrepresentative and all of these things. And I asked through the mayor could the representative of Sinn Féin/IRA give me on social issues, housing issues, job issues – I went through a whole range of issues – could he tell me how he was more disadvantaged than I was. There wasn’t one. He has access to social security the same as I have, he has access to housing the same as I have, he has access to jobs the same as I have, he has access to all the machinery of government the same as I have.
Republicans have to deliver: “The IRA have no more – they never had – moral or economic or political justifiable reasons for their existence, and they should do the honourable thing and disappear for good. And then, that will put the onus on us to fulfil our obligations under the terms of Devolution Now. And if republicans were cute that’s what they would do, and they would turn the tables on us and say ‘right, we have now done that, put it over to you.’ And I can assure you that we will not be found wanting in the sense that if the DUP says it – the one thing about us even though it might not be the most palatable of messages – the one thing that we have always sought to be is to be honest in what we say and honest in what we believe. And I think it is now up to republicans to deliver, and if they do, well, they will see what the benefits of that will be.”
Chair (Ercus Stewart): “… I think it has been a very open debate, it was getting more open in the last ten minutes! It was an open debate not only from the floor but also from here, and I think straight talking on both sides. It would be great if we could keep going but I have to bear in mind that both speakers have to travel back. I think we will welcome them back, we welcome them here tonight despite the questions [applause]… “
CLOSING WORDS
Julitta Clancy (Meath Peace Group): “…. I think we are ending on a positive note in what Mervyn just said. Over the years, in the Guild of Uriel and the Meath Peace Group we’ve come to realise that dialogue does help us all move on and towards understanding. When we met George a few years ago, I had never before met someone from the Independent Orange Order. It was an incredible discussion that night. It made me think. ….And he invited us last year to a number of Independent Orange Order centenary conferences. We were very privileged to be there. It was quite a unique experience, and I learned a lot. Over the years I have been very critical of militant republicans because I come from a republican background in part, and I am very ashamed of the things done in our name. But we have talked and dialogued and I have never found it a useless exercise. It has always been a learning experience. And I have been privileged in those republicans I have met who have also moved on, and have sincerely moved on. I have no truck with violence as you know – I have spoken out and our group has spoken out – because not only is it immoral it is also useless and has done nothing for anyone. It has divided the peoples on this island more than anything else. But I would encourage you to enter into dialogue…”
Acknowledgments: On behalf of the Meath Peace Group Julitta Clancy thanked the speakers for their honesty and frankness, she thanked the audience for their attendance and their valuable contributions to the debate, the guest chair Ercus Stewart and all who had helped with the organisation, planning, catering and taping of the talk. Thanks were also due to the Columban Fathers for their hospitality and to the Department of Foreign Affairs for sending a representative and for their generous grant of financial assistance towards the costs of the talks. She also thanked the British Embassy for again sending a representative and for their generous hospitality on the occasion of the award of an Honorary MBE in February. The group was honoured by the award which “was accepted on behalf of all of the people who over the 11 years of the group’s existence, in private and public meetings have come together and challenged and listened….” She mentioned some of the other work of the group, the private meetings, the work done in conjunction with the Guild of Uriel in Louth and the annual transition year schools programme. She also welcomed Eugene Markey from the Cavan Museum, who had put together an impressive and inclusive exhibition of banners and regalia of the various rural fraternal societies of 100 years ago, currently on display in the Museum and attracting large numbers of visitors.
©Meath Peace Group. Meath Peace Group report 2004
Taped by Oliver Ward and Jim Kealy.
Transcribed by Judith Hamill and Julitta Clancy. Edited by Julitta Clancy.
Biographical notes
George Dawson, MLA: After graduating from QUB, George Dawson entered the business world. For a number of years he was Manufacturing Director with an international company with responsibilities in NI, England, Scotland and N. Africa. Latterly he has been involved in promoting Corporate Social Responsibility within the business community in NI. With extensive experience of Strategic Development, Business Process Re-engineering, Human Resource Initiatives and International Quality Initiatives George brings a professional business mind to local politics. In addition, for much of his career in business he has been involved in regular negotiations with employee’s representatives, customers, suppliers and government departments. His various contacts with government departments in the Stormont regime have added to his conviction that the structures established under the Belfast Agreement are “top heavy”, bureaucratic, wasteful and inefficient. He is determined to continue to expose and tackle this waste of money. As a regular contributor to the BBC Radio Ulster Sunday Sequence programme he has consistently highlighted the unfairness, undemocratic nature and appeasement of terrorists in the current political process. George’s special interests include Economic Development, Environment and Social development. He has been instrumental in establishing a number of Credit Unions in recent years. George has been a member of the DUP since 1979 and has held various positions within the structures of the party. Additionally his family has a long association with Unionist politics. His Grandfather signed the Ulster Covenant in 1912 and was active in resistance of Home Rule at that time. His father was a foundation member of the DUP. George is married to Vi and has two children Emma and Sara. He is currently Grand Master of the Independent Orange Order.
Mervyn Storey, MLA: Mervyn Storey was born in Armoy, in the heart of North Antrim, where he attended the local primary school. His secondary education was completed at Ballymoney Intermediate. Mervyn is married to Christine and has three children Lydia, Philip and Jonathan. He was elected to Ballymoney Borough Council in 2001 where he is Vice-Chairman of the Economic Development Committee; he also serves on the Glebeside and Castle Street Community Associations and the Somme Association. As a Board member of Ballymoney Local Strategy Partnership Mervyn has a keen interest in delivering meaningful resources to the local community through the distribution of European money. He is also a Board member of the recently formed Regional Partnership for Northern Ireland. Mervyn serves on the Fire Authority for NI, he is actively involved in the work of the Audit, Appeals and Joint Negotiating Committees. A member of the Loyal Orders and Vice-Chairman of the Caleb Foundation, he is also a committee member of Ballymoney Free Presbyterian Church.
Ercus Stewart, S.C. Ercus Stewart is a Senior Counsel practising at the Bar since 1970.
He is also a member of the Bars of Northern Ireland, England and Wales and Australia (N.S.W.). He also acts as arbitrator in commercial arbitration, international and domestic and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and a former chairman of the Irish Branch of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. He lectures to various institutions, including King’s Inns, and UCD and is a Panel Member/Registered Chartered Arbitrator with: Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, London, and AAA., I.C.D.R. and I.C.C. He is former Chairman of the Irish Society for Labour Law, the Irish Association of Industrial Relations and the Broadcasting Complaints Commission. Ercus is also a member of Amnesty International and Co-Operation Ireland (formerly Co-operation North) and is Chairman of the Law Library Credit Union. He is married to Ria and they have 4 children: Cillian, Alida, Elsa and John.
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APPENDIX : Devolution Now – The DUP’s Concept of Devolution (2003)
Selected extracts
SECTION ONE: OUTLINES OF DUP POLICY AND PRINCIPLES
Seven Principles of the DUP:
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The DUP is a devolutionist party. We believe in democratic, fair and accountable government.
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No negotiating with the representatives of terrorism but we will talk to other democratic parties
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Those who are not committed to exclusively peaceful and democratic means should not be able to exercise unaccountable executive power.
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Terrorist structures and weaponry must be removed before the bar to the Stormont Executive can be opened.
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Any relationship with the Republic of Ireland should be fully accountable to the Assembly
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The DUP will work to restore the morale and effectiveness of the police force
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We will strive to ensure genuine equality for all including equality in funding.
Seven Tests:
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Any Agreement must command the support of both Nationalists and Unionists
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Any Assembly must be democratic, fair and accountable. Any executive power must be fully accountable to the Assembly
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Only those committed to exclusively peaceful and democratic means should exercise any Cabinet-style Ministerial responsibility
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Within any new Agreement any relationship with the Republic of Ireland must be fully accountable to the Assembly
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A new settlement must be able to deliver equality of opportunity to unionists as well as nationalists
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Agreed arrangements must be capable of delivering an efficient and effective administration
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The outcome must provide a settlement within the UK, not a process to a united Ireland. It must provide stable government for the people of Northern Ireland and not be susceptible to recurring suspension
A New Agreement Must Be:
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Stable: The Belfast Agreement was not stable and was incapable of delivering stable government. An alternative needs to be established which takes cognisance of parties behaviour but is sufficiently robust to withstand pressure
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Accountable: Ministers were not accountable to the Assembly for their decisions. A mechanism for holding individual Ministers to account must be established
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Effective: The Agreement failed to provide clear direction or effective decision making thus rendering the process cumbersome. The alternative is a system which is responsive, removing unnecessary levels of bureaucracy
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Efficient: Political bureaucracy spiralled out of control under the Agreement. The alternative must provide value for money and cut back the costs of government.
SECTION TWO: PROPOSALS
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72 Member Assembly
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Cross-community support required in the Assembly – by means of Key Vote majorities
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Assembly to have executive and legislative responsibility for areas which were the responsibility of the 6 NI departments before 1999 [but responsibility for Social Security would rest at Westminster and responsibility for the Human Rights and Equality Commissions would be devolved. Other issues only transferrable with the consent of Parliament and a Key Vote of a NI Assembly]
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Maximum of 8 Government Departments in Northern Ireland
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Abolition of the Civic Forum
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Assembly, by Key Vote, would determine how executive power was exercised.
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Administration could either be in some form of an Executive or an arrangement where the Assembly would be a Corporate Body responsible for decision making in an agreed manner.
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Executive could either be a
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Voluntary Coalition, or
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Mandatory coalition
with arrangements for accountability and effective decision making
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Executive to be subject to a vote of confidence at any time and would require a Key Vote majority to survive
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If an Executive could not be formed or if an Executive collapsed, powers would be transferred from the Executive/Ministers to the Assembly
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Fixed 4-year term for the Assembly
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Efficiency Commission to make recommendations about the efficiency of every aspect of the devolved institutions
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Voting in Assembly to consist of Normal Votes and Key Votes
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Normal Votes require a majority of Members present and voting to pass
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Key Votes would be important votes – e.g. formation of an administration – or votes triggered by a petition of concern.
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Key Votes could be passed either by
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– more than 70% present and voting or
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majority of Assembly Members which also included a majority of designated unionists and a majority of designated nationalists
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[DEVOLUTION NOW]
ENDS
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Meath Peace Group Report 2004 ©Meath Peace Group
The Meath Peace Group is a voluntary group founded in April 1993 with the following aims
·To promote peace, and the fostering of understanding, mutual respect, reconciliation and trustthrough dialogue between people North and South
· To encourage and facilitate ordinary people, particularly in Co. Meath, to recognise their role and responsibility in helping to promote peace, reconciliation and understanding, and to assist in the empowerment of people in the long-term work of building the foundations for a lasting peace on the island.
· To raise awareness and improve information, and to encourage and contribute to debate and meaningful dialogue on issues of conflict.
Meath Peace Group Committee: Julitta and John Clancy, Parsonstown, Batterstown, Co. Meath; Rev. Michael Kane, An Tobar, Ardbraccan, Navan (046-9078973); Anne Nolan, Gernonstown, Slane; Canon John Clarke, Boyne Road, Navan; Philomena Boylan-Stewart, Longwood; Olive Kelly, Garlow Cross, Lismullen; Leonie Rennicks, Church Road, Ardbraccan, Navan; Catriona Fitzgerald, Warrenstown, Kilcock, Co. Meath; Judith Hamill, Ross, Dunsany, Co. Meath.
MEATH PEACE GROUP TALKS
49 – “Active Non-Violence: Outflanking the Just War Theory”
21 May, 2003
St. Columban’s College, Dalgan Park, Navan
Speaker:
Fr. Niall O’Brien, S.S.C.
Chaired by John Clancy (Meath Peace Group)
[Editor’s note: this talk was held as part of the 10th anniversary celebrations of the Meath Peace Group]
Fr. Niall O’Brien: “Good evening everyone. I am so happy to be here sharing these ideas with you today…. Maybe there is a slight advantage in having spent my whole life outside of Ireland because I’m not going to be focusing on the terrific problems of peace which face the Irish people but maybe in some strange way by focusing somewhere else that can be it’s own way of helping. I remember that story about King David: the prophet goes to King David and tells him the story about the rich man who had a hundred sheep and how he followed this other man with this tiny little ewe lamb and he had the man killed and took his lamb, and the King jumped up and said “Who is that man?” and he said “you are that man”, because that is what he had done in the case of having Uriah murdered in order to get hold of his wife, Bathsheba. ….It doesn’t do any harm if one is not focused directly on our own problems but on far away maybe.
“There are terrific limitations to a talk on non-violence because it is a vast and wonderful continent which we have just discovered. And the idea of giving it in one talk is really not possible but I thought I’d open your mind up and indicate directions and reading to do of your own [so that you may]… explore it as the years go on.
General background: I spent most of forty years in the Philippines and I must say when I arrived there first of all I was immediately struck by the poverty of the people. I soon moved into the mountains and by a little stroke of luck – I suppose, I don’t know what it was – I went to live on a sugar plantation, which is quite unusual. I mean priests normally live in the priests’ house – in the Philippines it’s called the “Convento” – and I actually lived on the plantation and I had a bird’s eye view of what the people were suffering and it was quite shocking. The owners very frequently were devout Catholics, that was also a shock to me. Because actually some of them were devout, humble, very, very nice people when you met them… I mean some had horns and tails maybe but some of them were very nice , yet the conditions on their own farms they didn’t know about.
“President Marcos took over the Philippines and gradually turned it into a dictatorship and as we began to examine what he was doing and how he was running the country and how the planter owners supported him, the whole system of oppression became very, very visible and many of the people decided that the only solution was revolution. And their feeling was: “all he understands is a gun”, and the expression went around: “power flows from the barrel of a gun. That’s the only language people like him understand”. Among the group I mixed with, some of the young priests and especially the more dedicated ones, one or two in particular were highly educated, having being educated in Germany under Rahner and people like that, those theologians, they were the ones who led the idea of the revolution and I found them attractive. I found them humble, and very fine minds analysing the situation and they felt that there was no other solution than revolution. And they said “you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.” I since realised that sometimes an illustration becomes a proof, if you’re not careful….
“And they asked to stay with me and they frequently did stay in my house. Those were dangerous nights when they would be having seminars. I didn’t join the seminars. I felt deeply ill at ease. ….. I felt, I just felt that this was not right, the solution that Christ would have used and yet what they were saying was reasonable and if you look back a the history of the world a lot of the great changes in the world took place through revolutions. The American Revolution, the Glorious Revolution in 1688, so many justifications, that they were justified, they were reasonable and yet I held back all the time.
Dorothy Day: “Luckily for some reason or other I had begun to read a famous newspaper called “The Catholic Worker”. Its title might put you astray but it was run and started by Dorothy Day. Dorothy Day was a Marxist, really I suppose a fellow traveller communist in the 1900s and a journalist, and she became a Christian at some stage in her life and she became anti-war, 100% anti-war. And she managed strangely enough to combine in her life a strong stand against war with a strong stand for justice. She refused to pay any taxes all her life in case the money would go for arms under any description and at the same time she opened all these houses for the poor. I mean they were simple…. places were you walked in and you didn’t have hymns sung at you or anything like that, you were welcomed. But she also respected the poor because every week she insisted that there would be a good speaker in to talk on intellectual matters and to analyse the situation. I was very attracted to Dorothy, I still am to this day. I think she’s one of the great women of the 20th century . There are a hundred houses of hospitality across the United States in the skid rows, started by Dorothy, or started as a result of Dorothy. And then hundreds and thousands of people have been influenced by her and the anti-war stand of the American Church, certainly the American Catholic Church in the time of the Vietnam War was inspired by Dorothy, there’s no question about that.
Martin Luther King and Gandhi: “At the same time reading her newspaper got me into reading about Martin Luther King – I only knew him as a name – and reading Martin Luther King got me into reading Gandhi. And suddenly these were new openings for me, other solutions than the gun, the arms struggle, for solving problems.
Just War Theory: “What my young companions in those days were relying on was the Just War Theory and I don’t avoid it, but basically it still is the theory – so much decision are made for war and the just war theory is credited to Saint Augustine…. How does he combine “love your enemies” with defending yourself against them? And so he came up with the Just War Theory. It comes out in various forms all the time. The conditions have been rehearsed quite a lot recently. They go something like this:
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A nation has the right to act in its own defence
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The damage inflicted by the aggressor nation must be lasting, grave and certain
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War must be a last resort
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There must be a serious prospect of success
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The war cannot cause greater evils than the ones it is trying to eliminate
“Now there used to be another condition which disappeared for a while. And that was that the war should be sanctioned – somebody had to say that it was ok. I think the king or the Pope or somebody had to say it was ok to have this war. But then you see, in the beginning of the 20th century, as we all know, so much of the wars were internal, so much were revolutions. So no government was going to give their ok, no Congress was going to give its ok to an internal revolution. So the papal encyclical ….in 1967 – 1966 or 1967 – that had an enormous effect on people throughout South America, I don’t know about Africa, but throughout Asia and throughout South America because Paul VI made it clear that these conditions for a just war would actually apply for internal revolution just as much as for a war between two states and I can tell you my companions and I myself read this with great belief. I mean we were absolutely delighted that at last people were being told that it wasn’t wrong to revolt against an unjust regime.
Weaknesses of the Just War Theory: “But the problem about the just war – and I’ve got to be very careful here – there’s been so much written about the just war it’s alive and well and its easy to make fun of it because you can show that the conditions for a just war seem to have changed throughout the years. How can you possibly judge the conditions under each circumstance? But it is a genuine attempt to try and put a cap on war. It really is, and the people who agonize over the just war were not messing about. …. So you’ve got a history – since Augustine right up to our present day – of seriously trying to put conditions under which you would be allowed to go to war.
Flaws in the Just War Theory: “But there are a couple of basic flaws in it.
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One is that ultimately, you are the judge – there is no outside person. The only outside person we seem to have had …was the United Nations, and you can see therefore how important it would be to have a healthy strong United Nations, if that was one of the roles they had to play. So it is one of the weak points.
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And the second point against the just war theory is that it just hasn’t worked. I mean, where did anybody about to go to war, suddenly say “well, part 3 of the Just War Theory says we shouldn’t be doing this”. Somehow or other they just managed to massage all the facts and the figures and decided “we can go to war”.
“And so, having said, that I would like to say that I still think that the Just War Theory is something very noble and wonderful and should not be, as I said, rubbished. It has to be given time, and work has to be done on it and it’s not the end of the story.
Sermon on the Mount – “love your enemies”:
“But suddenly there is this new continent opened with Gandhi. Gandhi was very attracted to Christianity, he was a devout Hindu but he said he believed in Christ but not in Christians. …… Now I have to spend a little bit of time on the problem with the Sermon on the Mount. You see that is the hard saying of Jesus: “you must love your enemies”. According to Christians, and this is a sort of irony, Christians disagree on many things, but on one thing they seem to agree is that they can drop that little bit about loving your enemies.
“They could find ways around it – you could sort of love them, but still kill them. Now obviously real situations arise where people have to make decisions. There’s a theologian from South Africa, his name is David Busch, maybe Anglican, professor in the University of South Africa. I think he was killed in a crash but he did a great examination of this Gospel as to how we were or were not bound by these hard sayings of Jesus with regard to loving our enemies. And he said … that the Catholics got around it by saying “well, it applies to priests and sisters and those in religion who could never carry arms” – that’s in the Canon law to this day I think. I hope it is anyway!
“And Protestants got around it by saying – their four main churches tended to say – that it was impossible to fulfil these commands, therefore they served us by bringing us humbly to our knees, making us admit our sinfulness and making us rely totally on Christ. Then in the liberal 19th century they came up with the idea that what the commandments say were not so important, rather it was the attitude of mind and disposition of heart …
“However Busch says the following – and he’s an internationally accepted scripture scholar – “scholars across the religious divide are radically re-evaluating the Sermon on the Mount and the consequences of Jesus’ teaching on loving your enemies” …..
“Today, however, most scholars agree that these and similar interpretations are inadequate, that there is no getting around the fact that in Matthew’s view Jesus actually expected all his followers to live according to these norms always and under all circumstances.
Gandhi: “And strangely it was Gandhi who seemed to come up with a bit of light when he introduced what he called “truth force”. And Gandhi felt that there was another way and that we should not confuse passive – being passive – with pacifist.
We could be actively against war without being violent, and he developed loads and loads of strategies and tactics …in fact the British left India, basically without a bloodbath. I know there were incidents …but that wasn’t due to Gandhi or anything like that. Basically it was Gandhi’s “truth force” which actually did it.
Active non-violence: “So we’re going to talk about active non-violence for a couple of minutes here. It really gets a bad press because people confuse it with other things.
I want to say what it is not:
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Active non-violence is not passivism,….. Let’s take the Holocaust. … Gandhi had a great fight with a Jewish philosopher [Buber ?] who condemned Gandhi for proposing non-violence. He referred to what had happened the Jews in Germany … I don’t think Gandhi managed to answer him in the heat of the argument properly. But I think the proper answer was that the Jews in Germany were passive, they weren’t using active non-violence. There were cases where they did use it and where they escaped and I think we know the cases, there are several cases which have been examined very carefully: the case of Denmark – there were practically no Jews killed in Denmark. And there was another case in Bulgaria and another case in what we call Eastern Germany, where the Jews were saved due to extraordinary active, pro-active actions by the people.
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Active non-violence is not neutrality. Albert Nolan, another theologian from South Africa, has a good bit to say on this, I hope I can just find his little statement which I find very good on neutrality …. He said: “the commandment to love one’s enemies only makes sense when we recognise that we do have enemies and that they are really, truly our enemies. When people hate you and curse you and persecute you, Jesus does not say that you should pretend that they are not enemies, they are. And when he says that you love them in spite of this, he does not mean that you must avoid any conflict or confrontation with them”.
So it’s not avoiding conflict or confrontation you do have to confront.
A famous peace activist after Gandhi used to say at this point, “ I hope you all have enemies. How can you love them if you don’t have them? I hope you all have enemies.”
Evil must be resisted: “Walter Wing says that in translating the King James version of the Bible, that there was a deliberate – I don’t really think it was a conscious, but at least a subconscious – attempt to translate it in a way that would make the people a bit passive…. I’m not going to go into the Greek or the Hebrew, I’m no scholar on those things, but he does say that … “do not resist evil” is a wrong translation. It should be read “do not resist evil with evil”. So we are to resist evil. Evil must be resisted. It’s how we resist it.
Gene Sharpe: “Now for me one of the great great truths in my life was when I discovered this character called Gene Sharpe. Gene Sharpe is a professor in Harvard and when he was a young man, for some reason or another he was over in Oxford, he had to examine an embargo on food going into Germany and he had to examine its effect as a strategy. From that he suddenly began to realise how powerful active non-violence could be as a tool. For me it was a great breakthrough because obviously, if I’m talking to Marxists, and people who are convinced Marxists, you cannot start quoting your own private beliefs from the Sermon on the Mount. You have to come with something which is universally acceptable from the point of human beings and that is where Gene Sharpe is very, very careful in his study of active non-violence. He doesn’t give it a religious base. For me it has a religious base….
Theory of power: “Gene Sharpe wrote thee books on this, the first is called The Theory of Power, the next one is The Method of Non-violent Action, and the third is The Dynamics of Non-Violent Action. In his first little slim volume, his basic thesis is this – it’s terribly important, it s the heart of all of this – “where does this power come from? Does it come from the barrel of a gun?” And he says: “absolutely no, the power comes from consent, that you consent to people doing to you what they’re doing to you. That’s where power is. The day you say ‘no’, no amount of guns can help.”
“I could go on reading the reason for this, but he says there are two basic ways of looking at power in the world: the first sees power as coming from above, the second sees power coming from below. In Volume One … he says that theory 1 says that power is monolithic, It comes from above, the people depend on the goodwill of the leader, the leader keeps this power intact by means of an army. And then he goes on to say that in theory 2 – which is the one I hold to and which is the one Gandhi held to and which he was very effective with – power comes from below, from the people themselves, and if the people withdraw their consent, then the ruler can rule no longer. It happened in India. It is the second understanding of power which is the basic presupposition of non-violence, so it’s a philosophical basis. Up till recently the modern example of this was the Shah of Iran. In 1979 the people withdrew consent and he was left powerless in spite of the total backing of America and a huge well-equipped and well-trained army. His was one of the great armies of the world but at some stage or other, one layer in the pyramid of power leading up to him withdrew consent. The soldiers refused to fight with guns, and so I firmly believe that that is the power.
Rosa Parkes: “That is illustrated by lots of very beautiful and wonderful stories. You know the story of Rosa Parkes, don’t you? Right up to the 1960s, in the southern US states, in parts of Alabama, black people could not take a seat in a bus if a white person was standing. And Rosa Parkes was coming home very tired and a young man got in and the bus conductor told her to stand up and give her seat to the young man and she said ‘no’, and the rest is history. You know it just needed Rosa Parkes, that old lady, to say ‘no’ and she went to prison for it. And of course all hell broke loose and in time the laws were changed. I don’t want to go into details, its all written up. She was just this marvellous woman, and that can be seen so often, I’m making out a list of so often where this actually happened.
Bull Connor: “I don’t know whether you know the story of Bull Connor, famous Head of Police in Montgomery in Alabama when a group of black people came to protest on the conditions they were in. … It is really a marvellous story. They refused to ride on the buses so the buses would go bankrupt so they gave each other lifts in their cars and then the white government brought out a law saying they couldn’t give each other lifts, so they walked. And on this occasion they were massed up walking when Bull Connor sent out these huge water cannon …… and there’s that marvellous moment where the people refused to step back and Bull Connor was beaten.
“We know also that the Vietnam War was stopped by means of the protests that were taking place at various places and so many other people involved, and Greenpeace in New Zealand….[tape break] and the French military or secret service who attacked it. Then you’ve got the extraordinary case of Franz [?]….have you ever heard of him? A simple Austrian peasant who refused to go into the Second World War. He said it was wrong. I suppose he was thinking of the basic sort of idea of the just war. He said it was wrong. He said it was just wrong. They brought the bishop in, they brought the parish priest in, they brought everyone in. He just refused. And they beheaded him. He was so important not to let him live. He was a threat to the whole system, because if everybody began to withdraw consent, you couldn’t run the war. You couldn’t run any war, anywhere, and if you were to look at a scale – I’m not going to go into this but I’ve done it a few times – you make a draft of wars you’d be surprised. Wars are getting more and more common. You’d have thought with the Second World War that was the main war, but if you just start listing the wars after the Second World War you’d move up into Vietnam and Korea, and then into the 10-year war between Iraq and Iran, and all the wars in Africa and Middle East, Bosnia and also the wars in South America, and they just go on and on and on.
“So people standing up and just refusing are so important.
Czechoslovakia: “The story of Czechoslovakia is just quite extraordinary, it really hasn’t been heard. Basically, the Czechs opposed the Russians in their face, they didn’t oppose them with arms and Yan [Pollak?] was one of those who burnt himself alive and his grave became the place of protest and the locus for tens of thousands. They had to remove his body and hide it. There are many cases where Russian officers ordered their own men to fire and they refused to fire and where Russian officers committed suicide. And I know a man, Jan Hildegard [?] who was a very famous peacemaker throughout Europe….. And there is the story that there is a plaque up somewhere in Russia to those who were killed in Czechoslovakia, Russian soldiers who were killed liberating Czechoslovakia. All of those Russian soldiers were either shot by their own people, by their own soldiers, or committed suicide. None were shot by Czechoslovakians.
“And then of course when the Velvet Revolution took place in Czechoslovakia, it didn’t fall out of the sky. It was coming for years. People had been thinking in this direction, about withdrawing consent …
Philippines: “So when I wrote some of this stuff I used to sit down with my bosom pals in the Philippines, we’d be talking and they thought I was talking a lot of dreams when I was talking about non-violence. They used to say “look Niall, you’re wasting your time ….. the British were gentlemen, they would understand non-violence, but we’re talking about Marcos”. In actual fact the Marcos regime changed because the ordinary people stood up, knelt in the streets, prayed and had sandwiches and flowers, and the soldiers refused to fire. It was a classic example of non-violence. And strangely enough the revolutionaries who I knew and know personally to this day, they so despised all of this as being a sheer waste of time … that they remained in the mountains and kept miles away thanks be to God, because if they had have been there they would have added a certain amount of terror?
“And certainly there would have been blood. Strangely enough as a result, since that was the first revolution which took place totally on television, it wasn’t long before you had the Candle Revolution in Leipzig and the Velvet Revolution in Prague, and so much of the Eastern Europe thing took place actually, in the long run, non-violently.
What active non-violence is not: “I have written here what active non-violence is not.
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It is not neutrality as I say. You do take sides in non-violence. But you really need sharp and clear political analysis, and I think we run away from that sometimes.
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It is not cowardice. Well you would know that, I wouldn’t need to tell you that. But I tell you, when you’re living with young people – and people are sitting around the table in Palestine at the moment and the young men are wondering “have I got the courage to be a suicide bomber?” – I remember sitting at the table and I remember fellas saying to me “I wonder would I have the courage to go up the mountains? I would leave my parish, go up and take a gun and do what is right”. I used to say “well, it’s not about courage. Would it work? Does it work? Would it be right?” But it is true that a lot of the violence comes from people who are challenging one another to be brave.
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It is not a deus ex machina, it’s not a magic wand that you wave, a fire engine that you call in to put out the fire. How much have they spent on this war, the recent war, 59 billion is it? But that army didn’t fall out of the sky. That’s been kept continually supplied for the last 20 years, bringing it up to date. It’s a standing army with all that that means. So violence has preparation, they really know how to prepare for violence. And we think that with our active non-violence we might do a Rosa Parkes and stop the whole thing you know. Rosa was something beautiful, but basically non-violence is long years of preparation and discipline and thought and careful planning. It’s not a bit of magic. And that’s what we in the non-violent movement must realise: that we’ve a long period to go.
Presuppositions of active non-violence: “There are certain presuppositions connected with non-violence.
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The first one, and the most important one, is that power does not flow from the barrel of a gun. It flows from consent and therefore the name of the game is getting people to withdraw consent. You target the people on whose consent this particular thing depends and they have to be targeted.
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“The next presupposition of non-violence is that actually most violence – not all, but most violence – is caused by injustice, and every time we work to remove injustice, we are pre-empting the violence that results. And there is a statement somewhere, I don’t where it comes from … but it goes like this: “the church which does not fight injustice loses it’s moral right to speak against violence”.
So how in South Africa could you start knocking the ANC, which was the revolutionary group of Mandela, when you had said nothing about the apartheid which had gone on for decades before? Or how in the island of Negros could the bishop start condemning – and he didn’t thanks be to God, but in other places they did – how could he start condemning the New People’s army when they started a revolution if he had not stood up for the rights of those working on the plantation?
“You lose your moral right to speak on peace if you have not previously spoke on injustice. That’s why it is so important for the churches to speak, to be heard on justice.
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“Another presupposition to remember is that the real causes of injustice are usually hidden. The need for social and structural analysis is very important and we borrowed that from the Marxists. .. Now I don’t go along with Marx’s solution which is the war of the classes and that, but his idea was who was doing what to who and what is the reason for this.
So analysis, structural analysis of what’s happening in society [is needed]. Religious people – and I include myself there – can sometime run away from that important action of finding out why, what is the cause, what is going on here?
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“Another last presupposition of non-violence is that people are basically good. You might disagree with me on this. I’m asking for an act of faith on this one because there are people who believe people are basically bad. But I feel those of us involved in a non-violent struggle believe, I believe, that people are basically good and that there is a possibility that a person can change. It’s why we’re against the death penalty ultimately I think. And so that is a very important thing to accept: the fact that people are basically good.
I didn’t prepare any stories about that but I know I’ve had many beautiful experiences in my own life. I remember being asked to review a book in some university in Negros, the island of Negros, and sitting up on the front bench was a big plantation owner and he was also a big business entrepeneur and we’d had several clashes with him over the previous thirty years. And he’s sitting right up in the front and I felt very embarrassed because I was really giving a strong talk, and more or less giving out about a lot of things as I understood he would have stood for. So when he came over – in the Philippines,when you finish a talk everybody … rushes over and shakes your hand. And if they don’t shake your hand you see, that would really mean they disliked you. I mean they definitely didn’t have anything to do with what you’ve said. …. So when he came up and shook my hand I didn’t put any store by it. But then he called me aside and he said the following: “I am 77years of age now, and as you can see I’m using a walking stick and I don’t need any more hassle in my life. But I have 200 hectares of sugar and 2,000 mango trees. Now let’s say each mango tree produces 100 mangoes(It produces a lot more) and even if you were to sell them for so much a mango how much would that be?” So he’d make a calculation. “That’s a very big income … now I’m going to hand it over to the people” he said. “But I know if I go the route of handing it to the government, they’ll make a mess of it.” And I utterly agree with him. “So I have to do it bit by bit” he said, and he explained to me exactly how he would do it, very intelligently, step by step you see. It could be misunderstood that he was still trying to get money from them but that wasn’t the case, he really knew that it would be wrong to throw the whole farm at them and walk away. He had to stay with them for maybe 10 years if he could.
That sort of thing happened over the years, took me quite by surprise. So I believe that people – deep within people – there is a goodness and I think that we [must] keep that. If we ever lose that, I don’t think we could ever be in the whole struggle for non-violence.
Just War Theory – violence a last resort: “Let’s imagine there are two myths, let’s call them myths. You know the sociological term “myth”: a story by which you live. It’s not referring to the historical event as being correct or incorrect. It’s just the truth that the story is a vehicle of truth. Now let’s imagine the Just War Theory as a myth and let’s imagine our non-violence approach – the possibility of change through non-violence – as a myth. If you live by the Just war theory, you’ll be allowed to use violence as a last resort. One man said to me after one of these talks, “I always use violence as a first resort!”. Anyway if violence is a last resort, you’ll always find a way of using it. There comes a moment when you say “well enough is enough”.
Active non-violence – finding other ways: “But if you live by the myth that violence is not a last resort, then you must find another way, you will find other ways. I read a book some years back where an analysis was done on the number of people who were killed, being attacked, somewhere – it was New York, or was it Washington? I can’t recall – and those who were armed were more likely to be killed than those who were not armed, because those who were not armed had to think of other ways out of this dilemma when somebody burst into their house with a gun to steal things. They had to come up with some other solution. Often people will ask me, or maybe you will ask, “what would you do if your grandmother is about to be shot and you’ve got this gun. Would you defend her or would you not?” Well my answer is I wouldn’t have a gun in the first place, because that’s precisely what I live by. So I would have to come up with something else. This, as I said, is enormous.
May I just mention The Politics of Non-Violent Action? It’s absolutely a secular bible for understanding the whole process of Active non-violence. It’s hard to get hold of it but you can get it on the Internet. They reprint it again and again. Gene Sharpe is a sort of guru. The Politics of Non-Violent Action and The Dynamics of Non-Violent Action. Actually, you see, the history of the world as it is written is all about the kings and their wars and the wonderful things they did. And victors always write the story of course, the others aren’t around to write.
History of non-violence has to be recovered: “But the story of non-violence is actually lost and Gene Sharpe has done a great lot to recover it. So actually he’s come up with the most extraordinary [research] and he hasn’t just come up with it in an anecdotal fashion – you know what I mean like “my aunt told me and somebody else told her”. He actually has people do complete theses on whether or not the wives of Jews married to Germans were saved in Eastern Germany in 1944. They were. Their wives got together and went outside the various police stations and they screamed and cried and roared and those men were released. And that small group of people at least were saved. He has examined the cases, the lost cases of non-violence. I remember vaguely from my Roman history as a child, the story of the Plebs and the Patricians. I think the Plebs went on strike and the Patricians didn’t know what to do. So the history of non-violence has to be recovered. And there’s something we could think about.
Methods of non-violence: “Then he goes into methods of non-violence. There are thousands, I couldn’t even begin to go into them. Who was it who wrote the book Kiss Sleeping Beauty Goodbye. Was it Madonna? She says when there are only two alternatives, pick the third – that’s what this non-violence is about. It’s insisting that you are not going to force us to believe that there is only fight and flight and there is nothing in between. That if you don’t, “we bomb them to bits or else they’ll get us”, you know that there is nothing in between. And we say that there is, and I’d say that there is a whole continent, like when they discovered the New World and in that continent there are rivers and waterfalls and wonderful new fruit that we’ve never seen of non-violence. Wonderful possibilities waiting for us to discover once we open our mind that there is this third way. Well I’m sure I’ve skipped about most of what I’ve written here but I think I’ve given you as much as you can take. These books I do recommend: The Politics of Non-Violent Action by Gene Sharpe. They’re in our library here and they’re published by a group called Porter and it’s connected with Harvard and I think it is one of the basic encyclopaedias on the whole business and he approaches it from a secular point of view. I recently wrote an article called “Pre-emptive Strikes for Peace” and its available here in the Far East magazine for January 2003 [published in Dalgan Park].
Reconciliation the ultimate aim: “Just a quick look over my notes to make sure that I haven’t missed the whole point, as can happen. … Oh yes. I have to say this work for justice is basic, but it must be done in such a way as to sow the seed of reconciliation. So while we’re working for justice, if we raise our voice too high and become too strident and too bitter and too marvellous well we can never … the ultimate aim is reconciliation. The ultimate aim is reconciliation it’s not to beat that person. It’s to be reconciled, so we really do have to lower our voice and make sure that what we say now will not in it’s own way prevent reconciliation in the future.
Definition of active non-violence: “And I came up with a definition of non-violence as I have come to understand it: it is a way of life, a life of assertive, pre-emptive, imaginative – I believe in the importance of the imagination, the importance of art and music, anything that will stretch your mind beyond the ridiculous point that it’s fight or flight is the only way we can solve – systemic action .. rooting up injustice and eventually bringing about reconciliation. It is both an art and a discipline.
Reconciliation and forgiveness: “Last point, I could do a hundred last points, but my last one. I’ve had the joy of being invited up to Rosnowlagh recently, a few months back and there were some people, who really had done a wonderful job of bringing together people from both sides of the divide up there. In fact, there was a man who had blown up a whole hotel and in the process killed the father of this other woman. They both sat at the table like this and they spoke a lot about trying to understand each other’s position and everytime people asked the woman “what about forgiveness?” rightly she said: “now don’t ask me about forgiveness, I just don’t know what you’re saying”. And I could see the problem. The problem was that reconciliation and forgiveness are two totally different things. I can forgive you, you can forgive me, without you even knowing it. But reconciliation demands two people. Forgiveness can be an act: I can say “well I do forgive the Japanese you know”, if I want to, nobody can stop me. Forgiveness is for one, reconciliation is for two. Forgiveness is an act. Reconciliation is a process, it’s a journey. Reconciliation is a journey and that’s the journey we’re on and thank you all for listening.
QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS [incomplete]
[Editor’s note: due to time limitations and the fact that Fr Niall was departing for the Philippines two days later, he was unable to stay to answer all the questions asked. Afterwards, due to his continuing illness we were unable to send him on the questions as originally planned.]
Q.1. Re standing up to Hitler. It was wrong to do nothing. Accepting the guilt is it possible to fight on the same basis?
Niall: …. I remember once putting this question to Brendan Lovett who is our guru in the Columbans. And I said if you had the chance to kill Hitler would you have done so? And he said “I’d have killed him and I ‘d have asked forgiveness”.
Q. 2: “Would suicide and acts of destruction be condoned under the active non-violence stance?
Niall: “We have two big sections here, suicide and acts of destruction . Let me take the easier one first. Acts of destruction. I can only say they are divided …. like this guy who hit the plane [in Shannon] with the hammer and is being charged 4 million I think and he claims that well I’d rather hammer that plane than the plane hammer a whole city and drop a bomb on it , a hospital of pregnant women. So I don’t know.
“As to suicide attacks: there are so many different types of suicide bombing I feel it involves killing others, destructive I can’t see that that would ever be in any way involved in the non-violence. There are different types of hunger strikes and I remember Jean Hildegard comes to …. they spent their life they toured the whole world teaching the non-violence and especially the Sermon on the Mount … I got him …to move to Manila and speak to the Columbans and he began to speak very strongly against certain types of hunger strike. His wife knelt over to him and said. N’oubliez pas.These are les Irlandais. And he said that’s precisely why I’m saying it. So there are different types of protest and if the protest I suppose is to create a violent situation. On the other hand, there is a tradition in Irish culture, where it’s a way of protesting against injustice and opening a person’s heart and Gandhi did a lot of that. On one famous occasion there were these temples the Buddhist temples and the poor were not allowed inside the precinct and well he could have smashed their way in. He could have forced them one way or another but they remained outside on hunger strike, till the actually broke the hearts of the Brahmins and they then shred the same temple. That was the type of hunger strike leading to suicide, that he would have approved.
Q. 3: Quote from tonight’s talk “if they withdraw consent, the oppressors cannot continue. Some of the present leaders of the Catholic Church appear to be opposed to this style and thinking. Is the present decline in the vocation of the church due to this?
Niall: “Yeah it could be people voting with their feet you know.
Q. 4: “How do you cope with and manage Muslim, Islamic violence in any Christian situation?
Niall: “Well I can only present to you our dear, dear friend Fr. Rufus Halley who was shot there last August 12 months. He was known to all of us here. Rufus became known as the peacemaker between Muslim tribes so much so when two tribes had been fighting one another for 10 years and many people were dead on both of those Muslim clans, they called in Rufus and swearing on the Koran he got them to lay down their arms and some to peace. So he didn’t try to create, he created peace among the Muslims and it was so visible, his work for peace was so visible that they called him to be their peacemaker and it reminds me he seemed to forget what Francis used to say ..those famous words ..none of us will ever forget ….“Preach the Word” not “Preach the Gospel and sometimes use words”.
“OK If the provos became pacifist then the Brits would leave Ireland. How do you persuade them? Now that’s beyond me. I haven’t lived in Ireland for the past forty years. So that’s all I have to say to you tonight and thank you so much.
CLOSING WORDS
John Clancy: Just to conclude this part can I on behalf of you all thank Fr. Niall for an amazing 45 minutes or more thought and insight. I think that one of the things that come very clearly through … is that as we each make our footprints in time .. we know not what …we’ve had as we’ve walked and I think that is something very clear that’s coming out from what he was saying. We’re not here to win the other side, we’re not there to beat the other side. We’re not there up to be admired. We’re to walk our life by example and reaching out to those around us. So Niall thank you very much and God bless you.”
Meath Peace Group talks
Report compiled by Judith Hamill and edited by Julitta Clancy
©Meath Peace Group 2003
Biographical notes: Fr. Niall O’Brien has worked for almost 40 years in the Philippines. On arrival, he was struck by the poverty there, particularly when he went to live on a sugar plantation. He has worked continuously and tirelessly for the poor and oppressed, and has often suffered for it. He was imprisoned in 1983 for 18 months and was later expelled from the Philippines. He returned in 1987 after the Marcos government had fallen. He has been awarded several peace prizes, particularly the U.S.A. Pax Christi award and the Aurora Arabin peace award in the Philippines. At the time of this talk he was Pax Christi chaplain in the Philippines. Fr. Niall has spoken widely and written on “Active Non-Violence”
Books he has written include: “Revolution from the Heart”; “Island of Tears, Island of Hope” and “Seeds of Injustice”
[Editor’s postscript: Fr. Niall O’Brien died on 27 April 2004 in Pisa in Italy (from cancer). Air dheis lámh Dé go raibh a anam dhílis]
48 – “Parades, Protests and Human Rights: The Quigley Review”
Monday, 7th April, 2003
St. Columban’s College, Dalgan Park, Navan, Co. Meath
Speakers:
Philip Black (LOL 44, Lurgan; Co-Chair of Ulster Human Rights Watch)
Austen Morgan (Barrister at Law)
Dr. Michael Hamilton (Research Student, University of Ulster)
Brice Dickson (Chief Commissioner, NI Human Rights Commission)
Chaired by Lt. General Gerry McMahon (retd.)
(Former Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces, Chair of the Irish Peace and Reconciliation Platform)
Contents
Introduction: Lt. Gen. Gerry McMahon
Speakers’ addresses
Questions and comments
Closing words
INTRODUCTION
Lt General Gerry McMahon (Retd): “Thank you … … I’m an old retired guy and I’m delighted to be asked to come here tonight and to act in the capacity of Chair. This evening’s session is devoted to the subject of Parading Disputes and Human Rights – the Quigley Report. Now the Quigley Report was presented to the Secretary of State by its author, Sir George Quigley, CBE, in September of last year. It’s a review of the Parades Commission since it was set up and how it has operated, and it also includes a review of the legislation which underpins it.
Quigley Report – main recommendations: “In summary … in a non-legalistic, simplistic way, I would like to just say that the Quigley Report came up with three options:
Option 1: let the present Commission continue on its way and over a period of time gradually guide the protagonists towards local accommodation.
Option 2 was more brisk. It said: ban contentious parades for at least the foreseeable future, but of course it did point out that this was a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Option 3: and the third option proposed an overhaul of the current arrangements and the existing regulatory machinery underpinning it.
“Now Quigley took option three – overhaul – and he came up with some proposals . He saw an initial facilitation function in the solving of disputes by those in contention at local level, a facilitation function at that local level. A determining body separate from the chief facilitator to make decisions on issues unresolved at local level, by local contact, but with feed-in from the facilitator. And then he gives instruction that the determination be clear and unambiguous. Now I’m virtually surrounded by lawyers up at this table to night, and they’re wonderful people, but for a simple person like me “clear and unambiguous” and making a legal statement that covers all the options, can sometimes be mutually exclusive, but I’m sure they’ll give me a bash when they get on to that side. The final suggestion or proposal was the use of the European Convention on Human Rights to simplify the current underpinning legislation rather than what exists.
“The discussion tonight is very timely, given the Bush, Blair and Ahern meeting tomorrow and what might follow … the May elections and the approaching marching season … commencing at Easter and running through until September.
“The rules of procedure that I will follow tonight will be that each of our four speakers – I will introduce them to you before they start to speak – has been allocated 10 to 15 minutes to get their message across. I will get fidgety about 12 minutes in and when they’ve a minute to run I’ll warn them. At the end of the four presentations we’ll take a question and answer session and, depending on how fast and furious the questions are coming, I might take them in threes or fours or whatever and then invite members of the panel as appropriate to comment. The last function in these introductory remarks would be to give the running order of the speakers. The first speaker tonight will be Philip Black. The second speaker, Austen Morgan, the third speaker, Michael Hamilton, and the fourth speaker, Brice Dickson.
“The first speaker is Mr Philip Black – Philip is a former councillor for Craigavon, he’s a lifelong member of Loyal Orange Lodge 44 in Lurgan. He has family connections to the Order which can be traced back five generations. He was a member of the deputation of the loyal orders who met the Secretary of State recently on the Quigley Report, which is the centre of our discussion today, and he is co-chairman of Ulster Human Rights Watch. I would like you to give a welcome to Philip Black.
1. Philip Black (member of LOL 44, Lurgan, and Co-Chair, Ulster Human Rights Watch) [replacing Cllr. Nelson McCausland who was unable to attend]
“Thank you Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen. As you probably know and realise, in any democratic society worth its salt, the basic human rights enjoyed and ensured for the people, include freedom of association, freedom of peaceful assembly and the right to manifest and express one’s religion. The Orange Institution supports those principles, indeed we could do no other as our own Constitution says “civil and religious liberties for all, with special privileges for none”. In fact we are probably the first human rights organisation in Northern Ireland, predating those “Johnny come-latelys” in the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission by several hundred years.
Increase in contentious parades: “In Northern Ireland, the fundamental rights I refer to have been under sustained attack over the past ten years, both by the government through its legislation and its appeasement of violence, and by Sinn Fein/IRA which has adopted a strategy which targets the loyal orders in order to deny them their basic human rights and to increase tension. Don’t forget the statement of Adams when he said that Drumcree “didn’t happen by accident” but was the result of very careful planning on their behalf. The success of this strategy in creating tension and denying human rights can be seen in the way the number of contentious parades has increased over the past ten years. In 1992, there were less than 10 contentious parades. In 1997, following the introduction of Mr Adams’ strategy, there were approximately 20. Following the implementation of the North Report, which was supposed to solve or at least improve the situation, the number of contentious parades climbed to 220. I can tell you that if Quigley is implemented in its present form there is the potential for every parade to become contentious that is, the total figure could rise to over 3,000. The government legislation has so far not dealt with the parading issue in a manner which either upholds the right of freedom of assembly or reduces tension. In fact exactly the opposite has been the effect.
Human Rights Commission: “Now we must ask: how has the body charged with the responsibility for promoting and maintaining our human rights in Northern Ireland dealt with this sustained attack on basic human rights? I’m talking of course about the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, and we’re honoured to have Professor Dickson here tonight. Here I have the document Making a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland which was produced by the Commission, I think it was in 2001, September or October. And the parades issue was, in the words of Professor Dickson himself, one of the more contentious areas. Indeed it was one of the special circumstances of Northern Ireland which the Commission was tasked to address in its mandate from the government. So how many pages of the 158 of this document, do you think, was devoted to the freedom of assembly issue? Well we turn to page ….78. There we see it. Out of 158 pages we have from here to here [indicates portion of document] on this very important and vital issue for Northern Ireland. They did try to bolster their rather meagre offering by referring to an external report – I think it was produced by yourself, Michael, was it? – Parades, Protests and Policing – which is a very good report as a source of information on these matters, but which came to no definite conclusions. So the human rights body which is responsible for protecting our human rights has, in a cowardly and disgraceful fashion, avoided this issue and abdicated its responsibilities.
“As an aside, I may say that this is not the only central and vital issue to the people of Northern Ireland which they have ignored. We have had a campaign of terrorism for 30 years in which over 3,000 people have been killed. Many have been maimed and tortured and it’s still ongoing. Yet do you know what word is not mentioned in this document which is supposed to be to protect our human rights? The word “terrorist” or “terrorism” is not mentioned, or, if I put it another way, for Professor Dickson terrorism would seem to be “the love that dare not speak its name”.
North Report: “Anyway we’re currently left with the North Report as the predecessor of Quigley to dictate policy on freedom of assembly with no effective human rights oversight or watchdog. The current legislation based on North never had the democratic support of the public in general, or the loyal orders in particular, and has failed to address the principles or problems surrounding this issue. And the setting up of the Quigley review process was of course itself an admission by the government of the abject and miserable failure of North and the Parades Commission.
Quigley Report: “Some – one or two isolated individuals – within our Order have suggested that Quigley should be supported but because North and the Parades Commission were so bad that anything would be better than North. I don’t need to tell an intelligent audience like this, that that conclusion does not follow logically from the premise. However, even a very quick look at Quigley shows that not only has he repeated some of the basic flaws of North, but he has gone further in restricting basic human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Four-stage process: “The Quigley Review Report is ambiguous and unclear in its analysis and recommendations, perhaps intentionally, like the Belfast Agreement itself. But, through the murk, we can discern a four-stage or quadruple lock system which is designed to make it difficult and costly to exercise the basic human right of peaceful assembly and designed to afford the maximum opportunity to those who would wish to deny this right. Those who wish to exercise the right have to succeed at each stage of the four-stage process. Those who wish to prevent you exercising your right, or wish to dilute it, have only to be successful at one of those stages. Now a right is something that by definition should be easy to assert and enjoy. If it is made too difficult to exercise your right then it is by definition no longer a right. Quigley has debased the right and turned it into something that has to be fought and struggled for. Under Quigley the right of freedom of peaceful assembly, ceases to be a right in any real sense or by the normal definition of the word.
“Looking at the first stage will give you some idea of what I mean, at least I hope it will. First of all you’ve to notify every parade you wish to have in the following year by the first of October in the previous year. You are then expected to enter into a lengthy period of negotiation – several months perhaps – with residents’ groups who will no doubt be fronted in many cases by supporters of terrorism. You can only move to the next stage of the process if you either come to an agreement with those whose aim is to deny your rights, which will inevitably reduce and debase the exercise of the right, or, if not, you require a certificate to be issued to say that you negotiated in good faith. Or, if it is not issued, then your right is completely obliterated at this point. There are then further stages where you have to defend your right in a court-like system. Then your rights may be negated by violent protest. And finally, when the parade takes place – if it ever does – a further opportunity for protestors to object and perhaps ensure that the parade is banned or further restricted in future years.
Final nail in the coffin: “I think you can understand why, if Quigley is implemented in its present form, it is seen by many as the final nail in the coffin for the principle of freedom of peaceful assembly, and as a means to target and destroy the culture, tradition and religious freedoms of the loyal orders, and therefore of the Protestant ethos in Northern Ireland. And of course it should be noted that up to date the guardian of our human rights in Northern Ireland – the Human Rights Commission, and its Chief Commissioner, who is the white knight in shining armour whom we would expect to charge to our rescue – has supported Quigley’s proposals with only slight reservations.
“But all is not lost. The Quigley Report has had the effect of uniting the main loyal orders, and indeed a large proportion of the pro-Union people of Northern Ireland, in opposition to this blatant denial of their human rights. Indeed Quigley is the latest of a long line of insults to democracy and human rights which have taken place within the framework of the Belfast Agreement, and some would say, could be the last straw for the long-suffering majority in Northern Ireland and could even be the issue to bring down the Agreement.
Proposals of the loyal orders: “The loyal orders’ leadership, who have always taken a constructive and positive approach to these matters, have recently had an important meeting with the Secretary of State and his advisers emphasising the serious repercussions of Quigley in its present form on the overall peace and stability for the future of Northern Ireland. They emphasised to the Secretary of State their willingness to work together towards a real and meaningful solution, a solution which will uphold and respect the rights of all of the people of Northern Ireland.
“They stressed the need to extend the window of opportunity in the consultation process, in order to get the freedom of assembly issue right this time, and not to rush to repeat the mistakes of the past. They also emphasised that it would take more than lip-service paid to the principles of human rights, but will require the government to be courageous enough to end the appeasement of those who would use violence, or the threat of violence, for their own political ends in Northern Ireland. The Order has made very positive proposals to the Secretary of State to work together for the benefit of all the people of Northern Ireland.
“In conclusion, I would say that we look forward to this opportunity being grasped by the government with a positive response on their part. We look forward to the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission awaking to their responsibilities or, if I could put it differently, Brice, “Awake from thy slumber, Oh why art thou silent, O voice of they heart?” [laughter]
“And we look to those democrats both North and South of the border – including yourselves – for support for the basic right of freedom of peaceful assembly, and to the day when parades in Northern Ireland are as uncontentious and unopposed as the yearly parades in Rossnowlagh in Co. Donegal. Thank you very much.“
Chair: Lt. General MacMahon:
“Ladies and gentlemen, our next speaker is Austen Morgan. His background is in law, in academe and he’s an author. He practices as a barrister in London and Belfast. He was educated at Bristol and Queen’s and he’s taught at Queens University, Trinity College Dublin and Warwick University. He has written extensively on working class politics and on political biographies …. and he was involved professionally in the Belfast Agreement on which he has written a practical legal analysis. I would like you to welcome Austen. Thank you.”
2. Austen Morgan (Barrister at Law):
“Thank you very much, General. I don’t normally allow those things to be disclosed. I am professionally a lawyer and I try to begin and end as a lawyer and only speak as a lawyer. I do acknowledge that I had a previous incarnation when I did something very unlawyerly. It is slightly embarrassing to have my past brought back.
:Anyway, when I was told that the Chief of Staff of the Army of the Irish Republic would be chairing this session, I was slightly apprehensive as to who was the occupant of that current position. It was a great pleasure when I found out that I am dealing with the only army of the Irish Republic that is recognised by the Constitution and, being a lawyer, I believe in behaving constitutionally, so I am very indebted and honoured to be disciplined this evening by a former Chief of Staff of the only army of the Irish Republic!
Interest in the parading issue: “I want to speak on this issue, not because I have any personal background in it. As I enjoy telling meetings of Orangemen and Orangewomen, I lack a certain qualification if I ever aspire to membership, and sometimes that sends them into difficulty about what I’m referring to. Sylvia Hermon was once at a meeting I was addressing made up of Orangemen and Orangewomen, and one of the women said: “what does he mean, what does he mean?” and Sylvia Hermon said “he’s too young to join”! At least that’s one theory as to why I’m not eligible to join. However I do have a professional interest in this, not just because human rights has been the most important theme for practical lawyers in the last two years. I do human rights literally every day. It is an uphill struggle but I do human rights. Anyway, for one reason or another, I have for a number of years taken an interest in the parading issue in Northern Ireland.
“Now I want to talk very briefly about four topics:
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The first is the British Constitution, and what King William and Queen Mary was all about and how that is still with us.
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The second is Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights which is now the law in Northern Ireland but not yet in the Republic formally.
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The third thing I want to talk about is: what would I say to the loyal orders, of whom Philip is an eminent member, what advice would I give as a lawyer?
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The fourth thing I want to talk about is Quigley.
British Constitution and Bill of Rights 1688: “In order to try and understand the loyal orders as an outsider – which I am – does require a reading of 17th century English, Scottish and Irish history. There is a Bill of Rights in the United Kingdom State. It dates from 1688/89 and that Bill of Rights talks about the liberty of the liberties and the freedoms of the subject. Now that Bill of Rights is what today lives in the minds of the members of the loyal orders. You might say “it’s over 300 years old”, but in constitutional history a document that’s over 300 years old tends to have proved itself by surviving. So when the loyal orders talk about these ancient rights they really believe in them, and therefore one can see why Philip is indignant about the failure of government in Northern Ireland to accept and indeed respect those rights. The problem about those rights is that they were never really specified, certainly not in Magna Carta, certainly not subsequently. There is an idea that an individual has rights except where government decides to restrict those rights for some reason or other. So one has a large bag of rights, except where Parliament takes them away, and one is entitled as an individual to enjoy one’s rights except where that right conflicts with someone else’s rights. Now that has to be understood and accepted – not just as our constitutional history in the United Kingdom – but it has to be understood as part of the consciousness, the ideology, of the loyal orders in Northern Ireland.
Peaceful assembly: “In terms of peaceful assembly, which is the only right I’m interested in – I’m not interested in the right to assembly in order to ferment a riot, I’m only interested in the right to peaceful assembly – the UK hasn’t been particularly exemplary about recognising that right. The approach to parades throughout the UK has essentially been one of public order: “well, you can have your demonstration but if it’s going to cost trouble, we’re going to stop it”. That’s been the general view. Now that is a public order view, and a public order view has been much more prominent in Northern Ireland than it was in England, Wales or Scotland.
Article 11 of ECHR: “However – and this is my second point, Article 11 – in the year 2000, human rights entered into force within the UK. The European Convention on Human Rights acquired an additional effect within domestic law. Now what does article 11 say? Well, I have a copy of it here….Article 11 (1) says: “Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly”. To a lawyer, that is a beautiful piece of legal prose. “Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly”.
Restrictions on right of peaceful assembly: “Then in Article 11(2) it goes on to qualify that, but it begins by saying: “no restriction shall be placed on the exercise of this right” – the presumption is that the right should be enjoyed rather than restricted – other than “such as are prescribed by law”, in other words, the restriction has to be lawful. But I here I get slightly complicated as a lawyer. There is a principle of legality which would constrain even Parliament from, in a sense, denying people the right to enjoy a fundamental right. The restrictions also have to be necessary in a democratic society – that’s another limitation – and essentially, before the State denies someone a right, they have to have a good reason to do it, and the way they’re doing it has to be, essentially, not a sledge hammer designed to crack a nut. It has to be what is now called “proportionate”. And then there are particular reasons why the right to peaceful assembly can be denied. There are four of them:
1. The first one is “national security or public safety”. Now national security and public safety are different. I cannot imagine a demonstration threatening national security. I can imagine a demonstration, in certain circumstances, threatening public safety.
2. “For the prevention of disorder or crime”. Well that’s probably quite a low threshold, because surely some disorder may well result from a demonstration.
3. The third reason given is “health and morals” which never really is litigated in our courts, except – I should add in parentheses – when it comes to computer pornography.
4. Fourthly, “for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others”.
Now that’s what the debate in Northern Ireland has been about – the rights and freedoms of others. And essentially the argument has been that the loyal orders have an Article 11 right to peaceful assembly, and then some people – and I shan’t mention Brice Dickson by name – said “ah, but other people have got other rights” and when we balance those two rights, the other right always wins. Well that’s what it feels like appearing before the judges I appeared before in London. They always do seem to have the law rigged, and it always seems to be rigged against my clients. That is not just a vulgarisation of the law, that’s a complete distortion of the law. The issue is between the loyal orders and the State, and it’s not between one group of citizens and another group of citizens. In fact, when it comes to the argument between those who wish to peacefully assemble and those others who wish to stop them, for whatever reason, the law says the emphasis should be on those who wish to peacefully assemble.
Advice to the loyal orders: “The third point I want to lay before you by way of introduction is: what would I say to the loyal orders? Well, the loyal orders may well not want to listen to me, and I wouldn’t particularly blame them for that. But at one point a few years ago I did write 10 things that they should do, and I’ll just briefly list each one of them to give you a sort of conspectus on my view on this problem.
“The first is that they should actually learn from their own best practice, because what is actually noticeable is the way the three different orders in different parts of Northern Ireland are actually handling this question, and there are extreme differences. For example, the Apprentice Boys of Derry have pursued one strategy which has produced results for them. At the other extreme, the Orangemen of Portadown have pursued another strategy, or rather a number of strategies, and as yet, and I suspect for some time, they will continue to be unsuccessful. Now there is a third trouble spot that I’d like to refer to and that’s the Lower Ormeau in Belfast, and I might come back to that later on if someone asks me a question as to why I think the Lower Ormeau is particularly significant.
“Anyway my ten points are briefly as follows.
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The first one is: the loyal orders should look to where they’re achieving something and try and follow that example rather than look to where they’re not achieving something.
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The second thing is that they should see the Human Rights Act, which came into force in 2000, as theirs as well as everybody else’s.
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The third thing is that they should have actually taken the phrase “Freedom of Peaceful Assembly” and proclaimed it from the housetops in the year 2000. And I would have liked them not to have used 17th century rhetoric, I would have preferred 21st century rhetoric, so “public place” rather than “Queen’s Highway”.
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The fourth thing is that they should have engaged with the Parades Commission. I still think they should engage with the Parades Commission for however long the Parades commission will survive legally.
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The fifth thing – and they have done this – they should actually analyse the problem they face. Namely, it is a problem of the residents’ groups – and Sinn Fein has a big role in that, though there may well be a problem of residents’ groups that are, shall we say, autonomous, in other words not entirely under the control of the republican leadership.
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My sixth point is that they should have engaged from 1998 with the Northern Ireland Office much more actively than they did. In 1998 I said: “look, the legislation on parades will be out of date when human rights come on stream”. Now that is what Quigley is now saying, but it has been out of date for a number of years.
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The seventh thing – and Brice will be surprised at this – they should have engaged with the Human Rights commission. Now, I’ve never said anything good about the Human Rights Commission and I’m not going to change my position tonight – I will endorse everything that Philip has said in the most friendly way about Brice and the antics of his colleagues.
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The eighth thing is that the loyal orders have a problem created by the residents groups, and whinging and complaining is one way to deal with the problem. The other way is to formulate a strategy and try and out-intelligence people who actually are not very intelligent, or not very formidable, but are able to win with very little human skill.
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The ninth thing is that there isn’t just an Article 11 issue here about peaceful assembly, there’s also an Article 9 issue here about “freedom of thought, conscience and religion”. In fact there are a number of other rights involved, and I think it would have been better for the Orange Order to have – if you like – got out of politics and gone into religion, culture and everything else, the whole hog, and then sought political allies to defend their freedom of peaceful assembly.
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Tenth – and the Orange Order itself did in fact take a little bit of this message on board – they actually needed advisors to help them. Now there’s nothing wrong in having advisors. The President of the United States has advisors – he doesn’t actually run the world single-handedly. He does need people to help him out, and the Orange Order could have done with a bit of help in the last few years.
Quigley Report: “My last point is about Quigley and here I dissent in a ….
Philip Black: “friendly sort of way?”
Austen Morgan: “I was going to say in a Presbyterian sort of way! I dissent most strongly from what Philip said about Quigley. I couldn’t believe Quigley. I couldn’t believe how good it was. First of all, where did Quigley come from? Well Quigley was conceived at Weston Park which might have suggested a rather sickly child would be born, or a rather ugly child would be born, given some of the other outturns from Weston Park! But Quigley was the only thing David Trimble has succeeded in winning in the last number of years. He succeeded in limiting the damage on many other fronts but Quigley is the only thing David Trimble has actually achieved.
What Quigley did. “Quigley learned the lesson from these horrible type inquiries – one is called Patten, and the other is called the Criminal Justice Review. These things are insults to one’s intelligence, they are policy abominations, but they are what the British government felt it had to do in order to solve the problem of Northern Ireland. Quigley’s different. Its well written, it’s got a strange style, why he took 300 pages to say what he could have said in 30 pages I don’t know. Well actually I do know the answer to that question: it’s because he’s playing leap politics like everybody else in Northern Ireland who is trying to be a key player. But I like Quigley, and I don’t just like Quigley because I recommended one thing to him which other people recommended to him, and we all think that Quigley has accepted our advice. Now I don’t think Quigley has accepted my advice, because he didn’t accept one key idea I put to him.
Parades Commission: “But he did accept my advice in the sense that, I believe the Parades Commission is damaged goods. The Parades Commission exists to stop the Drumcree Parade. It’s done it five years in a row. And it’ll do it six years in a row, and forever long it exists it will continue to stop the Drumcree Parade, and that’s very sad because I don’t think the Parades Commission set out to find itself in that position, but it’s in that position. And because it’s done that successfully my worry is that the Parades Commission has a great friend in the Irish Government, and also has a great friend among the two main parties of Northern nationalism. So Philip might be delighted to hear this: I’m not so confident that Quigley is ever going to get up on his knees let alone stand up walk and run. I can see a very serious campaign to preserve the Parades Commission so it can continue to do what it knows best.
Why do I like Quigley? I like Quigley because it’s practical and I like Quigley because it’s different from a room of wise men who decide who marches and who doesn’t march, and they decide this in secret. And what it does say is: instead of one body we’re going to have two bodies, and the first body can do the facilitation and mediation stuff, which is necessary, and the other body can do the determination stuff which is who marches and who doesn’t march and where and when. But they will do it in an accountable way and they will do it in public. In other words, I’m a lawyer and I’m talking about what I know best which is a court.
Parades tribunal: “And I proposed to Quigley that we need a parades tribunal, and he’s come back with something that’s got five words in the title, but, lo and behold, it’s a parades tribunal! Now you might well conclude that I would think that courts were the best things in the world, because I’m a lawyer and there’s a professional opportunity for me. But I’ll just give you a couple of analogies: I think that children should be looked after by their parents, but, when their parents are not willing or able or anything else, then somebody has to step in, and after the social workers have not been entirely helpful, and after all the neighbours have not been entirely helpful, we end up with the courts, the bottom line. Another example: employment. We used to believe that relations between workers and employers were private economic relations. Now that is heavily regulated in the Republic and in the UK. Thirdly, an area I know quite a lot about, immigration, well there are some people who say: “anybody who wants to come into the United Kingdom is entitled to come to the United Kingdom”. There are other people who will say: “well, we’ll let in the good ones and we’ll not let in the bad ones.” Well, somebody has to decide who the good ones are, and who the bad ones are, so again a court is the way to do it. So a court is not simply something a lawyer advocates out of economic self-interest. A court is something a lawyer advocates out of despair of any other solution working, it becomes the only one that does work, and the good thing about a court is accountability, transparency and reason. ”
Chair (Lt. General McMahon): “I would like to thank, on your behalf, Philip and Austen for presenting a perspective, or indeed shades of a perspective, on this issue, and I will now switch to my left hand side and introduce the first of two speakers. I should thank Philip and Austen in that Philip came in two minutes under, and Austen came in three minutes over, so you won’t be here all night!
“I’m moving on. The first speaker is Michael Hamilton: again a legal background – currently at the School of law, University of Ulster. He’s lectured widely on human rights law and parades and the theories of public order. He’s closely followed the work of the Parades Commission and is a founder member of the working group on freedom of assembly. I would ask you to welcome Michael Hamilton.”
3. Dr. Michael Hamilton (Research Student, University of Ulster):
“Thank you very much. I must admit I’m feeling slightly confused ….unless I’m mistaken the council of war is in Hillsborough, not down here! And I think what is slightly unfortunate in the debate we’ve had so far is that the focus has been more on the Human Rights Commission, and that the Parades Commission, which was the thrust behind Quigley’s recommendations, has got off somewhat lightly. So I’d like to couch my remarks more in terms of the recommendations that Quigley has made and the implications of those for the Parades Commission. As has been said, Quigley arose out of the Weston Park Talks and that has in many ways coloured the responses to the Quigley Report because Quigley was perceived – and accurately perceived – to be a concession, as Austen has said, to David Trimble and to Unionism.
Reviews of the Parades Commission: “Before I go any further, I should say that the Quigley Review was actually the third review of the Parades Commission within the last three and a half years. We had, first of all, the Northern Ireland Office review which came to very little, then a review conducted by the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee, and then the Quigley Review. And this constant state of being under review has, I think, presented difficulties of its own because it’s led some people to persuade themselves that the Parades Commission is something of a lame duck: that it’s about to be put down, and that therefore there’s no point in engaging with it.
Assessing progress: “I’d like to begin really by asking the question: how do you measure the success of the Parades Commission? How do you gauge whether the parades issue has moved forward at all? …(tape break) … … A survey was conducted in the early part of 2001 on attitudes to the Parades Commission, and that survey revealed that 35% of Catholics and 8% of Protestants felt that the Commission had improved the situation – not a great number – with 50% of Protestants and 14% of Catholics believing that the Parades Commission had actually made the situation worse. You could also look at the number of parades that are held every year, the number of parades that are deemed contentious every year, but if you look at those over the last few years, as Philip pointed out, the numbers did increase significantly once the Parades Commission was instituted. But that, to my mind, comes down more to how you define what is a contentious parade. If you look at the numbers over the last five years, there’s very little to be gained in terms of determining a trend or an overall improvement in the situation.
“Another way to assess progress would be to look at the cost of policing, or to look at the average number of man-hours worked by the police overtime during July. And if you look at those figures over the last three years there is a slight downward trend, which would suggest that things may be improving. Nonetheless, the Chief Constable last year said that it would cost £6.5 million to put police officers and equipment along the route of contested parades. So, by any assessment, the issue isn’t solved.
Quigley Report: “Moving onto the Quigley Report itself, undoubtedly one of its greatest weaknesses is its very complexity, and it would be impossible in – I thought I was going to have 20 minutes – but in 12 minutes to outline all the recommendations of Quigley, let alone comment on all the recommendations. So I’ll try and concentrate on Quigley’s main criticisms of the current arrangements, and say something about his recommendations as I go along. Philip has actually summarised the process of what Quigley recommends quite well. I’ve done a diagram which tries to put in one page the process that Quigley recommends [see appendix].
Quigley recommendations:
“First of all he suggested there should be an extension of the notification period for parades from the current 28 days to 6 months. And, after a parade has been notified, then, under his proposals, objections to the parade have to be registered within a month.
Then what happens is what Quigley calls one of his new bodies, the Parades Facilitation Agency, which might be regarded by some as an unfortunate choice of name. The Parades Facilitation Agency which, even under Quigley, would draw largely from the current Parades Commission Authorised Officers, but which is entirely separate from the adjudicatory body – and I’ll say a bit more about the arguments between separating the adjudication and the mediation functions in a moment or two. But that body begins a period of facilitation and it is hoped that will get underway at least 5 months before the parade is due to take place.
What I think actually Quigley does is he overstates the quiescence of the Parades Commission as it currently works, because the Authorised Officers at the moment don’t wait until a parade is notified before they go and talk to the various parties. And so the reason that Quigley extends the notification period to 6 months doesn’t, I think, stand up itself.
“Then what happens is that a report from the Chief Facilitation Officer goes to the adjudicatory panel – and Philip mentioned that in securing the rights that are so often talked about it seems that the loyal orders are the ones having to jump through all these hoops, and yet the residents only have to jump through one or succeed at one stage. In actual fact, this Chief Facilitation Officer’s report requires both parties to demonstrate their good faith efforts to engage, or at least, if it’s not direct engagement, to have been involved in the facilitation process and to participate in a manner designed to resolve the issues.
“Then, as Austen has highlighted, if no agreement is reached there’s an open hearing – and Austen alluded to the fact that this was more of a court-like setting. This openness is something which I think Quigley has got exactly right. While I wouldn’t be very keen at all for it to go down a very legalistic route, provide jobs for lawyers, even though the Quigley Review has recommended the chief commissioner be appointed by the Lord Chancellor, it does offer a more open and transparent way of dealing with the issues. And at that open hearing the police would have a role to comment and answer questions, because both the parties would be obliged to present their case at this hearing.
“The determination of the Rights Panel, which is what Quigley calls the adjudicatory body, would be issued 28 days before the parade is due to take place, which can be contrasted with the current arrangement where it’s 5 working days and sometimes less. And then it would be 14 days for a protest to be notified, and after that the police could restrict the parade further on public order grounds – I’ll come back to that in just a moment.
Local accommodation: “One of the main points I want to make about Quigley is that – and Philip’s right about this – he doesn’t depart at all from the policy which has underpinned the Parades Commission. He doesn’t depart from the North recommendation that, first of all, all efforts should be channelled into achieving local accommodation, and the determination should only be issued as a last resort, and if agreement isn’t reached between the parties.
What Quigley has got right: “The second point I want to make – and a general point about Quigley – is that overall I do agree with Quigley’s diagnosis of the problems with the weaknesses in the current set-up. What I don’t agree with are a number of his recommendations. As I said already, I think his ideas on transparency are exactly right. What he says about the Commission’s boiler-plated determinations and their indecipherability is absolutely right. What he says about the need to develop risk assessment skills, to develop stewarding, and about broadening the remit of the adjudicatory body, not just to include parades but to enable it to also take decisions on protests. Those are all things which I think Quigley has got right.
Difficulties with Quigley: “But I do have difficulty with the separate structures that he creates: this Rights Panel and the Parades Facilitation Agency, and, in particular, the difficulty with the role he ascribes to the police.
Criteria for determinations: “Under the Public Processions Act – the current legislation – the Parades Commission have to consider 5 criteria when they’re arriving at their determination: 1) the impact of the parade on community relations, 2) the potential for public disorder, 3) the potential for disruption, 4) the compliance of the paraders with the Code of Conduct, and, 5) the desirability of allowing a parade customarily held along a particular route to continue to be held along that route. All Quigley does is that he recommends that those criteria be dropped and replaced by the 4 criteria, in a sense, that come from Article 11(2) of the European Convention, which Austen has already outlined.
Article 11 criteria: “So what you would have now, in place of those 5 criteria, are:
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Public order and public safety, and I would put those two more of a likeness rather than the public safety and national security.
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The impact of a parade on relationships within the community, or, sorry that’s wrong: the impact of the parade on the rights and freedoms of others.
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Thirdly, the impact on health and morals which isn’t likely to raise itself.
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And, fourthly, the national security grounds.
“And I think that Quigley’s absolutely right in recommending this change because at the moment what you have are two sets of criteria which aren’t always easy to align with one another and it leads to confusion. Ultimately the Parades Commission has to act in a way which is compatible with the European Convention. So it makes sense, as Quigley has concluded, that the criteria be modelled purely on the European Convention rights.
“And I could say a lot more about the implications of that – the fact that we will lose the impact on community relations criteria, and we’ll lose the traditionality criteria, but I don’t have time to do that, maybe in questions we might. So Quigley’s right to recommend the changes to the criteria.
Guidelines Document: “He’s also right, I think, to suggest that the Commission’s guidelines – the Commission’s required to produce three statutory documents, one of those being a guidelines document which explains how the Commission will interpret the statutory criteria – and this is where I think that some of the confusion arises about the role of the Human Rights Commission in clarifying a possible Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland, how the rights might be interpreted. To my mind the best way of clarifying how the different rights – and Philip’s absolutely right: in all the determinations that the [Parades] Commission issues, the Commission does simply pay lip-service to a whole host of rights: Article 8, the right to privacy, Article 1 of Protocol 1, the right to peaceful enjoyment of one’s possessions, sometimes even Article 2, the right to life. And the Parades Commission hasn’t yet clarified how exactly it interprets those different rights, and, rather than that being done in a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland, to my mind the best place for that to be done and worked out is in the guidelines document which the Parades Commission itself produces.
“And the Commission has recently funded a working group which the Human Rights Commission and the Parades Commission had observers sitting on. It was run under the auspices of Democratic Dialogue. We had lengthy discussions about how the different rights should be interpreted in the particular context of Northern Ireland.
Separation of facilitation and adjudication: “I’ll move swiftly on, because time is quickly running out, to talk about the facilitation function which Quigley talks about. The question of the relationship between the adjudicatory function and the mediation function of the Parades Commission is one of the most vexed issues – it’s one that I arrive at one conclusion today and possibly if you ask me again tomorrow, I’d have swung quite the other way. But what Quigley recommends is that the only link between the facilitation function – which is the mediation and other such efforts – and the adjudicatory function, would be this report from the Chief Facilitation Officer, and that is only a report which says whether or not the parties have agreed, and the extent to which they have tried to find a solution in good faith. The report crucially doesn’t say anything about the substance of any dialogue which might have taken place – whether it’s been shuttle dialogue or direct dialogue – and the problem with this idea is that Quigley tries to separate the two functions. The reason which is always suggested for separating the functions is that because the mediation, the Authorised Officers of the Commission, report to the Commission at the moment, the only reason that people might get involved in the mediation process is because they want to carry favour with the adjudicatory body. It’s kind of a box–ticking exercise. So by separating the two functions you take away at least that motivation for getting involved in the mediation process. And it also means that, if the Parades Commission were to come out with a determination which upset one or other of the parties, if the two processes were separate that would have less potential to undermine any ongoing mediation process.
Conversely, the arguments for keeping the two processes linked are that, unless there’s a link between the two processes, parties have no incentive to get involved in mediation. And while it’s a somewhat perverse argument it actually does reflect the situation. And what I think that Quigley has done is that he hasn’t gone really down either one of these two routes because of the Chief Facilitation Officer reports, and he hasn’t gone for separation, he hasn’t gone for continued linkage in the way that we have at the moment. And what he does, I think, is sow the seeds of misconception which he says himself he’s trying to dispel.
Reactions to Quigley: “I want to just come back to the question I started with at the beginning when I asked how you evaluate progress of the Parades Commission. I said that reactions to Quigley have largely been coloured by the fact that it came out of Weston Park, and the Orange Order have had an ambivalent reaction to it. On their website their first comment was “it’s an important step in the right direction”, and they congratulated Quigley on his implicit finding that the Parades Commission has failed. Quigley doesn’t say the Parades Commission has failed. From the nationalist perspective, there’s been a very strong knee-jerk reaction which has, in a sense, been very critical of Quigley, and again I suggest that’s largely because of where it came from. Mark Durkan for example said that the recommendations were “totally unacceptable, ill-conceived and unworkable”, and what I’d like to suggest is that neither of those reactions is particularly helpful.
We were talking about progress. Neither too are the statistics particularly helpful. Frank Wright once commented, when he was characterising the relationships in the North as being about communal deterrence. He said that “deterrence does not gradually melt into trust despite there being periods without overt violence”. So, even though parades aren’t getting the same front page headlines they once were, I would suggest that this would caution all those working to resolve parade disputes against complacency.
“There are important things which Quigley does recommend which can be taken forward and which can improve the situation. But, given that the recommendations have now been put back until 2005 by the Northern Ireland Office, there are equally important measures that need to be taken by the Parades Commission in this two-year stay of execution if you like. Thank you.”
Chair: “Ladies and gentlemen, our final speaker tonight is Brice Dickson, currently Chief Commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. His background is legal and academic… He’s published extensively on the legal system of Northern Ireland, on comparative law and human rights. He’s author of a book on the European Convention on Human Rights and contributed a Northern Ireland chapter to the UK text Human Rights Law and Practice. I would ask you to welcome Brice.”
4. Brice Dickson (Chief Commissioner, NI Human Rights Commission):
“Thank you very much, Chairman, and can I thank the Meath Peace Group for the invitation to be here again. This is not my first visit, and I’m very pleased to be back and I’d like to congratulate the group on all the very fine work it does.
Human Rights Commission: “I will be short. I think I will not take my 10 minutes, largely because I’m grateful to Michael for his returning us to the actual recommendations of the Quigley Report and away from the rhetorical presentations we had from Philip and Austen. I heard very much the same from a colleague of Philip’s, and from Austen himself, when all of us were at a conference organised by the Orange Order about this time last year. I’m sorry to say that I’m still hearing the misrepresentations of the Human Rights Commission today that I heard then. The Human Rights Commission promotes and protects the rights of everyone in Northern Ireland without fear or favour.
“We are not cowardly, we do not act in a disgraceful way, Philip. We are not lovers of terrorism, and that is the kind of language which costs lives in Northern Ireland.”
Philip Black: “Sorry, that was a [unclear] reference, I don’t know if you picked it up?”
Brice Dickson: “I might have misheard you.”
Chair: “I would prefer if the discussion could take place, perhaps we’ll interweave it with the questions.
Philip Black: “My apologies.”
Brice Dickson: “The Human Rights Commission is against violence. We all of us on the Commission are against violence. We work hard to reduce the amount of violence in Northern Ireland. The Bill of Rights document we issued was a bona fide attempt to do what we were required to do under the Northern Ireland Act and the Good Friday Agreement.
European Convention on Human Rights: “As Austen has reminded us, the European convention on Human Rights is part of our law in Northern Ireland, unfortunately not yet in the Republic – the only country in Europe where it is not yet part of the law – and the starting point therefore in all of this must be Article 11 of the European Convention. In the analysis that was done for the Human Rights Commission of the way in which the European Court has applied Article 11 – done by Michael and other colleagues – very useful information was supplied on the principles which the judges in Strasbourg have used. We in the Human Rights Commission endorsed that analysis, and one reason why we think we’re justified in endorsing that analysis, and in saying that Article 11 should be the test and is the test that is currently applied in Northern Ireland, is that all the challenges to the courts in Northern Ireland against determinations by the Parades commission have, to my knowledge, failed. If the Parades Commission is doing a bad job, if the European Convention standard is being misapplied, if Article 11(2) is being distorted, then no judge in Northern Ireland has been persuaded to that. And Austen may think it’s just an accident that when he and others put those arguments to the judges they disagree. It may be that they disagree because you, Austen, are wrong. It may be that the law is on the judges’ side and that they are applying it properly.
Human Rights Commission response to Quigley Report: “To return to the particular recommendations of Quigley, the Human Rights Commission has not yet made its formal response to Quigley. We will be doing so in the next couple of weeks, and therefore anything I say should not be taken as a definitive representation of what we’re going to be submitting to Quigley.
Facilitation and determination: “But it is likely that we are going to say that it is a good idea to separate the facilitation function from the determination function, partly for the reasons that Michael has given.
Notification period: “It’s likely we’re going to say that to require people who are organising marches to give notice of doing so 6 months ahead of time is both unrealistic and unnecessary.
Protests against marches: “It’s likely that we’re going to say that it’s good that the facilitation and determination agencies should look at protests against marches as well as at marches themselves, provided of course that leaves open the possibility for spontaneous protests against other things that might be happening in society, such as the war in Iraq at the moment.
Transparency: “It’s likely we’re going to say that it is good that there would be greater transparency in the work of the facilitation agency and determination agency. Copies of all objections to protests are going to be made available to the organisers of the procession, and can therefore be scrutinised in a more effective way than at the moment. It is possible to argue – and I said this last year at the Orange Order event – that the current system denies the organisers of processions the proper right under Article 6 of the European Convention to challenge the objections being made to those marches.
Duration of determinations: “It’s likely that the Human Rights Commission is going to say that the determination agency should not be making determinations for as long a period as 5 years. Things have changed very quickly in Northern Ireland and to try to concretise or finalise things for as long a period as 5 years is, I think we’re going to say, inappropriate.
Promotion of greater understanding: “The Human Rights Commission has already said that the Parades Commission has not done enough, as it is required to do under statute, to promote greater understanding of issues concerning public processions amongst the general public. So we’d like more of that outreach work to be done, and, insofar as the facilitation agency will achieve that that would be a good thing.
No right not to be offended: “We are going to emphasise – as we have done and as I have done on many occasions – the fact that there is no right not to be offended. People cannot legitimately stop a march by saying that the march would offend them. When you live in a democracy you expect to be offended, that is the essence of a democracy. There must be views that offend you. Once those views, of protests or marches or whatever they, are spill over into violence, or incitement to violence or hatred, then the law can legitimately step in to curb the speech or the march. And that’s the position of the Human Rights Commission.
Right to respect for honour and recognition of dignity: “There is one proposal in the Quigley report that hasn’t yet been mentioned tonight, and that is that Article 11, by replacing the criteria which Michael went through in section 8(6) of the Public Processions Act, Article 11 should be supplemented by a provision saying that “in the exercise of their right to freedom of peaceful assembly all have a right”, or the law should say that all have a right, “to have their honour respected and their dignity recognised” and that they must themselves “respect the honour and recognise the dignity of others”. Now the Human Rights Commission is currently discussing that, and I think it’s fair to say there is disagreement within the Commission as to whether we should endorse that or not. Personally, I would endorse that, because the whole concept to me of human rights is based on the fundamental principles of honour, and respect for honour and dignity. And it’s only when we get those values embedded in our society in Northern Ireland that we’ll be able to move forward in a way that allows us to live harmoniously, or at least more harmoniously together.
Record of Human Rights Commission: “I’m going to stop there, Chairman, but I would just like to emphasise the point that it’s easy to knock a body like the Human Rights Commission. It’s easy to pick one aspect of its work and say that shows that it’s completely out of order or doing a terrible job. I would submit – I would say this wouldn’t I, given my position? – I would submit that any objective analysis of what the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission has done over the last four years – for we have been up and running four years unlike the Commission in this part of the island which has only been up and running for a matter of months – that all we’ve done has been unbiased, has been done in good faith and has been done in accordance with the international standards on human rights. Thank you.”
QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS [SUMMARIES ONLY]
Chair (Lt. General McMahon): “Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank the four speakers on your behalf, and thank them doubly for keeping to the time constraints because military people are always hung up on time, so you’ll have to bear with me, that’s my cross.
“I would move on now to the question and answer session and discussion. I would like to indicate to you how I intend to run this: I will ask for questions from the floor, I will ask if any of you wish to ask a question in a certain area. I would then ask if anybody else, who was about to ask almost the same question – one in the same general area – if you’ll come in at that stage as well. So I can take them in threes and fours. Otherwise, we could be here all night. The mike will be removed from me and will go around so again I would ask you to use the mike. Some of us are a bit deaf! And I would also ask that we would have no speeches. We have spoken tonight about the rights of others, we’ve had four speakers, so just the question please. And finally, on the matter of introducing yourself before you ask the question, or remaining anonymous, I don’t care, whatever you want. So I would open the floor now to questions…”
Q. 1. “I would like to thank the panel for a tremendous display here tonight of knowledge. But I’d just like to put one point. I’m up from the country, and I travel the country a lot, they say when you have to go to law, and you have to go through the rigours of the courts and interrogation, you’ve already substantially lost the battle. And I ‘d just make a point, perspectives and realities, and the harsh interface of history, creates a lot of problems for all sorts of reasons. And I’d just like to bring in Saint Patrick, frozen and starved on the hill of Slemish, and one hundred years after he came, we were in the Dark Ages of Europe… [tape unclear] I would just like to ask the panel ….. if love is not generated in a society in a collective capacity… if that doesn’t happen, if that isn’t manifested in a generosity of spirit, surely we’re heading into more difficult times, which maybe the present times don’t allow. I’d like to ask the panel, on that particular element, bearing in mind that we’re entitled to Christian healing, could we not explore the possibilities from this side of the equation? Thank you very much indeed.”
Chair: “Thank you. We had another questioner here but unless it’s in the same area, I’ll take you in a moment. Is there anybody else who would like to ask a question in that general area?”
Q. 2. Roger Bradley (member of Education Committee, Grand Orange Lodge): “I was very interested in what that gentleman behind me had to say. First of all, may I introduce myself. I’m Roger Bradley, and probably I’m the only other Orangeman that’s in the room. Any others raise your hand please! [laughter] I belong to a lodge called The Cross of St. Patrick, and I was quite taken by the reference to St. Patrick that was made behind me. We are devoted to cherishing the memory of St. Patrick, and to try to follow his teachings that are recorded in his own writings, and if you haven’t read the Confessio or the Letter to the soldiers of Coroticus, I’d recommend you do that, it is entirely biblical. But I was also interested in four words that Professor Dickson actually made reference to: offence, honour, dignity and respect. I’d like to give a simple example and ask a question: in what way can my honour and my dignity and my respect be afforded, and in what way can I not cause offence? … The example is quite simple, and it’s a recent example. My lodge, the Cross of St. Patrick, wanted to hold a church service in Saul Memorial Church. The Cross of St. Patrick was dedicated in Saul Memorial Church in 1968. It’s our spiritual home, if you like. It’s where we return to, we have been banned from that church. We’re not wanting to hold a parade. My lodge is a small lodge, under 20 members. I visited Saul Memorial Church last Sunday afternoon to remind myself of what the lie of the land was like. It’s very rural, it sits in a copse on Saul hill. If my lodge were inside the grounds of the church, I don’t think anybody would see us, never mind even know we were there. But as a lodge, I am being deprived of what I regard as my birthright – to go to my spiritual home, where my lodge was actually dedicated. The church has not permitted us to hold a service in the church, and that may be their right to do that. That may be the right of the select vestry to do that, I don’t challenge that.
But the question is: how can I have my dignity and my honour respected, and am I causing offence? Thank you very much.”
Chair: “We had one other question in that area I thought…at the very back.
Q. 3. James McGeever (Cavan): “The Decree on Religious Freedom of Vatican II suggested that the right to religious freedom should be recognised as a human right, and in that regard I’d like if Philip could confirm if the Portadown Orangemen consider that when they’re parading are they giving witness to their cross and faith, and are they giving witness to their determination to defend it? Because, if the answer is “yes”, it seems to me that the Declaration on Religious Freedom of Vatican 11 would defend the right to march unhindered along the Garvaghy Road. If I could read out the relevant section ….
Chair: “How long will it take? … Could we cut it to thirty seconds, please?
James McGeever: “Yes. ‘All men should be immune from coercion on the part of individuals, social groups… and every human power so that, within due limits, no one is forced to act against his convictions, nor prevented from acting according to his convictions, in religious matters, in private or in public, alone or in association with others’, and the only precondition that I can see there is the responsibility for the church requirements to be honoured….”
Chair: “Thank you very much. Anybody else in that general area? We have had three questions and three mini statements. They were in the area of Christianity, which we all share, I think, dignity, respect for one another, not giving offence. That basket of questions which are very thought-provoking. I would ask the panel perhaps to comment briefly, starting with Philip.
Philip Black: “Well, the questions that have been asked, particularly the last one, really raise a very important principle. And we haven’t really talked tonight about Article 9 of the European Convention, which is the right to manifest one’s religion, which sounds almost the same as what the Vatican II statement from the Pope said, and I appreciate that and respect it. When the Order goes out to parade, especially, and more so when it is a church parade, for example like the Drumcree church parade, they are going out to manifest and to protest their Protestant religion. They’re carrying banners which carry the Christian message, which carry biblical scenes, which carry quotations from the Bible. Now it is perhaps a slightly different flavour of Christianity than that from most of the people in this room. But it’s still Christianity, and I would have thought that in a Christian country, as we would claim to be both in Northern Ireland and south of the border, that should be respected without let or hindrance. When the brethren wish to, they go to their church service and they then wish to return from it along the main route which they have always gone down. Their banners carry no offence to anyone and certainly not to anyone who is a Christian. They parade with one accordion band with little girls, and they play hymn tunes, and that cannot be seen, as far as I see it, as an offence to anyone. And it is really sad to think that in a Christian country there are those who would oppose that peaceful manifestation of one’s religion and wish to prevent it.
“Sadly, there are people like that, I’m sure there aren’t any in this room tonight but until we have dealt with that problem and we have engendered an atmosphere of tolerance for the views of others, that Professor Dickson has been talking about, then we’re not going to move forward very fast. But we must work at engendering that respect, and that’s certainly what we endeavour to do in the Orange Order, and certainly we endeavour to do in the other organisation I’m in which is the Ulster Human Rights Watch.”
Chair: “Austen, would you like to comment in the general area?
Austen Morgan: “I’ll pass because by the time I get round trying to explain how little I know about these issues, I’ll have wasted a lot of time!”
Chair: “Michael?”
Michael Hamilton: “Thank you General. I’d like to go back just to the way the initial question was phrased, to say that ‘by the stage we go to law, we’ve lost the battle’. And I think that’s exactly right. In a sense, that’s the premise on which the Parades Commission was founded and it’s only to intervene as a last resort. The legal intervention only comes in when we have, in a sense, lost the battle. And it brings the question round to what is the purpose of human rights? And we do get a lot of human rights talk, whether it’s the 17th century rhetoric or its more 21st century less rhetoric, we do get a lot of it in Northern Ireland. And my answer to the question is really that the purpose of human rights is, as Brice has said, to secure the respect and the dignity of the human being. What human rights do though, are only a minimal standard. They fall far short of the love, the Christian love, that people are talking about, and I think that’s perhaps the most important aspect of the clause that Brice had read out of the Quigley Report, in terms of securing honour, respect and dignity, what it also says in the second half of the sentence is that those asking for their dignity and honour to be respected must themselves respect the honour and recognise the dignity of others. So it’s a mutual recognition. And what human rights can do in that struggle for recognition, if you like, is to provide a floor, but by no means should human rights be regarded as a ceiling.”
Brice Dickson: “Just to endorse that, chairman. I think it was Martin Luther King who said that the law can punish us for hating people or taking steps that lead to violence, but it can’t force us to love one another. That, as Michael said, has to be a spiritual thing. I don’t know the details of your case Roger, concerning Saul. The church being a private institution can decide of itself whether to allow any march or –
Roger Bradley: “I’ve accepted that …It wasn’t going to be a parade. We were just going to have a service. We’re only 20 in numbers…. It’s a small church…”
Brice Dickson: “But are you saying that the Parades Commission denied you the right to march to the church?”
Roger Bradley: “No, it’s the church”
Brice Dickson: “Well, even private institutions can be caught in a way by the Human Rights Act, as we know. The newspaper industry has, I’m glad to say, been caught by the Human Rights Act, so potentially there would be a case there. If you want to bring it to us, we’ll have a look there for you.”
Roger Bradley: “I might take you up on that”.
Chair: “We had a question from the back which was not in the area that we’ve just covered, so I’ll give you an opportunity.”
Q.4 John Feighery. “My name is John Feighery. I’d like firstly to congratulate the Meath Peace Group for bringing such excellent speakers and I thank them for coming such a distance. My question is particularly directed to Philip Black and it is more in the area of psychology than either law or politics. I think that we’d all agree that there is an absolute right, in principle, to parade in favour of your beliefs, or religion, or whatever. And I was very disturbed by what he said about the fact that when this became an issue – that it was politically contentious – there was a great increase in the number of such parades …..
“Now, my question really relates to the whole phenomenon of parades, because, unless I’m greatly mistaken this is a relatively unique characterisation of Northern Ireland. I’ll give you an example of a where I’m coming from. As a Christian, I frankly would not care very much … if the St. Patrick’s Day parade became an issue in contention, whether in Ireland or abroad, I would think it’s not worth it, honouring the saint, honouring the national day, to allow division and hatred and maybe chaos. And speaking even more specifically – and I’m a Catholic priest – I would not believe that it was worth the candle, the incense, the banners, if, in the name of religion, I encouraged a parade or a procession which was causing sectarian strife. I would simply say the time has passed, it’s not appropriate.
“Now what I would like Mr. Black to explain to us is: why it is so important in the loyalist tradition to continue with parades? Because I think that, while obviously political liberty, religious liberty must be defended and must be expressed, can this not be done in a more private way, in schools, in political organisations? Even at a more personal level, in clubs, in houses, in football matches?
“Why is it so important to proceed along a public way knowing that you are going to pass through areas where you will not be welcome? Now I respect Mr. Black’s convictions but I don’t share his psychology and I would like him to explain.”
Chair: “Any more questions in that general area? Roger, perhaps, as the only other Orangeman in the company tonight, you would come in as well, but there were two or three others with questions in the same area, please.”
Q. 5. Anne McQuillan. “My name is Anne McQuillan, I’m a member of the SDLP, actually I’m the constituency chair for Fermanagh /South Tyrone. …… I made a few notes before I came and since I’ve been here … so here’s number one …. Are the Protestant ethos and the Orange Order synonymous? Also, if it’s a religious order, as you proclaim, why can any member sit by rights on the Ulster Unionist Council? And Professor [Brice Dickson], I’d like to say to you that I think you do very good work and I know that your Human Rights Commission is very much underfunded. Now we have had this problem in our village of Newtownbutler in Co. Fermanagh, and it seems to me that it comes down to this: why can they not talk, why can the two sides not talk together? I’ve been involved in the discussions every year, and every year mediation groups come and do a very good job, meet the two groups separately, but the Orange Order will not meet the residents’ groups, and it seems to me that an awful lot of trouble and an awful lot of money could be saved if they would. It also seems to me that the present [Parades] Commission does a perfectly good job without having to employ fairly expensive judges and so forth. But again I’ll come back to it and it seems to me the crux of the matter, if the two parties would meet face to face and would explain their objections to one another, this thing could be settled without the trouble that it causes …”
Chair: “Anybody else in that general area? We’re in the area of parades, religion, Protestant ethos, and we’ve gone a little bit in “Why don’t the two sides talk?”
Q. 6. Marie MacSweeney. “My name is Marie MacSweeney. I belong to a small but growing minority in this country. To put it into context: I think it’s not just about Catholic or Protestant. I am a theologically educated convinced unbeliever, and my feelings and my sensibilities are hardly ever taken into account in any part of this island … I have two questions, one is for Professor Dickson. You talked about challenging objections ……so I was just wondering in what way do you see this happening? …….To challenge the objections, especially those of the bussed-in people whose feelings are hurt? How can they be challenged?
“The second question is for Austen Morgan To put it into context: the first speaker talked about the Quigley Report being ambiguous. But I put it to him that, for very many people who look at the Orange marches with as much openness as possible, they appear to be ambiguous. I see them as sometimes as religious rights asserted in a public way, at other times they appear to be political rights asserted under the cover of religion. I’d like to ask Austen Morgan, when he made his recommendations, I think it was the ninth or tenth recommendation you mentioned … you said that you recommended that the Orange Order eschew politics entirely …….I just wanted to see how that recommendation was received. Thank You.”
Q. 7: Mick McCarthy. “My name is Mick McCarthy from Co. Cork. Just on the issue of parades. Down in Cork, watching the ‘Troubles’ develop, we saw what we thought was a sort of territorial and pseudo-tribalism often accompanied by louts and all sorts of criminal types fuelled often by drink and drugs, whatever about religious convictions and beliefs. And I’d just like to say one thing. I’ve often discussed it down in Cork, it’s a very scenic area, and people have often said…. that if people agreed to a peaceful, orderly and respectful parade of rights, it’s a lovely part of the world, we would invite anyone down and they could have a parade …because the thing seems to be locking tighter and becoming more intense and wearing people and communities down with all sorts of external agendas…..”
Q. 8: Rev. John Clarke, Rector of Navan. “My name is Canon John Clarke, Church of Ireland Navan union of parishes. In relation to the first question that came in this particular batch, in relation to parades to church services. They may be very much a part of the ethos of Protestantism in Northern Ireland. I live right here in the Republic of Ireland and it’s probably dangerous to speak on matters in other parts, but, with the exception of Kilmore diocese as a young boy, I was never at a service where there was an Orange aspect to that service. I recall one occasion being at one, when I was probably 4 or 5. I remember the sashes in the front row. Apart from that, I have served my entire ministry I the Church of Ireland and I have never found a need to profess my faith through the Orange Order. I see it as no consequence whatsoever to the faith that I profess, I see it as no consequence to the Church of Ireland. It may be to Protestantism in Northern Ireland. I can’t see that it is much similar here ….. It certainly plays no part, no part whatsoever, in the faith I profess, and it’s nothing got to do with the Church of Ireland as far as I’m concerned.”
Chair: “Thank you very much. I will offer that basket of questions to the panel, plus Roger if he would like to come in, and I’ll start with Philip.
Philip Black: “Thank you Mr. Chairman. I think your method of basketing the questions together, and a chairman’s job is very difficult, but it does mean by the time I’ve listened to the last question, I’ve practically forgotten what the first one said. But to the gentleman over there, who said “why do we have to parade?” Well I would say to him: I don’t tell you how to practice or manifest your religion and I would expect you to give the same respect to myself. And if there is discord which arises out of a peaceful religious parade, then we must look at those who are caught in the discord, and if it’s not the paraders who are causing it, then in any properly run democratic society it should be those who are causing the trouble and who are attacking the parade who are dealt with. That should not be, violence should not be something which should stop people peacefully going about their business.
Newtownbutler: “There was a lady from Newtownbutler, a very good example, because in Newtownbutler over the past few years because of violence, or the threat of violence, the orders in Newtownbutler have been permitted to walk to church but they have not been permitted to walk back again. That was until the Sunday before the Twelfth when a parade did get going back from church, a very reasonable thing in any society you might think. At that parade there was violence, there were death threats to those who were parading, there were things thrown at the paraders. There were remarks which I won’t repeat here like “go on, you Orange b…s, and other less savoury remarks. Two of the people in the parade had been intimidated out of Newtownbutler by the IRA. They received verbal death threats in that parade. Now I don’t think that’s a very savoury state of affairs, but look at the aftermath. Two weeks later, or three weeks later, there was an exactly similar parade – the first one had been the Orange Order, the second was the Black Institution – but it was comprising more or less the same people and again it was a parade to church. And the parade back was banned by the Parades Commission. And It was banned because of the violence which had taken place, which had not come from the paraders but had come from those who had opposed the parade in a violent way. This is so contrary to normal justice or toleration that I really don’t think anybody could defend that.
“You did talk about “why can’t we talk to those who oppose us?” In Newtownbutler we have the Newtownbutler Area Residents Association. They call it the Area Residents Association because most of the people do not come from Newtownbutler itself, so that they have to talk about the Newtownbutler area. But the residents’ association has Sinn Féin in it. Despite all of this, shuttle mediation went on all last year up until coming up to the July period, actually through the Revd Brian Crowe [an authorised officer of the Parades Commission], because the loyal orders would not talk directly to these people. And I have a record of that negotiation because we were called in and, although the orders don’t go to the Parades Commission, under my hat – the Ulster Human Rights Watch – I went to the Parades Commission and also Brian Crowe. But the record of that negotiation was that it appeared that the people on the residents’ group were not interested in real negotiation. Each time an issue was put up and it was dealt with by the loyal orders they brought up another issue and another, and when they’d exhausted those they went back to the start. Now that’s one of the practical reasons why negotiation does not succeed with people who have no wish to make it succeed, and who only want to use that negotiation in order to deny you your rights, and in fact it’s one of the basic flaws. I know that Austen here is a – I won’t say a Quigley groupie – but he sees such merit in the Quigley Report. But that is one of the basic flaws which is carried on from North: that people who want to peacefully protest, who have not offered any violence, are expected to negotiate with those who are, in many cases, supporters of terrorism, and who, if they do not get their way, will attack the parade as they did in Newtownbutler. So that’s a semi-answer, not perhaps a very full answer about talks.
Protestant ethos: “Whether the Orange Order is identical with the Protestant ethos, well, all I can say on that one is that within the Orange Order we have a full spectrum of Protestant society in Northern Ireland both in socio/economic terms and in terms of religion. I have been in a lodge where I have sat down with country farmers and with others, and also with another gentleman who happened to be a millionaire, and I would say a multi-millionaire, and it would really impress you if – perhaps for obvious reasons like Austen you could not be at that lodge meeting – but to see the equality and respect for each other that goes on within that where a multi-millionaire is treated the same as others, and what I really started to say was that in a sense the Orange Order certainly does stand for the whole Protestant population, both in terms of rich and poor and both in terms of Protestant religion. Because you will find within it Free Presbyterians, Church of Ireland, Baptist, the whole spectrum. So in that sense the Orange Order perhaps does express the whole Protestant ethos within itself. Well, Canon John Clarke may have found no need or no relevance to the practice of his religion to be in the Orange Order. All I can say is that there are other people who do and find it a comfort, religiously inspiring and bringing themselves closer to God, and I don’t think he should deny that to others simply because he has seen no requirement for it himself. I tried to deal with all the questions, Mr. Chairman, but I may have left one or two out. “
Chair: “I think you’ve covered them more than adequately. Certainly I had them listed and you’ve hit every ball thrown in your direction…”
Anne McQuillan: “… He didn’t answer the question about the Ulster Unionist Council, that the Orangemen have a right to be on the Council.”
Philip Black: “It’s strange you should say that because we were discussing it as we came down in the car. And maybe I should leave that one to Roger if you want to deal with it.”
Chair: “I’m going to move now to Roger who is outside the panel but I appreciate very much that he has given us of his time.”
Roger Bradley: “I’ll answer this gentleman over here first of all and then I will go on to your question at the end. Well, basically we don’t set out to walk through republican areas. That’s not what we’re about. We parade because it’s our tradition, and it’s a tradition which we cherish. I’m struck that at Rossnowlagh where the Orange parade takes place it is met or supervised by two gardai at the front and maybe two at the back and that is the sum total of the security force or policing force that is required to supervise the parade. It’s easier to parade in the Republic and seemingly it doesn’t cause offence to anybody. It only seems to be in Northern Ireland that it causes offence, and I would maintain that it causes offence because it is a manufactured offence that has been created by Sinn Féin and I think that is fairly obvious to everybody. I am also struck by people who I work with – Roman Catholics I work with – who tell me “when I was a child my parents used to take me to see the parades”. So obviously in years gone by it didn’t cause offence especially when Roman Catholics were quite prominent in going to observe the parades and seemed to enjoy them. So why should that be the case 30 years ago or more but it’s not the case now? So that’s a matter of observation. It’s also interesting to note that, especially in rural areas, there was a great deal of cooperation between members of the Hibernians and members of the Orange, farmers who’d assist their Orange neighbours to attend the Twelfth July. And on the fifteenth of August the reverse was the case.
Neighbourliness: “So why has everything gone wrong? Well, I would submit that the reason why everything has gone wrong is because in this country, which is supposed to be a Christian country – and certainly in Northern Ireland there are more churches, mission halls, chapels per square mile than probably any other country in the world – but we have forgotten how to treat each other as neighbours. We have forgotten how to be neighbourly to each other, and if we learned to be neighbourly to each other we then wouldn’t have the problem that we currently have. And that is fundamentally a Christian principle. It is a Christian principle to be neighbourly. Therefore if you have routes that are unneighbourly, therefore they’re unchristian, I would suggest to you, maybe that’s something that our two clergymen in the audience might want to address. So how do we learn how to actually become neighbourly? The parading issue or problem is not an Orange Order problem, it’s not a Roman Catholic problem, it’s a societal problem. And it’s a problem because we’ve forgotten how to be neighbours and it’s as simple as that in my view.
Orange delegates on UUC: “I‘ll come to the point now about Orange delegates, I speak as an ex-Orange delegate – I am no longer an Orange delegate – from my own personal point of view, I favour the link be broken. Simply because within the Orange Order there are members of more than one political party, and I believe that the Order should seek to have an influence in all of the parties not just one. Does that answer your question?
Anne McQuillan: “Yes.”
Chair: “Could I ask Austen to come in – he had one or two demi-questions pitched in his direction.”
Austen Morgan: “Well yes, I was asked one question and I will answer it. But I want to make five points in brief.
Socially pathological society: “The first one is that the parades issue is a serious issue and it’s related to what is happening in Northern Ireland. And it remains my view that that is a place that is socially pathological. It is a society with a major problem, and the problem is not necessarily getting better. In fact I increasingly find myself using the rhetoric of tribalism and it’s a phrase a lot of commentators use about Northern Ireland, they talk about the “two tribes”. And that’s not pejorative or patronising, it’s critical. So I kept the parades issue separate from all the other stuff and only recognised a few of the connections like Weston Park, but nevertheless, it’s a symptom of a wider Northern Ireland problem and I believe that you deal with problems one by one, you recognise that they’re all inter-related.
Generosity of spirit: “The second point is the rhetoric used by one of the first speakers in the audience which was ‘generosity of spirit’. Well that’s actually a slogan of my own and all I have to say from my own personal view is: I would love if tomorrow the Garvaghy Road residents said, either face to face or across the airwaves, “we’re going to drop our objections to the Drumcree parade”, and then I would love it if the Portadown Orangemen, in a reciprocal spirit, said “well, in that case, actually we don’t want to march next year”. I would love that to happen, that’s the sort of society I’d like to live in, but I don’t actually believe it is going to happen and I don’t believe that mediation is going to get you to that solution. I do believe that a form of public regulation is the only way, and the fact that one is talking about a rather complicated from of public regulation is a degree of the measure of what the problem is about: parades in the context of a socially pathological society.
Underdogs: “The third thing is that I have no great familiarity – I did, Roger, attend Orange Order parades as a kid, and I didn’t think they were mine but I didn’t think they were anything other than well, what’s this interesting thing coming down the street? So you know part of your mythology is correct in that sense, in that I knew what they were, they weren’t mine but they were there and they didn’t offend me. The loyal orders are most definitely underdogs in terms of the system of government that Northern Ireland has. Most certainly the underdogs, and my instincts always go out to the underdogs.
Orange Order should choose to leave the UUP: “My fourth point is the answer to Marie’s question about the advice. Well, when I was in an elevated position enough to speak to the Grand Master of the Orange Order on a specific point, it was pretty obvious that the Orange Order is about Protestantism or about a version of Protestantism, and I thought as a lawyer looking at human rights that they should use not just Article 11 but Articles 9, 10 and 11 [ECHR] and that they should increasingly see themselves as a religious and a cultural and a social fraternal organisation. Now that did mean getting out of politics, and so that’s why I said the Orange Order of it’s own motion should choose to leave the Ulster Unionist party, as opposed to being kicked out of it, which would be the David Trimble view. And then, once they were out of politics, they should approach all parties – including the nationalist parties – about their religious rights. Now that is the advice I am giving from a medium distance, and it still is the advice I am giving, and I gave it knowing precisely that there were people like you two making the same point from a different position as it were. I mean it seems to me silly that there are DUP people sitting in the UUP. That just seems absurd, just as it’s silly that there used to be communists sitting in the Labour Party through the trade unions. That’s just silly.
Co-existence: “My last point is I live in London and it is wonderfully multi-cultural, it’s wonderfully multi-national and we don’t talk a lot about rights and the things that irk us continue to irk us but we don’t have a Northern Ireland response to them. Yes, we have problems in London but we do find co-existence … … So what I’m saying is that I’m not seeking to impose a London solution on Northern Ireland. But there are many different ways of existing, and Northern Ireland is a very strange form of co-existence, whether it’s in the form of sectarian violence or whether it’s in the form of peaceful co-existence or whatever. I cannot stress too much how much of a mad place I do think it is. Almost anybody who has anything to do with it ends up looking or sounding mad at the end of the day, and madness is not a congenital condition that one has to be condemned for. Madness is a condition that is perfectly treatable.”
Chair: “Thank you very much. Michael, would you care to come in?”
Michael Hamilton: “Yes, none of the questions was directed to me, but I do have a couple of points. I’ll go back to the question of ‘why don’t the parties just talk?’ It’s a position that I would have a great deal of sympathy with. I do think that much of the violence could be avoided if everybody did sit down and talk. I also think that very often people are quick to criticise the Parades Commission for failing to resolve it when they themselves don’t turn every stone in their efforts to try and resolve the disputes. At the same time, if parties don’t want to talk I don’t think that they should be forced to talk, and I don’t think that the enforced talk would necessarily bring about the resolution that we’re looking for. And I think there are other ways of going about it which don’t necessarily bring in direct engagement. One of the focuses of the Parades Commission’s time in office in a sense, which Quigley recommends should be more so, is the behaviour associated with parades – the question of stewarding, of ensuring that flags and emblems that are flown, tunes that are played, are not done in an intimidatory way. I mean it strikes me as well – and this sounds critical of the loyal orders – it’s not critical point blank because there are a lot of church parades that go ahead which don’t pose any threat, they are innocuous and inoffensive and that is, I think, accepted a lot more widely than sometimes recognised. But there seems to be this amnesia almost that when people talk about law-breakers, the violence doesn’t always come from so-called residents groups, you only have to look at Drumcree in ‘95 and ‘96 to think of where the threat of violence for overturning the police decision to go down the road came from.
European Court of Human Rights: “And Philip mentioned our report that we did for the Human Rights Commission coming to no conclusion. One of the conclusions that it actually came to was that the European Court, when it looked at this question of whether the determining body should be concerned with the source of disorder when making it’s decision, even the European Court hasn’t been concerned with the source of disorder, and the European Court has been prepared to uphold restrictions and rights even if the threat of violence comes from others. And that’s why I make the point that there is much to be developed – and the Parades Commission is uniquely positioned to do this in Northern Ireland – to maybe move beyond that perhaps inadequate understanding of what’s acceptable and what’s not.
Rights dialogue: “And the final point I just want to come to ties this up in a sense, and it’s what the value of the language of rights can be in a dialogue situation. One of the greatest problems with the Quigley Report, I think, is that he compartmentalises the different discourses. He talks about public order being the preserve of the police, the rights issues being the preserve of the Rights Panel and the mediation aspect being the preserve of the Facilitation Agency. And I think that is a fundamentally flawed way to look at the discourses, if you like, because what needs to happen, to my mind, is that rights have to infuse all the efforts to reach agreement, so a rights dialogue has to be at the centre of engagement between the parties, and it’s only when the rights issues – what are the rights and freedoms of others for example – are talked about between the parties that some of the holes in the European Convention will begin to be filled in. The historian E.P. Thompson once said in relation to the rule of law that it was an unqualified human good, because those governments who adhered to the rule of law became prisoners of their own rhetoric. And in some ways I think the value of rights is that if parties are held to account they then become prisoners of their own rhetoric.”
Chair: “Brice?”
Brice Dickson: “Again, I would endorse a lot of what Michael has just said. Taking up one of his last points about the role of the police, I think the Human Rights Commission is going to also say that Quigley is wrong in saying that the determination agency should take decisions on restrictions on the right to march but not decisions on the public order aspects of the right to march. Quigley says that should be left to the police. I think we’re going to say that that should be left to the determination agency as well. At the end of the day, if things go wrong the police must step in of course and police the parade as well as they can.
Dealing with objections: “I think there were two particular points made to me chairman, both I think coming from Marie. How to deal with the objectors? How should the determination agency deal with the objections and how should they copy them to the people who want to march? The report itself is a little bit vague to me on this. I don’t know whether Michael has got more out of it than I have, but it talks about the hearing that would take place allowing all the objections to be given to the other side and then all sides would discuss the actual objections. It doesn’t go into detail as to whether the people who made the objections, the identity and addresses of those people, would be revealed or not. Because of course that has been one of the worries in some situations. But I think if there were this hearing and if things were more transparent than they are at the moment, then the bona fides of the objectors can properly be scrutinised.
Newtownbutler: “And I do think – and I agree with Philip as regards the Newtownbutler and the Dunloy example where his group has brought this to our attention. I think there are particular cases where the Parades Commission, putting it at its lowest, has acted strangely in banning a march on the apparent evidence that there would be violence from certain objectors when there is no real evidence that there would have been violence.
But the other point that Marie made, and I would just like to endorse in this context, is that non-believers get a very raw deal in Northern Ireland, to the extent that when 14% of the population in the recent census either did not answer the question about what religion they were, or said that they had no religion, what do the people analysing those figures do? They reallocated all those people to be Protestants or Catholics! It’s ridiculous, totally ridiculous. Despite the fact that that was the biggest increase in any of the categories in that section of the census. To my mind, speaking as a non-believer myself, the sooner we get away from categorising people on the basis of their religion the better.
Chair: “Thank you, Brice. I would like to point out that your guests here tonight at the table have all long journeys ahead. It’s now 10.20, the tea may be overbrewed! What would the general feeling be? Do you think I should bring it to a close or try one more basket? Oh we have a basket of three and that’s all I’ll allow…”
Q. 9. (Dunsany resident). “Just one question. I wasn’t sure if you were agreeing or disagreeing with Quigley’s recommendations to separate the facilitation and determination functions….?”
Q. 10. Robin Bury (Reform group). “My name is Robin Bury…. I have a question about the European Convention on Human Rights. Austen, I think you said it wasn’t recognised in the Irish Constitution?
Austen Morgan: “No I said it was not in Irish law”
Robin Bury: “You mentioned the Irish Human Rights Commission was slow to get up and running, I’m just wondering why? …..”
Q. 11. (Nobber resident). “My question is a general one to the panel. I’m from Northern Ireland originally and I’m living here in the south of Ireland. My background is in sociology and the social sciences. Like Austen I would not exactly come from the Orange Order tradition, and like him marches don’t bother me, I’m quite neutral, but to me it seems it’s a matter of a sociological thing in that I feel that the Orange Order is a unique tradition, it’s unique to Northern Ireland, it’s unique in the island of Ireland, it’s unique in these islands which were formerly known as the British Isles. It’s also unique in Europe. I feel it’s all about education, and I would like to ask the gentlemen: how do they feel that they could they market the Orange Order as such, as a unique culture and identity? How could we get the nationalist population in Northern Ireland to accept it as such? I’d just like to end on a lighter note and say: I have seen Orange marches all my life in Co. Down, I have to say they have great bandsmen, they’ve fabulous uniforms and they’re great marchers, and could we not get our act together and look on them as part of our culture on the island which is now becoming multi-cultural? Thank you.”
Chair: “… Right, I’m going to reverse the order of return this time, and I will also ask Roger if he’d like to come in after Philip. So, first of all Brice.
Brice Dickson: “Thank you, Chairman. When I mentioned the European Convention and Ireland I was simply pointing out that it was the only country of all 44 – I think it is – in Europe not to have incorporated the Convention into its law. I’m not saying that the existing law is necessarily that deficient but I’m just making a general point – the European Convention has not been incorporated, and I would like people in the Republic to put pressure on the government to make sure that that happens as quickly as possible. Likewise, the Irish Human Rights Commission was supposed to have been set up as a result of the Good Friday Agreement. It is no reflection on the people who’ve been appointed to the Commission, I hasten to add, I’m criticising the Irish Government for not putting more effort into setting it up, giving it premises, giving it resources. It has been the poor relation very much in this whole scenario.
Culture and identity. “The point about culture. That reminds me that I should have said when Philip said that our Bill of Rights document has one page on the interests of his organisation, there is of course a whole chapter in the book on rights to express your culture and identity, and we’re very strong on that, and that is an important aspect of what we are recommending.
Gender equality: “We’re also recommending gender equality, and I should have pointed out that we’re supposed to have a policy not to speak on panels where there is no gender mix, so apologies for that from my point of view. We challenged the composition of the Parades Commission on the basis that there is not one woman on it, and when we got into court the judges said “yes, the Commission has to be representative of the community in Northern Ireland”, but that means so many Prods and so many Taigs, it doesn’t mean so many women and so many men. Now, until our judges recognise that there are more dimensions to identity than what religion you are, there’s no hope for Northern Ireland.
Chair: “I would point out, in defending the gender imbalance at the table, that our controller in chief, commander in chief, Julitta, is of course a woman! Right, Michael..”
Michael Hamilton: “Thank you. If I could just concentrate on the one question because I think the question as to how I would sell the Orange Order, for example, is something I think they should be doing themselves…. The question raised about the separation of the facilitation and adjudication functions. At the moment the Parades Commission has 12 authorised officers, and the 12 authorised officers work in teams of two across Northern Ireland. They are responsible for, if you like, going out and being the eyes and ears of the Commission. In a sense that’s not what they were first set up to do because they were meant to be mediating, but in practice very little mediation has actually taken place. But the danger with that arrangement is that people see the authorised officers only as the long arm of the Parades Commission, the adjudicatory body, and that therefore informs their motives for engaging with the authorised officers, so that their motives, as I said, are to curry favour with the Parades Commission rather than to reach resolution of the issue. The alternative – separation of the two functions – would mean that mediation wouldn’t just be a box-ticking exercise, and it could also I think mean that, when a determination comes out from the adjudicatory body that upsets one party or another, that that doesn’t undermine any mediation process which is ongoing. Because there is no link between the two functions. I always err towards the separation of functions, but sometimes when I hear arguments coming other ways I find it very difficult to resist. But, if you want a clear-cut black and white answer, I would vote for the separation.”
Austen Morgan: “In answer to Robin Bury’s point about what was I referring to. Well, it’s the 5th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement this week, and the UK agreed to do quite a lot of things and went ahead and did them, and the Republic of Ireland agreed to do quite a lot of things and it didn’t rush ahead to do them. But we occupy a political culture where the accusations are always made about the dilatory Brits, or the Brits who don’t do what they promised to do.
“By and large they do do what they promise to do only they do it undramatically. And a great deal of criticism could be addressed at the Irish Government for not implementing its bits of the Belfast Agreement, and one of them was that, whatever the level of human rights protection in Northern Ireland was, that would be the level of protection in the Republic of Ireland, which is a pretty rash thing to agree but they did agree to it. And they have attempted to give domestic effect to the European Convention on Human Rights, but it’s been tack-handed and we still aren’t there yet. So, when anybody this week is criticising people for not implementing the Belfast Agreement, I hope there is going to be a section of the document which first of all indicts the Government of the Republic of Ireland for not doing what it promised to do, and then the Government of the Republic of Ireland says what it is going to do and in what timescale. And I hope Sinn Féin will be as interested in getting the Republic to do what it seems to be it’s interested in getting the Brits always to do.
Marketing the Orange Order: “Now the second point I want to make is, how does one market the Orange Order? Well, that is their task and, in fact, credit is due them because some time ago, it might have been 10 years ago, they came up with the concept of “the largest folk festival in Europe”, that’s what the Twelfth of July could work towards being. And that was actually quite clever, it’s quite broad-minded and it’s quite achievable. I mean, in the days when we had Left and Right in politics the French Communist Party used to organise festivals and fetes and take over towns for a day, and, all right it was for the believers in communism who went there, but I mean these were community festivals and there was all sorts of activity and all sorts of people participated. In Germany you have other types of regional movement, again, which are exercising public rights and occupying public space, so “the largest folk festival in Europe” – that was a slogan originated by Martin Smyth – was actually showing how creative the Orange Order could be. Now, the point is, those people who are not in the loyal orders should have immediately responded positively to that and said ‘right, that’s what we want you to do, therefore this is what we’ll do if you organise a folk festival, if the Twelfth is open we’ll come along with our deck chairs and all the rest of it.’ But no, what we had was war on the Garvaghy Road, war in the Lower Ormeau and we had a very serious communal struggle where, in place of what used to be a Protestant hegemonic society there was an attempt by Catholic sectarians to create a new form of Catholic triumphalism by defining territory as Catholic and telling Protestants ‘you’ve got no rights here’. Now that, to any liberal, to any democrat, it should have just raised their anger against the residents’ groups but that’s not what happened. What happened was that the Irish Government rowed in behind the residents’ groups, the British, who were interested in peace in Northern Ireland, decided to put in a Parades Commission. The Parades Commission did the only thing it could do and that’s why we still have a problem. The problem was not solved in the early ‘90s when it arose so it has to be solved in the 2000’s.
And, finally, don’t assume Quigley is in the realm of realpolitik… [tape break]…The Irish Government and Northern nationalists are so attached to the Parades Commission that they will succeed in frustrating Quigley’s very honest and conscientious attempt to move the issue forward.
Philip Black: “I’ll be as brief as I can. Certainly one of the difficulties of the Belfast Agreement is one that Austen has referred to, that while we go ahead hell for leather in implementing its provisions in the North, it was supposed to be a balanced agreement and applied equally to the South. And certainly the Human Rights Commission I understand was originally set up with 11 members, then 9 were replaced by the Taoiseach because he didn’t like them. The first Commissioner resigned, ostensibly on health grounds, and I don’t know to what stage it’s staggered at this particular moment. But I do know that it is required because while the focus is on Northern Ireland, and human rights in Northern Ireland, you do have your human rights problems in the South. I have here a summary of a report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. They did a survey of human rights in the South in 1992 and they updated it in 2001. One of their main conclusions was “Ireland has one of the most” – and they mean the Republic of Ireland, they don’t mean Northern Ireland by the way – “Ireland has one of the most unequal societies in Europe, a political system notorious for corruption and croneyism.” Now there are many people in the South and in the North who believe in a united Ireland. Is this the sort of Ireland you’re asking us to come into and participate in?
Marketing the Orange Order: “The question from the lady over there – Austen has already referred to the folk festival and I, well I don’t take exception to her remarks but at certain stages when she was talking about a unique tradition etc., I thought she was going to propose that I be stuffed and put in a museum with an Orange collar over me so that people could come and see me in a glass case, or perhaps we’ll have to embark on a breeding programme to ensure that this unique artefact did not die out! However, I agree on the PR aspect, I mean one thing that I would admit is that we in the Order, and perhaps Protestants generally in the North, are bad at explaining themselves, and bad at saying why they are, and I hope that what Roger and I have come tonight and said to you will have helped you to understand us better.
“But the Orange Order is also a real, living and vital organisation, and particularly a religiously vital organisation, and I wouldn’t want us to be turned simply into some sort of a tourist attraction for the North or the South of Ireland, but I agree that that can and should be a component.”
Chair: “Finally, if I could ask Roger to come in”
Roger Bradley:“Just taking up Nuala’s point – the Orange Order exists not only in Northern Ireland and parts of the Republic and the rest of the UK, but also Canada, America, New Zealand, Australia, Togo and Ghana, it is currently organised in all those areas. In fact, the Grand Orange Lodge in Canada historically by far has been much larger in terms of numbers and everything else than it ever was here. That’s just by the way.
Really diversity of culture is what you are touching on and I would simply add that diversity of culture is a sign of a mature society, and the fact that the Orange Order can be tolerated in its parades in Rossnowlagh is a sign that society, at least in that part of Ireland, is more mature than it is in the part of Ireland that I live in. But we do need to actually grow as a society and mature and gain a bit of self-confidence back and tolerate each other’s culture.
One thing that I will bring home with me is how to be more welcoming? And that’s a valid point and I take that on board.
Lastly, to comment on some matters which Austen touched on. I attended a carnival in Carrickfergus just before last Twelfth, and there was an entire period costume outfit celebration around Carrickfergus Castle which was very much enjoyed by anybody who attended it, and I’m quite sure there were many Roman Catholics there as well as Protestants. It was non-threatening, it was enjoyable, it was a spectacle, it was a beautiful day, a family day and perhaps that is something that we could do more of. And certainly, across the Province, there are re-enactment societies similar to the Civil War re-enactment societies in England. There are re-enactment societies in Northern Ireland. There are ones in Co. Down, in Kilkeel .. and they dress up in period costume for the very purpose of attending events such as the one in Carrickfergus which I described. And that is something which I think could be built on in the future because we can improve the diversity of the culture that we show and that we show to others… Yes, I want to be more welcoming to everybody, and I don’t want to intimidate anybody, and I don’t want people to intimidate me. It’s back to a point I made earlier. I want to be a good neighbour to everybody and I want them to be good neighbours to me.”
CLOSING WORDS
Lt. General McMahon: “Ladies and gentlemen, I would propose now to bring matters to a conclusion. A Chair is supposed to stay above the battle. I would like to thank all the participants and you the audience for making my job so easy here tonight. I know I’m not supposed to say anything but it’s something that makes me mad: I’m at a loss to explain why the adoption of European Conventions, why legislation, and various other things is so damn slow in the Republic of Ireland. I’m just at a loss – it’s not just in human rights, it’s right across the board, and I think it’s an absolute disgrace, we should be ashamed of themselves. When I look around for somebody to blame, and I’m aware there’s three of them sitting at the table with me, I think we have an over-legalistic view of things in the Republic which seems to drag everything on ad infinitum. It isn’t just that somebody has said ‘look, let’s slow down this’. It is just a slow system and something needs to move it along. I mean, I will give you an example – we’re the only country in Europe that has refused permission for Amnesty International to visit our prisons! I mean it’s a disgrace. Now, Chairman having sat above on a cloud all night and said nothing, I apologise for the outburst. Let’s have some tea!”
ENDS
[Editor’s note: biographical notes to be added]
©Meath Peace Group 2003
Meath Peace Group Committee 2003: Julitta and John Clancy, Parsonstown, Batterstown, Dunboyne, Co. Meath; Fr. Michael Kane, An Tobar, Ardbraccan; Canon John Clarke, The Rectory, Navan; Anne Nolan, Slane; John Keaveney, Ratoath; Philomena Boylan-Stewart, Longwood; Olive Kelly, Garlow Cross, Lismullen; Leona Rennicks, Ardbraccan; Catriona Fitzgerald, Warrenstown, Kilcock; Pauline Ryan, Navan
MEATH PEACE GROUP TALKS
No. 47 – “Acts of Completion and Beyond – Beginning the Reconciliation Process“
Tuesday, 18th February 2003
St Columban’s College, Dalgan Park, Navan, Co. Meath
Speakers:
David Ford, MLA (Leader of the Alliance Party)
Cllr. Dr. Chris McGimpsey (UUP, Shankill Road, Belfast)
Trudy Miller (NI Women’s Coalition, South Down)
Cllr. Francie Molloy, MLA(Sinn Fein, Mid-Ulster)
Chaired by Andy Pollak (Director, Centre for Cross-Border Studies, Armagh
Contents:
Introduction (Andy Pollak)
Speakers’ addresses
Questions and Comments
Closing words: Andy Pollak and Julitta Clancy
Biographical notes
INTRODUCTION
Andy Pollak, Director of the Centre for Cross-Border Studies: “Thank you for inviting me to chair this session. We have a very distinguished panel here tonight. … I’m just going to say one wee tiny thing about reconciliation, because it’s a difficult term, “reconciliation”. Just to try and concentrate people’s minds a little bit: Hizkias Assefa, who is one of the international authorities on reconciliation, defines it as “honest acknowledgment of the harm or injury each has inflicted on the other, sincere regrets and remorse for the injury done, readiness to apologise, readiness to let go of the anger and bitterness, commitment by the offender not to repeat the injury, sincere effort to redress past grievances that caused the conflict and compensate for the damage caused, and entering into a new mutually enriching relationship”.
“So it’s a hard old station, reconciliation, a lot of work involved.
“So, having sort of semi- defined what is a very difficult term I’m now just going to go straight to the first speaker who is Cllr. Dr Chris McGimpsey. I’ve known Chris for many years – he is one of the most outspoken and courageous liberal unionists. He represents part of the Shankill Road area in Belfast on Belfast City Council, so when he talks about unionism and working class unionism he really knows what he is talking about….
1. Cllr. Dr Chris McGimpsey (UUP)
“Can I thank you for the invitation? It’s a great privilege always to travel across the border and speak to our friends in the other section of our island. I think it was 1981 was the first year that I went across the border, with a fair degree of youthful enthusiasm, to speak to a group in the Irish Republic – a group of nationalists. And I think that was possibly the first unionist to have done that since the famous time when John Taylor led the Queens University Young Unionists to meet with Young Fine Gael in Dublin North Central, I think it was, which would have been about 1963 or 1964, so it was about 15 or 18 years previously. Interestingly the Young Unionists from Queens got away with it and the Young Fine Gael branch were expelled or suspended by the Fine Gael leadership! So I did a lot of this, and then over the last number of years I sort of fell out of the loop with things somewhere, and people just never invited me back. Maybe something was said, I don’t know, but anyway I feel here tonight – particularly with the speakers I’m sharing a platform with, and of course Andy who’s an old hand with these things – I feel almost like a professional footballer coming out of retirement! I had a good run for 20 years and now everyone’s saying now he’s back.
Grassroots approach: “… I want to look at a couple of things … Can I take first of all the disclaimer? I’m not speaking here on behalf of the Ulster Unionist Party. I have not been given a secret text to slip into my speech by David Trimble. It may not surprise you to learn that David Trimble deals with the important issues of State within the Unionist Party – you know all those issues. My work is on the ground. I leave early in the morning because I’ve got a disability living allowance tribunal to fight, to try and get a wee man his disability living back – his allowance has been cut and he is losing £42 a fortnight. So there are different roles in politics: the role that I perform on the Shankill Road is very different from the role that others – indeed my brother [Michael McGimpsey] for example – would perform within the Ulster Unionist Party. So I’m going to give you a wee bit more of a grassroots approach. I saw my role here tonight was to make a few opening comments, give you a few ideas of where we move from here and then probably involve myself in the questions.
Pressures within Protestant working-class community: “I have over the last two to three years invested a fair bit of time in helping people who have been expelled from their homes, people who have been burnt out, people who have been shot at. I sat in a woman’s house on Friday night who was being expelled from her home by the UDA. By the way every single case I’ve dealt with – which has probably been about 150 in the past three years – have all been Protestants expelled from their homes by Protestants. We have had widespread burning out – Protestants burning Protestants out, other Protestants intimidating Protestant, Protestants shooting Protestants. This has been sort of endemic in the Shankill for the last three years. …. Friday night I spent talking to a couple … they were being expelled by the UDA and I managed to make contact, asked the UDA if they wouldn’t expel them (through a community worker), and the word came back saying “no”. So by Saturday they were out of their home, the house was sealed up and they were away. Whether they are in Northern Ireland or not I do not know, and it’s probably better that I don’t know.
“That’s the sort of work that I’m involved in. I mention that, chairman, because a lot of this stuff that’s happening is because there are so many unanswered questions, and so much unfinished business within the Protestant working class community in Belfast, that the pressure is building up within the community – the community has turned upon itself. That’s a lot of what is happening. Ironically, many of the moves towards reconciliation, many of the moves towards a peaceful settlement in Northern Ireland, have actually led us to a situation where the community is turning on itself. You know Belfast well – who would have thought five years ago if I’d said to you that a loyalist flute band would walk up the Shankill Road and a large crowd of Protestants will attack them, and two hours later they will come back with guns and shoot up a Protestant bar in the middle of the Shankill Road? You would have thought you were nuts, but that’s exactly what happened in August two years ago.
Belfast Agreement: “The pressures are building up within our community. And within our community, the sort of people I represent – the people I work with – are drifting away from the Agreement. Can I say first of all, I voted ‘yes’ to the Belfast Agreement. Two weeks before I was voting ‘no’ and then I was voting ‘yes’ and I thought I would probably go ‘no’ and then I wasn’t too sure, and I guess with everybody it was like that in our community. There were so many pluses and minuses that I met very few people that were 110% ‘no’ or 110% ‘yes.’ Everybody was thinking. There were actually five votes in my house. Three people in our house voted for the Agreement and two opposed it. Two of my sons voted ‘no.’ They are not anti-peace, they are most certainly not anti-Catholic. … One of them’s just not interested in politics, religion or anything. He just spends his time like most wee lads of twenty-two, going out and drinking beer and trying to pick up girls. Which is reasonable enough when you’re that age. It would be a wee bit infra-dig for me to start that, but I mean it’s reasonable enough at his age. But that’s the point I’m making – our community split, our family split, everybody split on the issue. But I felt this was the way forward.
Compromises on both sides: “Five years since the Agreement where are we? The Assembly is now prorogued. If we don’t get a deal within the next four to five weeks it’s going to go down the tubes, I suspect. We have had claim and counterclaim. We have claimed that nationalists are not serious about trying to work in co-operation with unionists. Sinn Fein have claimed we don’t want a Catholic about the place. You’ve heard it all. There is no point in rehearsing it any more. Unionists five years ago were asked to make three or four concessions: we were asked to accept Sinn Fein in government – effectively an enforced coalition based on proportionality. We were asked to agree to prisoner releases. We were asked to work cross-border bodies, and we were asked to, if you like, acquiesce in some of the less acceptable elements of Patten. Nationalists and republicans, by the same token, were asked to make certain compromises also: they were asked to accept the constitutional position of Northern Ireland. They were asked to enter into government on a proportional basis. They were asked to support the new police force, the Police Service of Northern Ireland. That’s quite significant. And they were also asked to disarm, to disband the IRA and to stand down paramilitary structures. The loyalists incidentally were also asked that.
Commitment to exclusively democratic means: “And those were the compromises, and that’s how I saw it at that time: we’re being asked to swallow a lot of nasty medicine here and so are they, and we can get away with this without compromising core principles, and nationalists tell us they can as well. So we have the basis of a deal. But the key for unionists, and the key as we stand at the moment, is that all people must endorse exclusively democratic means. The paramilitaries have demonstratively not done that. Over 110 tons of weapons came into Ireland from Libya, as well as all the stuff that has been posted in since the ceasefires from … Florida, the man from Philadelphia, and all this stuff that has been going on. We have had all that and the break-in at Castlereagh, and the spy ring in Stormont. All that indicates that there is not a commitment to exclusively democratic means that the republicans have signed up to.
Sitting on the fence: “There can really be no sitting on this particular fence. Now we all try to straddle fences. I think this Agreement would never actually have happened, if they hadn’t been able to make out grey areas, but we all try to straddle fences. But in Ireland now, I think, either you’re in favour of constitutional and democratic change, or you’re on the other side of the post and you support the right of a paramilitary group to go out and kill and bomb and so on, on their own terms. You can’t be on that fence, you can’t sit on it. You all know what the paramilitaries are about. I mean I’m sure there are people here – Francie [Molloy] will know about para-militarism. If you want to know about it ask me. Trust me, they’ve threatened to shoot me twice in the last two years and I’m not talking about the IRA.
“You see there is no qualitative difference between loyalist and republican violence and loyalist and republican paramilitaries. They are all involved in the same things. So unless we can get a situation where the paramilitaries demonstratively, clearly and unequivocally, turn their back on violence, then I’m afraid what we voted for five years ago is not going to work.
Importance of decommissioning: “Commitments must be made to democrats on both sides of the border. I remember being down here the time the Agreement was being signed. People were convinced, as I was convinced in the North, that five years down the road there would be no IRA, there would be no UVF, no UDA, the structures would be gone, they’d all be ‘old comrades associations’ and they could all sit about and do various things, but as fighting paramilitary forces, they were gone. That hasn’t happened and that is the key to why decommissioning is important, that explains why we have got to try and move beyond this. There has to be a shift.
Options: “Now we have a number of options. One of the options is to compromise and co-operate on moving things forward. Unfortunately, I would say, every time some movement has been needed from republicans, for example, when they responded, they have always responded with too little and they have been too late. The potential benefits dissipate due to the begrudging nature in which republicans respond to requests to live up to what really was their commitment of five years ago. So they have got to decide what they are about. The loyalists are the same, but they are a different issue. The UDA are a different issue. One of them said to me one day after they had shot some guy, he said, about the new dispensation: “what are you going to do – put us out of the Assembly?” Ironic, you see they are not in the Assembly, there was no stick to beat them with. The UVF are in the Assembly of course, they have got two seats, but they’ll never be in government, because people in the unionist community tend not to vote for parties that are linked to para-militarism.
Renegotiation: “Now the other option that Ireland faces is renegotiation. In my opinion, this is not an option. But if renegotiation was an option, if that was the way we were moving – into renegotiating the whole Belfast Agreement – we would not need elections in May, we would not need an Assembly. Effectively we would not need 108 highly paid negotiators. What you would do is put the whole thing into mothballs and you would start working the way you did prior to the Agreement being brought up. But in my humble opinion, full and formal renegotiation a la the Peter Robinson model is not an option. It’s not an option because most of the parties don’t want it, so I don’t know who the DUP are going to renegotiate with, but they are not going to be renegotiating obviously with nationalist Ireland, and I don’t see us really getting involved in it.
“Third option – admit it’s a failure: “The third option I’ve got to tell you is quite simply based on the premise that if after all we did for the Belfast Agreement five years ago, if we haven’t managed to get it right now after five years, if we can’t put the gun beyond use after five years, if we can’t get Protestants and Catholics, unionists and nationalists working together after five years for a new peaceful Northern Ireland with recognition and all the rest of it from the Irish Republic. If, after five years, we can’t do this, then the thing has failed. We just pat ourselves on the back and say: “it was a good try, we did our best. Maybe we got closer than we have on many other times, but, that said, it’s failed”. And then we just simply admit our failure and try something else.
Other options: “Unionists believe that there are other options for the good government of Northern Ireland. Many unionists favour integration. Others believe that the way forward is back to a form of direct rule with increased powers for local government. I’m not advocating either of those two options over the Assembly, I’m just telling you these are the other two options. So the unionist cupboard isn’t bare if the doors are swung open.
Breaking the logjam: “Those are the options that face us. We have at the minute a logjam which must be broken. It will be broken if concessions come from all sides, but the key concessions will have to be on the arms issue and will have to come from republicans, and only then will Trimble have enough to be able to sell to the unionist community.
Why the Shankill voted for the Agreement: “We were promised a peace dividend in the Shankill. I’d say the majority of people in good old hard-line Shankill Road – the place everybody loves to hate or else hates to love – the majority of our people voted for the Agreement. We voted for the Agreement because we had suffered more than the people in North Down, or other areas of Northern Ireland. We voted for the Agreement because we had put in more of a commitment to the fight, so we were more committed to the peace. We voted for the Agreement because we were sick, sore and tired of the violence. We voted for the Agreement because we recognised some of the outrageous harm, some of the outrageous crimes that we had committed against the other community, whilst never for one second ever forgetting the outrageous crimes that have been committed upon us as a community.
Drift away from the Agreement: “We don’t vote for the Agreement now – the majority of the people on the Shankill would be opposed to the Agreement. The peace dividend saw our two largest employers close: O’Hara’s Bakery and Mackey’s – they’re gone. The peace dividend has produced virtually nothing on the ground, virtually nothing has been produced from this Agreement. The fact that so many people continue to support it for so long, I think, is a testament to our commitment to peace, but unless the politicians – and this is where we get back to what I was saying about Trimble at the very start – unless the David Trimbles, the Francie Molloys and the David Fords, and those who are going to be going back to whatever is the equivalent now of Weston Park, unless those people get together and can produce something, be absolutely sure we are going to drift back. There’ll be other options looked at, hopefully they won’t be violence, but we’re going to drift away from this Agreement. I am still committed to the principles of the Agreement and I still believe that that is our way forward, our best way forward, but I am a distinctly minority voice in West Belfast.”
Chair: Andy Pollak: “The next speaker is the only one of the speakers that I hadn’t known until tonight, so I’m going to have to stick to the notes here. Trudy I suppose to you is the most interesting, because she comes from Oldcastle, Co. Meath, although she has been a Northerner for over 20 years and she joined that wonderful voice of common sense and moderation, the NI Women’s Coalition, who in their small and not so small way played a huge role in providing the cement that brought the Good Friday Agreement, the Belfast Agreement into existence in the first place, and has held it together since. She is a former teacher and primary school principal and she’s on the executive committee of the NI Women’s Coalition and the education policy team, and is party candidate for South Down.
2. Trudy Miller (NI Women’s Coalition)
“I am delighted, needless to say, to be back in County Meath. I know the road well, I lived down near Oldcastle. I left it a long time ago, but I’ve taken that journey many a time. I am from the Women’s Coalition – I’m not so sure how familiar you may or may not be with it down here. Just to say that a fairly illustrious fellow called Tony Blair said that we have more common sense than an awful lot of other people put together. So we could do with that common sense spread in Northern Ireland. The Women’s Coalition came into being in 1996. It was literally a coalescing, a getting together of women who felt that their voice had to have an input into what led up the original talks, the Peace Forum. It basically set a pattern, and it has been acknowledged that we were the first party that brought the kind of thinking to the peace table in 1996. In October 2000, the United Nations Security Council validated what we did. It introduced a resolution which mandated negotiation in conflict situations to include women, because I do believe women bring a different perspective on to any sort of war situation.
Talking: “That said, you are now talking about where we are and what’s happening in Northern Ireland. Just to illustrate to you perhaps how things can work out, and it really works out through talk, and just getting around and continuing to talk. We can decommission tomorrow, we can do all the things tomorrow, we can sit on police boards, everything can happen, but what has got to be recognised is that there is no magic wand…. nothing is going to suddenly change. It is all a process and it is going to take time. The Agreement was not considered to be something that was going to work overnight. It was really a vision for the next twenty years and each time we have to go back to the table, and we have got to sit around, and we have got to continue talking. And a small illustration of that would be, say, in the Springfield Project in West Belfast, where ex-combatants get together each week, come up, come down, come whoever’s talking or not talking to whoever on the larger stage of politics, they talk. They have moved on from dependence. As children we are dependent. Then we become independent. They have recognised that the source of wisdom is interdependence.
“That is what really we need to bring to bear on the whole of the political system in Northern Ireland. We have much more in common than we have apart, and no magic wand is going to be waved overnight, no matter what happens. It really has got to be recognised that it is a lengthy process and we have got to continue to talk, no matter what is not happening or happening …. You can debate forever the nitty gritty of these things.
Normalisation: “Now the Women’s Coalition have certain proposals and they are really in regard to the normalisation of our society. I would have taught in England in, I suppose you’d call them, denominational schools. It didn’t seem to matter a hoot when you went to work, but I think it is a different society here. So some of the Women’s Coalition proposals are integrated education, integrated housing. Now that seems totally ridiculous at the moment, but it can come about, and it can come about with trust in each other and that comes about through talking.
Beliefs: “I’ll just go through some of our beliefs. We believe that there are three issues relating to para-militarism and decommissioning: When the IRA does something, it must be received appropriately and it should be recognised for what they have done. On the other hand, we must recognise that the unionists are not a single party, as it were. They are a homogenous group with different contentions within them, and that has got to be taken into account. However the Women’s Coalition believe that we should remain in touch, that the British and Irish governments have a huge role to play to determine sufficiency and acceptability of movement within the decommissioning process. We believe that the implementation of the Belfast Agreement has been bedeviled by exchanges of too many gifts. On one side the gifts of decommissioning, on the other side the gift of power sharing. This undermines both sides and it continues to be a form of sectarianism from both parties, no matter what is said. On the one hand it is still slightly sort of bullyboy tactics, no matter what fancy name we may call some of these things. The Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition sees the implementation of the Agreement as fundamental to the solving of this crisis. It has not been fully implemented, never mind renegotiated. It has not been fully implemented, and, as I said, it is a lengthy, lengthy process.
Alienation of loyalists: “Loyalists are currently feeling alienated from the political process. Those who are pro-Agreement perceive a disparity in treatment between themselves and that of Sinn Fein, the latter afforded more legitimacy, being courted. And if the IRA deliver, loyalists will be expected to reciprocate without having been in the same negotiations, or having received, or appeared to have received, the same treatments or tradeoffs. Political loyalism cannot sell this to their followers, especially in the light of the growth in anti-Agreement sentiment. While it is recognised by the Women’s Coalition that pressure must also be placed on the loyalist paramilitaries to decommission, every effort must be made to afford political support to those loyalists who remain pro-Agreement.
Normalisation: “I went to London a couple of weeks ago with my daughter and she was fascinated with the police stations. She said “they’re lovely – you could walk into one of those”. I think she imagined it as “Dixon of Dock Green”. But I suddenly realised what she was talking about. It’s sort of a different world in Northern Ireland. We see the implementation of this section of the Agreement as crucial. It is not only a confidence-building measure, but is intrinsic to how a normal society should function, without the armies patrolling the streets, or the imposition of militarised bases on police stations. The issue of normalisation is not just about getting rid of the army presence, our aim is to achieve a normal society where people work, live and are educated together. Removing the symbols of conflict will not automatically result in a society that is no longer in conflict. It just doesn’t happen like that. And the long-term goals of communities living together in mixed housing, attending integrated schools, working together – and included in that would be the Bill of Rights which has been fairly widely consulted all around the province. It will be a charter for all the people of Northern Ireland and everybody should feel safe in it. However we recognise that demilitarisation will have to take place nonetheless at some point.
Policing: “The Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition sees Sinn Fein taking their place on the policing board as a de facto statement that the war is over. In fact it is the recognition of the Northern Ireland State. A paramilitary force is rendered unnecessary by a police force which is acceptable to all the community. And I hope we are on our way to that. It was one of the things that struck me when I came to live where I live now, out the country in Northern Ireland. It was the custom around Easter time to burn the whins, the furze bushes, and the youngsters who weren’t old enough to go to the pub I presume, used to think it was kind of a craic on an Easter Monday to go out and burn the bushes.
“And I remember going out and saying “why are my neighbours not out looking?” because they could throw a match on the fence as they passed by, and I thought somebody should call the police, but nobody called the police. I’m glad to say that things seem to have moved on since then in this community, this rural area where I lived, and to me that is a good sign. It’s a process of normalisation in the flesh.
Women in politics: “I think I will stop there. I will repeat again that integrated education, integrated housing, the normalisation of society and I think a woman’s way – and we are not exclusive, we merely use that title “Women’s Coalition” to highlight the fact that women are so under-represented in public life and in politics. We have 14% women in politics, 52% of the electorate in Northern Ireland are women. I really think that we can bring some common sense to bear…. We are the peace-makers in the home, we are the managers and I think really, small as we are, we have bundles of common sense, and if we had some power in proportion to the common sense we have, I think things would be a lot different and better actually. Thank you very much.”
Chair (Andy Pollak): “Thank you Trudy. We will now pass to Cllr. Francis Molloy who is a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly for Sinn Fein, representing mid-Ulster. Francie is one of the most senior and influential and distinguished members of Sinn Fein. You can be sure that when the senior council of Sinn Fein are meeting to decide what they are going to do, Francie will be there. As you can see from the notes he goes back to the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the early days of the republican movement, and was director of operations for both Bobby Sands and Owen Carron. On a personal note he is also a great supporter of the work of the Centre for Cross-Border Studies and I thank Francie for that.”
3. Cllr. Francie Molloy, MLA (Sinn Fein):
“Thank you very much, I am very pleased to be here. I wish that I had all that power, Andy, and that the party consulted me as much as what you say, but unfortunately that’s not the situation and we are here as humble beings within it all. I think it is important that we are here in a discussion, and I think, you know, that we can all put our party positions in, that’s natural enough, but I think we also have to open up this whole discussion if we are going to move into new situations and develop new situations.
Effect of Sinn Fein going into Stormont: “While it is important to state and to know where parties stand in all of this here, that’s why it is important for me to go back slightly into how the Agreement came about – because I don’t believe that unionists understand fully, or even at all, the whole issue of Sinn Fein going into Stormont and the effect that had on our base and our supporters. Because for 80 years we had said we would never sit in Stormont and then all of a sudden we turned our party policy – two ard-fheiseanna right enough it took to do that – into a situation of actually saying we would take our seats. And not only that we would take our seats, but we would actually be there in the administration and be Ministers within that Assembly. I often have been misquoted on this, but I think it is important. Our critics within the republican movement, and those who have become dissident within the republican struggle, would also claim that we are administering British rule in Ireland, because we are Ministers within our Assembly. And I don’t believe that unionism has ever actually taken that on board and to know the effect that has in trying to bring the base with you in this type of situation.
The Agreement: “To me the Agreement and the coming around of the negotiations, was all part of the coming to terms with a number of situations, both for republicans, for nationalists and for unionists, and whenever we signed the Agreement, I was one of those who naively thought that everyone would now be pulling together to actually try to make the administration work. And I was surprised whenever it took so long, first of all to get the administration up and running and to actually start to get the machinery into position. And I think that that gap that happened was the first note of sourness and actually was the first sign that we really hadn’t moved that much further than we had before, because David Trimble basically refused to work that coalition in a way that originally had been intended. And it is a forced coalition. No one got all they wanted within the Agreement. And the Agreement wasn’t to me a settlement of the all-Ireland context. It was a bringing together of all those within the Northern context that actually would work together to administer and to start to try and build trust within the different parties, and also to try and prove to people on the ground that the local people could actually run the Six Counties better than what British Ministers coming across one or two days a week, or maybe even once a month, to actually administer, could do.
Local administration did work: “And I think the proof of that has been that the local administration did work. I chaired the Finance Committee within that, and all the parties within the Assembly were there – DUP, Ulster Unionists, Sinn Fein, Alliance, all the structures, and everyone was working well together. And so this whole issue that is created sometimes – that the DUP weren’t actually part of it – is all a myth that has been created by them to actually fool their own people at the end of the day. Because every one of those worked within the two years in meetings, and only once was there an actual vote taken because everyone agreed to compromise and to work it out and to actually represent the different constituencies in the various different ways. So I think there is an indication there that certainly the politicians in the North could make things work if they are given the opportunity.
British Government and British interest in Ireland: “So what stops that from happening? One is that the British Government continued to play outside of the Agreement by actually having the power to disband and eliminate whenever the Ulster Unionists were in difficulties. And on a number of different occasions that happened when we had the threats to walk out of it and to disband it and various different things. Whenever preconditions were being set, whenever the unionist demands were that the republicans would do A, B and C, instead of actually negotiating or instead of actually debating it within the Chamber or negotiating it out, what happened was that ultimatums were set and it wasn’t until 5 o’clock on the day that the whole thing was brought down. And we saw that with Peter Mandelson, and we saw it with the various different Ministers over that time that actually brought it down. And again we saw it with the British Government, having known that the Ulster Unionists had decided to actually bring the institutions down on 18th January, and that they were going to walk away from it, the British Government contrived a situation around what has been known as “Stormontgate”, in the lines of the “who was feeding who information” and “what and who was taking information from who”, because I think at the end of the day the whole thing was a conspiracy which was actually set up by the British Government.
“Whenever they needed to be able to pull the whole thing down like a deck of cards, that’s what they did and they simply took the power from everyone, including David Trimble, whenever they suspended the institutions. And that is acting outside of the Agreement because there is nothing in the Good Friday Agreement – Belfast Agreement, whatever you want to call it – there’s nothing there which actually says that the British Government has the power to suspend those institutions. So that’s the first failure I think, and an indication that, at the end of the day, if faced with the difficulties, with faced with pressure from unionists, that the British Government will do what the British Government have always done, and that is to play the Orange card. And this is what happened once again. So the preconditions that have been set, and someone said what republicans had to do – but it is important if you are looking at an Agreement, and the British Government have over the years from the Treaty of ‘21 to the present day, in every Treaty there were a number of loopholes there to make sure that it never actually happened. The Treaty of ‘21 was supposed to have a Council of Ireland which maybe would have brought together the politicians North and South to actually work that institution. The Boundary Commission was set up to actually try and negotiate where the boundaries would be, and again all of that fell to one side. But even in the present day – we can say that all happened in the past – but even in the present day it is all happening in the very same way: the British Government, in order to save the British interest in Ireland, have continued to administer and to pull the carpet whenever it actually was required.
Unionists: “So the institutions are down and I think there is no clear indication at the present time that they will ever be up again. And people will say “well it’s up to republicans”, or republicans will say “it’s up to unionists”. In fact I would say it is up to the British Government, it’s up to the two Governments. Because this is an international agreement and the people of all Ireland voted for it, and the Constitution here was changed – I think it was changed for the better in that situation because it actually meant that for the first time anyone born in Ireland, no matter where their parents came from, could actually claim to be Irish, or, if they wanted to claim to be British, they could do that also. But those changes were made to accommodate the unionists’ demands, and yet whenever those demands were met they were pocketed and they walked away, and what we have now is more demands being made. And I do believe that Ulster Unionists – and in fact one of them at one stage, a senior politician, said that “whenever the Assembly was up and running the DUP were making gains on Ulster Unionists, and now that the Assembly is down the Ulster Unionists start to come back into the ascendancy”, because at the end of the day they have more integration with Britain than with the devolved administration.
“So we have today, I think, the opportunity for David Trimble to actually continue on direct rule and … co-ordination with Britain in order to secure his own position, and for the British Government to secure British interests in Ireland. But we haven’t got a coming together of the acceptance of the Agreement.
Moving forward: “And I still believe that the only way we can move forward is whenever we do get the proper discussion, we do get people coming off their perches and actually dealing with the reality on the ground. Because the Assembly was working, the councils are working, and the various different parties are co-operating in various different ways. I know in our own council in Dungannon we had for the first time a nationalist majority came into operation 18 months ago, and we brought in the D’Hondt system, similar to what they use in the Assembly. This means that every party, including the one Independent, also has a position of chair or vice-chair of the various different committees, or the mayor and vice-mayor over the four-year period. Now if that is working at local government level, why can it not work at the Assembly level? If it is working to actually try to administer the changes that are happening at local government, and will happen at local government, then it should work within the Assembly.
Managing the change: “But it comes back to the point I think that people feel still that there wasn’t really a constitutional settlement. That unionism still see [themselves] as being undermined and under threat and pressure coming from things like the census… and the voting there, how it would work in a referendum and what would change, would the numbers going to be one way or the other. And then we have from the nationalist/republican point of view the idea that we actually need to insure that we actually have a majority if we change the Constitution. And I believe that we have to look at alternative ways to do that.
“And while sovereignty is certainly key for me as an Irish Republican – to actually bring about Irish sovereignty – that we actually do have a clear line, and that unionism actually starts to manage the situation of transfer and the situation of transition from where we are at the present time to where things most likely will happen in the foreseeable future. And we look to how do we manage that best between us. Not on the lines of grandstanding, but on how we actually might manage it on the ground. And we [ask] – is it necessary to have just simply one government in the whole of Ireland? And this is not a party position. In the same way as Chris has actually set a ‘health warning’ at the start, I suppose I should also say that I am not speaking party policy, I am actually speaking more on the lines of an Irish Republican in a discussion as regards how do we manage the change that is actually going to happen. And I do believe that, for the foreseeable future, even in an all-Ireland situation, that you most likely will have an Assembly in the North where unionists will be still the dominant force as regards numbers at that particular time. That we actually can administer the whole of Ireland in various different ways to deal with our unique situation and allow that to develop over a period of time. Because we’re in this for the long haul, not simply to change things tomorrow and that’s the end of it, because that won’t happen. The reality is that we need to administer the change, what actually is going to happen and the transition……….
Implementing the Agreement: “So I do believe that we need to start to discuss openly and frankly what are the alternatives. We can just simply disband the Assembly and walk away, but that’s going to create a vacuum, and what fills a vacuum? If politics aren’t working then other things will fill the vacuum. That’s not threatening, that’s simply dealing with reality … The same thing that Chris was talking about on the Shankill Road, where a vacuum was created there the paramilitaries took over and the situation was developed from there and you lose control ….. So I believe that you can’t simply suspend the Assembly and the institutions. You need to implement the Agreement in full. I agree with Tony Blair that he hasn’t implemented the Agreement in full and neither have the parties in the North implemented the Agreement in full. But we all need to actually do that in order to make the Agreement work. Let’s get into the discussion about how we manage the change. Because, whatever people may think, the change is happening, it’s happening on a daily basis, we can’t really hold it back. We can either manage it, or we can allow it to drift and we can allow others to manage it for us. We have an opportunity – I think a unique opportunity – to build a new structure, new institutions, which actually can work. For the first time we have republicans sitting in Stormont in a Northern Assembly. We have unionists and republicans and nationalists all working together to administer that. We have the North-South bodies that can bring about the structures of change within the Irish Government and cross-border institutions. All of those structures are there.
“Now we can say: “well, nothing has happened, there has been no benefit or no change to anyone” but I think it would be a denial to actually say that there has been no benefit or change to everyone. Lets get down on the ground and actually administer the change because if we allow this to drift, if we allow it to be dismantled, then I think it will be impossible to rebuild it in our time. Thank you very much indeed.”
Chair (Andy Pollak) “Thank you Francie. And for the final speaker, we are honoured to have the leader of the Alliance Party, David Ford, with us. … I first met David during the Opsahl Commission – thank you Julitta for the kind words on that – when he was General Secretary ofthe party, and he has held various posts in the party since then and was elected party leader in October 2001. He has a very difficult job because he is the voice of the main moderate party in Northern Ireland which is being squeezed. One of the by-products of the Good Friday Agreement – and there have been good and bad, and violence is one of them, a bad by-product ……[tape unclear] there is a kind of ethnic block policy, and the only parties that don’t speak that kind of ethnic block language now are the two small parties, the Womens’ Coalition and the Alliance Party, so the Alliance Party plays once again a hugely important role in the centre of Northern Ireland politics.
4. David Ford, MLA (Alliance Party):
“Thank you, Chair, for that warm welcome. The advantage of speaking last on an occasion such as this is, first of all, when you arrive late, you can slip in without being noticed too obviously, and, secondly, you’ve heard what everybody else says so you get the chance to respond. The disadvantage when you are the fourth speaker is that everybody is sitting in the audience with their questions bubbling up inside them and the last thing they want is for the fourth speaker to go on too long in case they forget them! So I should try to steer a careful line somewhere between those two. And I suppose I should say, since I am the leader of the party, I can’t really disclaim – as Francie and Chris did – my responsibilities, except to say that, as Alliance is a democratic party, policy is made by the elected party council and not by the leader standing on his feet in County Meath!
Peace at the expense of reconciliation: “Acts of Completion” was the title, but I was interested, just as I came in Andy, you were actually reading through that definition of “reconciliation”, and it reminded me of a comment which I don’t know how many times I’ve heard since 1998, or indeed since the ceasefires, that “to some extent we have achieved a kind of uneasy peace in Northern Ireland, and a fairly unsatisfactory kind of peace, at the expense of reconciliation”. And hopefully – and other speakers have done this – we can look beyond the immediate problems to where we will actually be really establishing reconciliation in Northern Ireland.
Republican obligations: “But just to refer to you the immediate crisis. It seems to me quite clear that there is now a position that republicans have an obligation to demonstrate to us that the war is over. And, as far as I am concerned, I have criticised enough anti-Agreement Unionists, including notably my MP, Mr. Burnside, who Andy as a journalist covered not getting elected in a by-election, and spending an evening on the streets with me seeing the reaction of some of my constituents to that ambiguous nature of Unionism on it. But there is clearly a point where we will know an act of completion when we see it, but it’s not our job to tell republicans what they do.
Unionist obligations: “By the same token, there is clearly a need to tell the Ulster Unionist Party thatthey have to start to give the impression that they are whole-heartedly selling the Agreement. I think Francie made a number of interesting points. I also think he should be aware that many of his comments about the begrudgery, and the taking concessions and banking them, are of course precisely those which people from other backgrounds perceive Sinn Fein as carrying out. I believe David Trimble is a man who showed great leadership – for 15 minutes on the afternoon of Good Friday 1998 – and unfortunately I believe, and Chris will doubtless dispute this, that he could have made a much better job since then, if he had continued to fight the case for the Agreement within his party, rather than giving the impression to those of us who agree with him on a number of things, and disagree on others, that he has actually been running from the begrudgers in his own party too often, rather than taking them on. And I think that is part of the test of leadership. Each leader has to work out how to manage his own party. He has taken a particular decision to work the way he has done. I happen to think that it has not always been the most helpful.
DUP obligations: “I think there are also obligations, interestingly enough, on the DUP at the moment. I spoke recently to a Westminster MP who was having his first ever tour around the parties in parliament buildings. And he went from the DUP to Alliance and he told me that during the conversation somebody said from the DUP side: “well what’s going to happen if we are the biggest party in May, ha, ha?” To which he said: “you’ll have to accept the responsibilities the electorate have given you to lead the people of Northern Ireland and to take on your democratic mandate”. And they all sat around with their mouths open. Because if you are DUP it is great to say: “we are anti-Agreement, ha, ha” and not accept that they also have responsibilities.
SDLP obligations: “I think too, if I am knocking everybody else from these four parties that form the executive, I think there are clear obligations on the SDLP, both to show how they will defend the institutions in the Agreement, using the Agreement in a way I believe they failed to do last Autumn, and also to show that they can move forward on issues like policing, without engaging in what one of my colleagues termed ‘Patten fundamentalism.’ We are nearly at the point, theologically speaking, where we are now discussing how many angels can dance on Chris Patten’s nose, and all the time the kind of crimes that were discussed in the very beginning of this talk by Chris [McGimpsey] are happening, not just in the Shankill estates, but all over Northern Ireland, because we don’t have adequate numbers of properly trained police officers out and about doing the policing job. You know about crime on this side of the border as well, but there is no doubt that Northern Ireland is experiencing a huge problem in the lack of police resources and the lack of police manpower and yet we are engaging in ever more arcane discussions about the perfections of policing, and it really is time that the SDLP who lead a lot of that stopped it.
Where we are going as a society: “But I want to look beyond that, having had the sort of easy slam at everybody else, because it’s good fun and it gets me warmed up! I want to look beyond that to where we are actually going as a society, because I think that is actually a much more fundamental issue. If we solve the current problems on the short time-scale which we now have, with the Assembly due to be dissolved on the 21st of March pending an election. And I must say from everything I pick up is that there will be an election on the 1st of May whether or not we have solved the current problems, because that is what the legislation specifies, that’s what the Agreement specified.
Reviewing the Agreement: “It is absolutely clear that there is no point in suggesting that we’re going to renegotiate the Agreement afterwards, because the DUP when they go into the room marked “renegotiation” are going to find there is nobody else there. And whatever the faults and imperfections of the Agreement, we need to review the Agreement, we do not need to renegotiate it. There’s not much difference between the words, but there is a very strong difference between the implication of it.
Community relations: “We as a party, as Andy has referred to in the introduction, have made a very strong stance on a number of issues with regard to the promotion of community relations. And I was interested that we have had some of those highlighted already this evening. And there is no doubt, that when I talked about peace at the expense of reconciliation, in many aspects of community relations Northern Ireland is now in a worse position than it was at the time of the Agreement. Partly because hopes were so high, and when hopes are high and are dashed, it leaves people in an even worse position than before those hopes were raised. But there is no doubt that we have a society which is becoming increasingly divided and increasingly sectarian on the one hand, whilst on the other hand there is an increasing proportion of people who are rejecting the traditional definitions of politics. I caused a slight stir in the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation a few weeks back, when I pointed out that Life and Times surveys – official surveys carried out over the last few years – have shown that something in excess of 25% of Protestants do not define themselves as in any sense unionist, and a slightly higher proportion of Catholics do not define themselves as in any sense nationalist. Yet we have a society in which we are all supposed to fit into one or other of those two pigeonholes!
“And there is clearly an issue there, when we talk about normalisation of society as to what that means if we continue to shove people into those pigeonholes, if we are ceasing to allow them to represent themselves. That is why when the Alliance party published a policy paper on community relations in January, we called it “Building a United Community“, because the sub-text is, that since 1998 we have been seeking to manage a divided community and we haven’t actually done it very well.
“I accept that there are at this stage a larger number of people who would wish to identify themselves as unionist or nationalist, than would see themselves as part of the Centre, which is the term we have used in the Assembly, or “others” as we are inelegantly described by others in the Assembly, but there is also no doubt that the kind of views which we represent, represent those of a significant group of people, even if the Alliance Party’s current voting strength only gives us six members in the Assembly. And if we ignore as a society the fact that there are people who do not wish to be slotted into that easy divide, then we are actually consigning the whole population of Northern Ireland to being left with the 17th century mindsets. And we need to ensure that as we carry out reviews, and as we look at the operation of the Agreement, we see that those are all covered.
Integrated education: “We have mentioned the issues of integrated housing or integrated education recently. Why is it that in Northern Ireland the most over-subscribed schools are nearly all integrated schools? Why is it that in my area, the local integrated school has more than two applicants, first choice, for every place, whereas the either Catholic-maintained or effectively Protestant State-schools mostly have a first place application for less than half of the places they have on offer? What does that say about the way people want their children to be educated? And why is it that public finance is not provided to encourage the transformation of existing schools in that direction?
Mixed housing: “Why is it that we have a public agency like the Housing Executive, which has a duty to provide housing for those in need, which has as no part of its responsibility promoting and assisting those people who wish to live in mixed areas? Why do they pretend they can do it in a – I almost said a colour-blind, but an orange/green colour-blind mentality – when that actually, in many cases, is adding to the problems of social tensions? Now I’m not suggesting that we are at the point where we can immediately start bussing people from Divis Flats to live in the Lower Shankill. I mean you can’t get Protestants who want to live in the Lower Shankill these days, so there aren’t going to be many Catholics who wish to. But in areas such as the constituency I represent in South Antrim, in Antrim town, in Newtonabbey, there are large numbers of housing areas, whether publicly owned or privately owned, which are to some extent mixed, that people wish to remain mixed, and yet there are people painting paramilitary murals and painting kerbstones in a deliberate attempt to drive the community apart and virtually nothing is being done by either the Housing Executive, or the Police Service, or the road service or other public agencies to stop that.
Designation issue: “And I think if we are starting to look beyond the “acts of completion”, we really do have to look to what happens to those in society who don’t fit into what the Chair described as the “divided society”, which the Agreement has given us. It was very easy in 1998 to say: “unionists and nationalists working together is a step forward, is progress”. Of course it is. It’s a million times better than what went before, but to suggest that that is actually the model for the long-term, rather than ensuring a way in which people can work together without being slotted into rigid pigeonholes, seems to me to be an absolute necessity. And the most obvious example of that was what happened in the Assembly, a month after I was elected party leader, when, following the first act of IRA decommissioning we had a vote to elect David Trimble and Mark Durkan as First Minister and Deputy First Minister and it failed, and three days later we had the same vote and it passed. And what was the difference? Three Alliance members pretended they were unionists for 22 minutes, because that was the only way in which we could get the two of them elected! And I really think we have to ask what is wrong with a system which requires people to pretend to be what they are not. People who have actually spent a political lifetime seeking to unite a community having to pretend they belong to one side or other, and there has to be some way of dealing with that designation issue which is also part of the matters which needs to be looked at in the review. But I think, looking at my watch, you’ve probably had rather more of me than you want so far. “
Chair: Andy Pollak: “Thank you very much, David. Ok, the floor is yours … so does anyone want to come in on any of those points? If I could maybe, can I just throw up a couple of things, to get you started? It seems to me there are a couple of provocative points which came out from some of the speakers. I was struck by the way Chris McGimpsey and Francie Molloy agreed on their pessimism, they seemed to agree on their pessimism that they’d be surprised if the institutions are going to get up and going again. That’s not the official line – the official line in Dublin and London is that they will get up and going.
“There seems to be a slight difference, and this is always a tension underlying discussions between nationalists and unionists, in that Francie seems to be talking about managing change towards Irish unity, and Chris and David Trimble seem to believe what Tony Blair said in his first speech in Belfast in 1997 that no-one in that audience, including the youngest, would see Irish unity in their lifetime. So a good contradiction there.
“And then the final point that David [Ford] made which is: are we about – or are the politicians in Northern Ireland about – building a united community, or are they about managing a divided community while they jockey for their respective ethnic nationalist positions, holding the line on any movement towards a United Ireland, or moving towards a United Ireland as fast as possible. So I’ll just throw those up as points, maybe to try and provoke something. So is there anybody who wants to come in there? I mean don’t take those points necessarily, but you’ve had the speakers. Go ahead.
QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS (Summaries of questions only)
Questions 1-4:
Q1: [To Francie Molloy, re British interest in Northern Ireland]. “… I’m originally from Co. Antrim, but have lived in Australia for a long time. If I understood correctly, Cllr. Francis Molloy said that the British were interested in protecting what they have in Northern Ireland and I am wondering what interests do the British have in Northern Ireland at the present time? I would have thought that perhaps they might be glad to get rid of the troubles in Northern Ireland.“
Q2 (Bellinter resident) [To Chris McGimpsey, re “integration” option]: “You voiced two options at one stage – one was integration and the other I’m not quite sure what it was. If you could say a little more about the word “integration” in the context in which you were speaking …”
Q3 (Duleek resident): “If after the election on the 1st of May …if one side or the other comes out with a big majority on the loyalist or the nationalist side, where there’s a big majority, what happens then? Do we have power sharing? It may not happen this time but it may happen the next election or the one after that.”
Andy Pollak: “Are you talking about whether Sinn Fein or the DUP have a majority?”
Questioner: “Maybe not Sinn Fein or the DUP, but we’ll call them the nationalists, the SDLP and Sinn Fein combined on the one side, and the unionists on the other.”
Q4: [To Francie Molloy, re reconciliation]: “ … The word “reconciliation” is actually in the title of tonight’s talk, but I actually heard very little from Francie about reconciliation. I was very disappointed that, for somebody who represents an organisation I suppose which is the embodiment of resistance to the overtures of the British Government, that for some reason a large part of his talk was about the fact that the British government had a crucial role to play in moving unionists forward. From my experience of the organisation that he belongs to, the British Government have very very little power in moving people when their mindset is particularly opposed to what they want to do. So I believe that we need to hear more about reconciliation.”
Replies to Questions 1-4:
Chair (Andy Pollak): “Ok, so of these four questions two are really for Francie – what are the British interests in Northern Ireland and what does Sinn Fein think about reconciliation? and one for Chris – integration, what does that mean? Why is that an option? And what would happen if there was a significant majority for one side or the other, the nationalist side or the unionist side, after the next election or after a future election?
Francie Molloy: “First of all, as regards the British interests, one of the things that I often say is, if you go back to the early civil rights campaign we were told at that time that the British Army came in to protect the Catholics, I actually always believed they came in to protect British interests.
“And they showed that over the period of time. ……. [Some say] the British are now getting out of the North, I don’t go along with that because I think they had ample opportunity over the years to do that, the indication would be otherwise that the British were actually trying to stabilise the situation, and even in the present situation what they have tried to do was to stabilise the situation to wear down republican resistance, from our point of view, and to create as big a vacuum as possible before taking any action. And the admission from Tony Blair that they actually had not implemented the Agreement, or lived up to the commitments they had given, is a clear indication that they weren’t serious about implementing the changes that they had agreed to, the commitments that they had given to nationalists. And … people will actually say: “why do you expect the British Government? The British Government in my view, as an Irish republican, are the occupation force, they are the people who are there imposing their rule in part of Ireland, so they are the people who have to make a change …….and they have used unionists, and they have used religion and Protestantism over the years … as tools to ensure that British rule continues in Ireland over the period of time.
“So I think it is up to the British Government, at least to live up to the commitments they have given …. and I think republicans for the first time actually challenged the British Government, because if you go back the whole issue was if you just had an IRA ceasefire, if you just had peace, then everything would be rosy in the garden, everything would be solved, no problem whatsoever, that it was all coming from the IRA. Then we had an IRA ceasefire and nothing changed. We still have an IRA ceasefire and nothing has changed, and what we seem to be having from the British Government is simply that they actually want to stabilise their position and continue to control as they have in the past.
Integration: “I’ll leave the integration one to Chris because he has a better understanding of that one, but my impression from a republican nationalist point of view is that a devolved administration is for unionists a dangerous position because it’s changing, whereas integration with British rule and British rule continuing to occupy the Six Counties is not as dangerous for unionists because it is not something that is going to change by a vote of the people of the North and that’s where the difference comes in.
After the election: “What happens after the election? What happens after an election in any country? The government is formed, if you can’t form a government between one set of coalitions you form a government with another. What has happened here a number of different times where you had coalition governments with various different makeups. And I do believe that Sinn Fein … will be the largest party in the Assembly and the DUP will be second largest. Now if that happens, then certainly I think we will have a working agreement. I think the DUP have positioned themselves for change. As I said I witnessed that within the Assembly, both in the Assembly commission working with Peter Robinson, and also within the Finance & Personnel committee working along with other DUP members, including Peter Robinson and Nigel Dodds. I think the recent change where DUP were refusing to sit in studios, went through all the antics the Ulster Unionists went through ten years ago, but they are now coming to the exact same thing, and its an indication that change will happen over a period of time, and we will actually get people to work. And I do believe that Peter Robinson wants to be in government. And even from the DUP point of view, if you look back over the last 20 years where Ian Paisley wanted to be Prime Minister and he wanted O’Neill out, Chichester-Clarke out, Faulkner out, everybody else out, would he give up the opportunity of being the first DUP Prime Minister or first Minister in that situation, if he had to share that with Gerry Adams or Martin McGuinness? I don’t think so. I think ….if he had to be in there to protect the Union and to ensure unionists weren’t swamped by Sinn Fein, I think that’s not a problem from a DUP point of view, they are very practical.
Reconciliation: “Back to reconciliation, maybe I didn’t use the word “reconciliation”, and sometimes people actually are putting emphasis on words like “condemnation” and the whole issue of disband, the issue around disbandment, also the whole issue of disarmament and destruction, putting a lot of emphasis on words. And reconciliation for me is actually in the acts of reconciliation. And I thought that I did actually highlight the fact that republicans went into Stormont for the first time – that was the first act of reconciliation in relation to that, as regards trying to actually come to terms with the situation and be part of the administration there and be part of the structures. At Council level it would be very easy for the nationalists or republicans to simply go along the line that unionism had for years of actually, whenever you have a majority hold on to it, and make the most of it, whereas nationalists and republicans have demonstrated that they haven’t done that, they have actually shared local power and that’s what we want to do, and we are interested in building that. And we have made it very clear over the time that we have problems in various different ways that when we talk about the British interest in Ireland, we don’t mean unionists or we don’t mean Protestants. We are not talking religious denominations, we are talking about the British Government control and British occupation of part of the country.
Managing the change: “Certainly reconciliation is part of building the new structures, and I did say that what we want to do is to get down to grass-roots and discuss the very practical way that we build that trust, and build the new Administration which will govern the island of Ireland for the foreseeable future. And I welcome the opportunity to ask unionists once again to actually join with us in doing that, to manage that change. That change might take several years but I believe that change is on the way. And there’s two ways of doing it. You can either do it the way David Trimble is doing it, you can walk away from the talks, walk out of the negotiations, and simply go to Westminster, or you can sit down in an elected assembly in the North, and build the trust and build the institutions which I think will be there for the future.”
Chris McGimpsey [re integration option]: “I said there were two other options for the government of Northern Ireland which would be attractive to unionists. One was continuing with direct rule, which is what we have at the minute, and what we had prior to the Assembly, with an augmentation of local government powers. Local government in Northern Ireland doesn’t have anything like the sort of powers you have in local government in the Republic. I don’t advocate that – I advocate the Assembly, I advocate the Good Friday Agreement, but that I think would be acceptable to the majority of unionists. The other option is integration, and the thing is there that Northern Ireland be governed exactly the same way as all other parts of the United Kingdom. That there’d be no devolution because its not there in England, that the British parties in Britain would also organise in Northern Ireland. That we simply be governed in the same way. I don’t advocate that either, but I have to say that view became the guiding principle for Bob McCartney. He was a member of the integrationist movement, and then he subsequently lost his party ………
“But that’s what its about, its about purely organising and governing Northern Ireland exactly the same way as England is governed. No Assembly, no devolution, everybody goes to Westminster, again with increased powers for local government. I don’t advocate that. But those are the other two options and unionists will move towards one or other of those two options if the Good Friday Agreement option is seen to continue to fail.
British presence in Ireland: “I don’t know whether you want me to make comments on some of the other points. If I could just say briefly, all this talk of Francie’s about British, the “British presence”, “British interests”. In February 1984 ….. I gave evidence to what was then known as the Forum for A New Ireland, known now as the New Ireland Forum, I gave evidence to the New Ireland Forum and I pointed out in the Forum that day that the most significant, the only really important British presence in Ireland, is the fact that there are one million Irish men and Irish women living in the six north eastern counties of the island of Ireland who believe themselves to be British and who wish to continue to be ruled as part of the United Kingdom. That’s the real British presence and that is the British interest that unfortunately republicans have never been able to come to terms with. They can come to terms with the concept of “oh, it’s a colonial government, they are trying to play the Orange card, and do all sorts of stuff”. The real British presence that nationalists have got to come to terms with is the Irish man who lives in the next farm who actually feels himself to be British more than Irish, that’s the presence that has to be dealt with.
Trudy Miller [re British presence]: “Just to be brief …….I do believe when we talk about British presence – and taking on board what Chris says, it’s certainly a way of looking at things – but in terms of British presence as in the Westminster Government I think at the Treaty of 1921 it was a different scenario and they would have had an interest in holding a land base in Ireland then. I do not feel they are interested now really, that it’s an albatross to a degree, and if there were a peaceful solution they would be very glad to see us all get on very well together.
Integration: “The second questioner mentioned integration, I thought straight away of an integrated society, it was my first thought … because I think that is what we have to do, it’s the better option. I cannot see the British people, the British element, the people who consider themselves British in Northern Ireland, being particularly happy with direct rule or with integration in the whole British system. There are too many benefits. One looks at Northern Ireland 20 years ago and one looks at it now, it’s an entirely different place. And even since 1998, even though our last government was up and running with hiccups and up and down and all the rest of it, the whole ambience, the whole atmosphere, the whole energy that has come about the place is just something different, and I just don’t think it would be the same if it was integrated, Westminster rule or the continuance of direct rule.
After the elections: “In regard to question 3, if there is a majority of nationalists or DUP unionists, I think perhaps was the question, yes I take on board what Francie says, yes I could see some pragmatic maneuvers. That would be for government. But, on the other hand, it would be to operate two separate societies, two ghettoes, and we may then leave out all these “others” as they are sometimes termed. It would not be to the benefit of anyone, no matter even if they agreed to sit down together and run a government. It would be like the marriage where they agreed to lead two separate lives, there’s no communication there, there’s no interdependence which I began with, and it’s just not a very good scenario.
David Ford [re the British interest]: “Briefly, chair, on the British interest Chris is absolutely right. I don’t often agree with British Governments but when they say they have no “selfish, strategic or economic interest in Northern Ireland”, they are absolutely correct. The British interest is a million people who want to be British. I believe that any British Government for the foreseeable would cheerfully push Northern Ireland out with as much enthusiasm as the majority of the people of the Republic would push to resist being integrated with it.
Unionist options: “In terms of the issue of the Unionist options, as Chris outlined, the problem with that Unionist position is like most Unionist positions, other than support of the Agreement, its actually way out of date. You can no longer govern Northern Ireland integrated with the rest of the UK in exactly the same way, because there is devolution in Scotland, there is devolution in Wales, there is devolution coming to the regions of England. It is a nonsense position. That is why Chris, and those who still support the Agreement as the best way forward, are the only ones who are being realistic within the Unionist Party.
After the elections: “The issue about whether there is a big majority for unionists or nationalists in May, there is of course a working unionist majority in the Assembly as currently is, the majority of our votes are decided, if they are decided on a party basis, by unionists outvoting nationalists. Sometimes unionists and us, sometimes unionists outvoting nationalists and us. The issue is only on certain specific points, where the particularly peculiar weighted majority voting system we have requiring designations comes in. If you want my halfpenny worth – and you can see what odds you get on this in the bookies tomorrow morning – after the election the largest party will be the Ulster Unionist Party, the second largest will be the DUP, the third largest will be Sinn Fein, the fourth largest will be the SDLP and the fifth largest will be Alliance.
Chair (Andy Pollak): “Thank you. I must say, if I could just add my two halfpence worth, I was disappointed to hear Francie come up with this old line about “British interest”. I understood, again a quote that David made, that there is “no selfish strategic or economic interest in Northern Ireland”. That was Peter Brooke, the Northern Ireland Secretary of State back in 1991, who said that, and that was seen as a turning point, John Hume said this means that if the people of the island of Ireland can agree on a solution, can agree on structures, the British will step aside and will not interfere. I understood that it was on that basis that certainly all the parties, maybe except Sinn Fein, and maybe Sinn Fein are still stuck in this old idea that the British have a kind of a strategic interest in staying in Ireland. I understood that was a key change in the political climate back then which led to a lot of things that came after it.
Re DUP: “And also I am again disappointed to hear this line about the DUP, if the DUP are the biggest party or the biggest unionist party after the next election, they’ll do some deal with Sinn Fein. As far as I’m concerned, hell will freeze over before the DUP will share power with Gerry Adams. If you look at the last recent poll, I think it was 3% of DUP supporters said they would support any kind of power sharing. That’s with the SDLP not with Sinn Fein.
“I think what Peter Robinson wants, Peter Robinson is a very ambitious, very pragmatic politician, but whether he can bring a party along with him that is 97% against power sharing, into power sharing with Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness and Sinn Fein, the ancient enemy, I find that really quite impossible to believe….. “
Francie Molloy: “I thought the Chair would be neutral in this situation. The reality is, and maybe Andy is slightly removed from reality in Armagh, but I think the reality on the ground, and I think I know it, is that the DUP are positioning themselves for change, and if people can’t see the signs of that, then I think they are the people who have got it wrong. But it’s not a matter for me………The situation is that the makeup of the Assembly as it is at the moment would mean that the largest unionist party and the largest nationalist party would become the First and Deputy First Ministers. That’s the way it’s actually organised, you mightn’t like it, and I know David and others have … proposed changes, but that’s the reality at the present time. And if the DUP are the largest unionist party – which I think they will be – and if Sinn Fein are the largest nationalist party – which I think they will be – then that’s where there will be a voting. It’s not a matter of a deal, but a vote which will actually ensure who is First and Deputy First Minister. And I do believe that it will work together, But if you want to ensure that the Assembly is up and running then I do believe that you have to have elections and, despite what Chris says, the Ulster Unionist Party are still trying to ensure that the elections don’t happen on the First of May.
David Ford: “A brief response to that. I think Francie’s completely wrong when he says that the largest unionist party and the largest nationalist party will necessarily supply the First Minister and Deputy First Minister. It’s not a matter that unionists elect the First Minister and nationalists elect the Deputy First Minister. There has to be a joint proposal of two names passed on the current system by a majority vote of designated unionists and designated nationalists. I think if anybody in this room believes that any unionist in the second week of May this year is going to vote for a Sinn Fein member to be Deputy First Minister, they really don’t understand unionists.”
Questions 5-7:
Q.5 (Trim resident): “I was interested that Chris McGimpsey and Gregory Campbell [DUP], who addressed a meeting here some time ago, they seem to be singing out of the same hymn sheet, both cited all the republican side got and the other side didn’t. And one is for the Agreement and the other is not, can you explain that? Also, as regards the Southern participation in it, we voted for the deletion of Articles 2 & 3 and it didn’t seem to make any difference, and they were shouting from the rooftops about it all the time before … It’s gone and it made no difference. I wonder was it any good at all that the South voted for the new Agreement. What difference did it make, one way or the other, to us?”
Q. 6. [Columban missionary, re reconciliation]: “I thought that the chairman’s definition of reconciliation at the beginning is a very accurate one, but also formidable, and indeed in every part of the world where it has been tried, it has proved formidable. I was just wondering if the speakers tonight, good as they have been, are still dodging the full implications that this would demand from each party. And I’d particularly like to hear from the representative of the Women’s Coalition as to how she sees the future of reconciliation.”
Q. 7 [Canon John Clarke, Navan. Re reconciliation]: “It’s probably much the same kind of comment and question as the last speaker, but I was certainly somewhat disappointed this evening. It’s been a little like giving an essay to children in school, asking them to write an essay on a subject and them not reading the subject properly, and then writing the essay. I am afraid that at least 50% – or much more than 50% – of the initial speeches have been very much about focusing on “biting the old bit”, as it were, and indeed, you know, apportioning blame. I do think that perhaps it might be much more profitable to have dealt with “acts of completion and beyond” and particularly focusing on reconciliation, as the last speaker has said.”
Chair (Andy Pollak): “I’ll go back to the panel. There were three points there – one is Articles 2 & 3 have gone, the South has made that sacrifice by voting them away, and what difference has it made? I’ll ask Chris that, because he has, as he’ll explain, a particular interest in that area. The second question was: it is a formidable definition of what reconciliation is and, particularly, the questioner asked what the Women’s Coalition felt.
“What this would demand of the parties and how they saw the future, the implementation of this formidable demand to reconcile. And thirdly, that the speakers hadn’t really addressed the title of the session of the talk, ‘Acts of Completion and beyond – Beginning the Reconciliation Process’, and there being a bit too much party political stuff, and also a bit too much apportioning blame. And, as I tried to say at the beginning, apportioning blame is the opposite. People have to say: ‘I’m to blame’, ‘I’m sorry, I’m to blame’, ‘my party is to blame’, ‘my community is to blame’, as Gusty Spence did so memorably there when the loyalist ceasefire took place. So if I could take those three points, I’ll start with Chris on Articles 2 & 3.”
Replies to Questions 5-7:
Chris McGimpsey [re Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish Constitution]: “You asked were Articles 2 & 3 important, their removal important. The short answer is “yes”. It was absolutely crucial. It was crucial in a couple of ways. Let’s look at it in one way from the South. I think it was important for the Irish Republic that it withdrew what was an irredentist claim over the people and territory of Northern Ireland. What the Irish Republic said in its Constitution, the ‘37 Constitution – Articles 2 & 3 denied the legitimacy of Northern Ireland, “pending the reintegration of the national territory”. The national territory is the “island of Ireland, its islands and territorial seas”. So it denied the constitutional integrity of Northern Ireland, that’s the first point. The second point where Articles 2 & 3 were important was that they gave a spurious legitimacy to the Provisional IRA’s campaign. Time and again, and you read, and I don’t know whether Francie will want to comment on this now, you read the old An Phoblachts, they used to say things like, the Free-staters condemn us in the South, but what are we doing? All we are doing is trying to put into action what is demanded in Articles 2 & 3 of our Constitution. That’s what they said all along. Gave a spurious legitimacy to the campaign. That is another reason why it was important. If the island of Ireland is to move forward to be reconciled with itself, with the two states to be reconciled, both states have got to accept the legitimacy of each other’s borders. Under the Treaty of Rome, to get into the European Community, you have to accept the legitimacy of each other State within the European Community. The Irish Republic was actually living a lie, by being in Europe and doing very well out of it and not being prepared to accept the legitimacy of the borders of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. So those were all things that had to be tidied up. I don’t know what people expected unionists to do when Articles 2 & 3 were removed, people say: “you bitched about it and then you got it and now you don’t mention it”. Well, no we don’t. I mean if asked was it important to us, it was absolutely crucial. It was crucial to bringing about unionist support for the Good Friday Agreement. It was crucial, we believe, to building a foundation for the two states to be reconciled, the one with the other. And that’s an integral part of reconciliation within this island.
Reconciliation: “The other two points were with regard to the speeches. You’re right – we didn’t work on reconciliation and we didn’t talk on reconciliation as much. I tried to lead it, and implicitly what I was saying was: the key act of completion that was promised to unionists five years ago was that the paramilitary groups would hand in weapons – not go down to the PSNI and hand them over the counter – but would put weapons beyond use, and that the paramilitary structures would disappear, that punishment beatings would stop, that expulsions would stop and all of the drugs and all of the other stuff would all stop. That was the key act of completion which we have been waiting for and that’s the one that I was trying to suggest without which this Agreement will not run any further. I think it’s run its course, unless an act of completion takes place. So I’d apologise, I didn’t maybe concentrate on reconciliation but with regard to the “act of completion” element, that was the key thrust of the point I was making. There was a third question which….
Andy Pollak: “The third question was particularly the political implementation of reconciliation, but the speaker was asking for the Women’s Coalition.”
Chris McGimpsey: “Ok, I’ll leave it at that. I can always come back if there is another point.”
Trudy Miller: [Re Articles 2 & 3]: “Briefly, in relation to the first question, the removal of the Articles, I think that’s an indication of maturity of the Irish State, and this is what I mentioned about ourselves in the North. We just have not seemingly reached that maturity. There has been such a lack of trust over the years. The Irish State was a very immature state in the 1950s and the 1960s. It seems to have just grown in that maturity. It can now release these Articles and I think that is an indicator of maybe where, it’s a model in a way to show us where they have arrived at, but it’s also to say how long it has taken and that is where I began at the beginning. It is a lengthy process. While Chris speaks of the Good Friday Agreement and the items that have not happened, really what he needs to also add is that so many things have been reduced: the number of beatings and shootings and there has been some acts of decommissioning. It is a lengthy process.
Dodging the issues: “In relation to question number two, are we dodging the issues? No, we are not dodging the issues. As the Women’s Coalition we came about, we are here, for peace. We saw that women were not going to have a position at the tables. It was touted to the other political parties to bring their women forward to speak in 1996 in what is known as the Forum Talks. They did not take it up. They did not take that invitation, so grass-roots women got together, and from community groups and various gatherings, and they said: “yes, we have got to have voting rights here, we have got to have a say”. And they are about peace. They also recognise that things cannot happen overnight. My own experience as a mother and as a teacher, you bring back the children several times. They may strut and they may storm, and we do have strutting and storming in Northern Ireland. The women have never walked out. Various people have stormed in and stormed out. The women have stayed.
Reconciliation: “And as regard apportioning blame, just to say that the Women’s Coalition representatives brought some items into the Forum, which never would have been brought on board, maybe not even thought of, and one of those was about implementation talks, that we would go on talking, and the second was in relation to the recognition of victims on both sides, and this is where reconciliation comes in comes in, and the wonderful definition we had this evening. Victims on both sides, that they do exist, and at the same time, it’s not to maintain a victimisation culture: we are victims of this, we are victims of that. It is to say things have happened, we have to move on, we have to recognise they have happened, and we have to move on from there. We can go around in a whirlpool all our lives, going in a downward spiral, or we can climb up and we can climb out through talk and that is what our party is about. Round the table dialogue, forget the monologues, round the table dialogue. Thank you.
David Ford [re Articles 2 & 3]: “Just a brief comment on the constitutional question. I hope this doesn’t embarrass you, Chris, because I want to agree with you on that one as well. The reality was: as long as Articles 2 & 3 existed in their old form they were a nagging sore. Once they were removed then people forget the nagging sore, because there are plenty of other things to worry about. I am old enough to remember when the 1974 power-sharing experiment took place for five months, when Ulster Unionists, SDLP and Alliance members in a voluntary coalition in a Stormont Assembly worked together. And when that executive was set up to share power, Oliver Napier, the then leader of the Alliance said if there was not change in the Republic to match that … specifically something to deal with Articles 2 & 3, then unionist resentment would bring down the power-sharing arrangements and five months later unionist resentment brought down the power-sharing arrangements. That’s why it was absolutely essential that Articles 2 & 3 changed.
Reconciliation: “In terms of the formidable task of reconciliation and the fact that we are not very good at looking beyond things. I am also conscious of what another former Alliance leader told some of us a while ago. In 1989, after the collapse of the 1982 Assembly, John Cushnahan went down to Munster to be elected as a Fine Gael MEP. And I remember him describing driving across somewhere in either south Limerick or north Cork canvassing, and as they drove into some small village somewhere ‘Cushie’ said ‘where do we start?’ and got the response: ‘we don’t canvass here, this has been Fianna Fail since the Civil War’. And ‘Cushie’, used to the campaigning that he did for the Alliance in Northern Ireland, said ‘we’re knocking doors here too.’ And I think, actually, when you look at the difficulties that you experienced in this jurisdiction after a relatively short Civil War, divided largely on the question of timing and tactics rather than the fundamental divisions which exist in Northern Ireland, you do have to recognise the problems that we have. However, in a spirit of non-reconciliation, I must say that I have found the performance of the Northern Ireland Executive to be extremely disappointing in terms of what they have done to promote community relations, to promote dialogue and reconciliation. They have actually been quite a good government in terms of much social and economic policy. They have been significantly better than Direct Rule Ministers in what they have done for health or transport or housing or agriculture. But we spent over a year waiting for a report from the Executive outlining a policy on community relations, and it only appeared under Direct Rule. And there is an issue about the ability of us as politicians and I am pointing fingers, but I entirely acknowledge that it’s not terribly easy for any of us, including those of us who are not represented on the Executive. To actually deal with the major divide in Northern Ireland society is a huge challenge, and there is a real need for politicians to be much more pro-active in supporting the range of groups across this community who are doing the real hard work.
“And the other thing that needs to be remembered when you talk about reconciliation is: reconciliation is an issue in the leafy suburbs and in the golf-club bars. There are not just problems of peace and reconciliation in areas where people throw half bricks at each other. There are real problems across the whole of Northern Ireland’s society and we need a real strategic approach to deal with it.”
Francie Molloy [Re reconciliation]: “On the issue of reconciliation and the acts of completion, I think sometimes … people are not recognising all that has happened. If we start off, and I’ll repeat, that the first issue was around why we had an IRA ceasefire and everything else was to grow from that. We did do that and then we had another demand for the disarmament and the whole issue of decommissioning which went on for ages. We had two acts of decommissioning which were simply dismissed by unionists as not enough, and this is what republicans actually have said, and this is what republicans are saying to us on the ground. It doesn’t matter actually what you do, it’ll never be enough, so why do anything is one answer.
Need to change: “There also is a failure to recognise the need to change. Chris was talking about what was printed in An Poblacht a number of years back. The big change that actually happened, and it happened at a Sinn Fein Ard Fheis and maybe went unnoticed again to a lot of unionists and maybe even to a lot of republicans, is that whenever Sinn Fein took the decision to go into Leinster House and actually whenever we put the onus on the Irish government to recognise all the people of Ireland and to work on behalf of all the people of Ireland, not just within the 26 counties. That actually for the first time we were recognising the Irish Government as a sovereign government and that, for a party that actually had always labelled the Irish government as simply another partitionist administration, North and South. So there was a serious recognition there for the first time, and it wasn’t about Peter Brooke. No, Peter Brooke actually made a statement, but he left out the main issue which was that Britain still had political interest in the North. So while he might have talked about not having a selfish, strategic or economic interest, he left out the issue which actually was political interest in the North. But it was a starting point, and certainly it triggered off a number of different discussions, and actually led I think to the overall opening up. And if Gay Byrnehadn’t put him on the spot [on the Late Late Show] who would have known what actually would have happened if he hadn’t sung ‘Oh my darling Clementine.’
“But we have a situation here where if we move the goalposts every time that change happens, then people will actually say well there’s really no point in making change. And the republican movement has for years resisted the whole idea, and it never happened before, on the whole issue of acts of decommissioning. Those have happened, they’ve been accepted by republicans, and yet as I say it has been thrown back in their face. If people want surrender, let’s be quite clear: it’s not going to happen. If people want republicans to lie down on the road and trample over them, it’s not going to happen. And if people think that republicans are actually going to lose their aspirations then it’s not going to happen, and what we need to do is see that we are not in a surrender situation, but we are in a situation of trying to build trust, trying to build new institutions, being part of the administration there and trying to build the North-South institutions which was a failure of the Irish Government for 70 years…..
Articles 2 & 3: “And Chris McGimpsey was the person who took the court case which clearly stated to the Irish Government that there was an imperative on them to actually deliver on the aspirations, not to simply have them in the Constitution. Because as an Irish nationalist … and whenever my neighbours have been murdered nightly by Gusty Spence’s UVF, I never found any support or any backup from the Irish Government, or any protection from the Irish Government, simply because it claimed Articles 2 & 3 and claimed jurisdiction. So, you know, there are a lot of people who need to get real in this whole situation if we’re going to actually move the thing along.
“But certainly, republicans are not losing their aspirations to build an all-Ireland structure, and we’re not losing our aspirations to change the situation on the ground. We are no longer going to be second-class citizens. We are very much first-class citizens and that’s the way we intend to maintain that. So we can actually build the trust and build the institutions or we can force change. We can work along with that change or we can continue to deny it and simply walk away from it.
Implementation of the Agreement: “The implementation process was put in place, but every time there were talks about the implementation process, David Trimble didn’t attend. He walked away from them. And yet he was demanding that republicans implement. David Trimble as First Minister had a duty to implement the Good Friday Agreement. He failed to do so. The British Government have at least admitted that they actually didn’t implement the Good Friday Agreement. I believe republicans have went further in actually implementing, and further than any republicans have went in the whole history of the republican movement, in actually bringing about change, in bringing the entire structure of our organisation basically with us, whilst there were some who left them and went away. And sometimes I think that the two governments would like to see the whole splintering of the republican movement, a feud situation, and to do what happened on the Shankill Road, to have a feud between republicans. But I don’t believe that’s going to happen either. So we have the opportunity to build trust and to reconcile and to work together to build that, or we have the opportunity simply to be in denial and walk away from it.
Chris McGimpsey: “…To make a couple of comments on that. Francie says it’s sensible to build trust. He doesn’t trust the unionists, he doesn’t trust the SDLP, he clearly doesn’t trust the Brits, he’s not too sure about the Irish, you know, and he wants to build trust! “
Francie Molloy: “Well it’s a starting point.” [laughter]
Chris McGimpsey: “We’ll assume he trusts Gerry Adams, I suppose that is a starting point! Let me make a couple of points here. There are a couple of things here that he said that are important. With regard to the British, he says that Peter Brooke didn’t mention the political. No, but the following year, Sir Patrick Mayhew gave a very famous interview in Germany in which he said – it was translated in the British press and in the Irish press as: “if the people of Northern Ireland wanted to be part of a united Ireland, we would let them leave, we would gladly let them leave”. What he actually said, and I’m told this is significant by people who know German – I don’t know any German – he says ‘we would let them leave, mit handkuss.’ You know, that doesn’t mean we would gladly, it was said as if to say “thank Christ to get rid of them”… So there’s your answer about whether or not they have a political interest in staying. He says, as soon as the people of Northern Ireland want out of the United Kingdom, they can go ‘mit handkuss’. [English translation “with a kiss of the hand”]
“To say that unionists, certainly pro-Agreement Ulster Unionists, did not welcome the acts of decommissioning is just not true. Go back and read the papers again to check. That is not true, they were welcomed, they were welcomed. You have got to remember, if you have got 110 tons of weapons, to destroy a few hundred bullets and half a dozen rifles, or a few hundred rifles and a half a dozen bullets, I don’t know what it was, because you’re not even allowed to be told what it was. But if you have 110 tons of weapons, and you’re now committed to democratic and constitutional effort only, you don’t need 110 tons of weapons. You know if you are seriously committed to democratic and constitutional change, you could give away 100 tons of weapons. You have more weapons than the Irish army. You could give away 100 tons of weapons and keep ten and still feel safe. That’s ten tons not ten weapons.
“And the last thing: I am glad the way the republican movement has changed. I know that the republican movement has changed its attitude towards the Irish Government, accepting the legitimacy of the Irish government. I wonder do they accept the legitimacy of the Irish army? Do they still believe the only legitimate armed force on the island of Ireland is the Irish Republican Army? I don’t know. “
Francie Molloy: “It’s already been stated, it’s already been stated.”
Chair: Andy Pollak: “It’s just gone 10 o’clock, five past ten. There are two more people, three more people. Okay, go ahead.”
Questions 8-11:
Q.8 Derek Mooney: “I am secretary of the Fianna Fail group on the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation, and you were talking about reconciliation. We have had two sessions so far. We’ve talked about going into a series of workshops over the next period of time … I see David Ford there and I know that the last two sessions of the Forum have been concerned with particularly the interfaces … I think it is particularly appropriate with Chris McGimpsey here, I think he said he attended the Forum in 1984 with publicity. Subsequently then Roy Garland came to the Forum in 1995 with publicity, and then they have had a large number of various people speaking, independently from the Unionist Party etc amid virtually no publicity. The only person who got publicity at the last Forum meeting was the spokesperson from the Orange Order, so they had a progression. What we’ve heard about the Forum is going to be…
Chris McGimpsey: “Well they wanted to expel me from the Unionist Party for going. Now it’s hard to find a unionist member who hasn’t been to the Forum.”
Derek Mooney: “I want to put it to you that there is progress, huge progress, that is the point I am making”.
Chris McGimpsey: “Oh yes.”
Derek Mooney: “David Ford made a point – I think that reconciliation is a bit like Billy Connolly’s musical appreciation, that when he went to school he would sit there at the back of the class and the teacher would play the piano and then shout down every so often ‘Connolly – appreciate!’ I think there is a certain element of that in reconciliation, in that people are telling you to go and reconcile yourselves, and I think David Ford put his finger on it in terms of where does this leadership come from? A lot of this has come from the ground in many cases. There are the organisations like this, Glencree, a whole range of organisations. Those people who came before us in the Forum to talk about the work that they had done. But the difficulty is that it comes down to trust, if they are not getting the leadership from the leaders. And I think they want confirmation that the elections are going to take place on the 1st of May … maybe some of the contributions tonight from the top table are absolute confirmation that the elections are going to take place on the 1st of May, because political parties are now into election-mode. And who am I to criticise them? It is the right thing to do. But I think we have moved forward. I think the questioner is indicating that we haven’t, but we have, we have made huge moves forward, and maybe sometimes we need to concentrate on that. As to what the outcome of the election is, who knows?
“David Ford made one point that I disagree with, and I think it may have been inadvertently said, when he turned around and said that the Belfast Agreement had given us a divided community or a divided society. It existed long before that. The fact that we have terms of designation … within the Assembly, the designation of nationalist or unionist … is just merely a reflection of what is there, and if you are going to solve a problem, you have to acknowledge that the problem exists and take that as your starting point. And I think maybe you should be working through the Assembly at some point to get rid of those designations, but I think from what we have heard tonight we are a long way off from that.”
Q. 9: [re policing]: “The speaker from the Women’s Coalition talked about a police force that is acceptable to all, as well as integrated education and housing … and I am wondering why in Northern Ireland there wasn’t a mutual protection force for the people there. I think if there had been, the IRA would never have needed all those arms …”
Q. 10. [Cllr. Phil Cantwell, Trim UDC]: “Could I give you the views of an Irish politician? Visiting Northern Ireland I’ve spoken to people in Ballymena, Ballymoney, and I agree with David Ford. Not everybody in Ballymoney is unionist, not everybody in the Shankill wants to be there. It seems to me that everybody in Northern Ireland is concerned about getting a health service, getting a job, and it seems to me that Sinn Fein has to become more republican and Dr. McGimpsey’s party has to become more unionist to be successful. It sounds to me … because I think that what the nationalists had to go through was appalling, and it’s a pity that Dr. McGimpsey couldn’t be generous enough to say that what was done against the nationalists was wrong. I am very impressed by the Women’s Coalition and the Alliance. Most people in Northern Ireland are neither nationalist nor unionist, they are in the middle. I think from what I’ve seen in Northern Ireland, politics is very wrong, and … we speak tonight about reconciliation: for God’s sake show a little bit of generosity on both the unionist side and on the Sinn Fein side. And I’ll say to Francie tonight: if peace is to work, tell the nationalist people to join the police force and have an acceptable police. That is where I am coming from. Because this evening in the South nobody questions a Garda if they are stopped on the road for drink driving or drunken driving or anything else. … But I have been in the Shankill and I’ve been in the Ardoyne, and those people are crying out for an acceptable police force. I think we all want it. So I’ll say tonight to Chris McGimpsey: don’t try to be more unionist, accept that the Catholics or the nationalists were walked on for years. Accept that. Don’t just leave it up to Gusty Spence, please say that. Trimble seems to becoming more like Paisley to become more acceptable with the unionists, that’s wrong. But I’ll say to Francie again tonight, please join and urge the nationalists to join the police force. Thank you.”
Q. 11 [Trim resident, re Treaty of 1921, and DeValera’s Constitution of 1937]: “ …I wonder are we reaping the half-baked Treaty that was signed in ’21? …[tape unclear]”
Replies to questions 8-11:
David Ford: “I’m going to give just a brief response to the points raised there. I don’t think I said the Agreement had given us a divided society. If I did I said it wrong, but what I do believe is that certain aspects of the Agreement have entrenched divisions and specifically, by promoting rewards for unionists and nationalists at the expense of all others, it in some respects makes reconciliation more difficult. That is the point which has to be addressed, which my party has been seeking to address and we will continue to. In terms of the issue, in company such as this I am no expert on the 1937 Constitution or even the 1922 Treaty. What I do know is that in 1998 we had an Agreement endorsed North and South. I believe the real danger of the Agreement is that for some people it is seen as the ceiling of their ambitions. We got so far in reaching towards each other and having reached the Agreement, that’s it, we can go back and play our own kind of politics. As far as I am concerned, the Agreement is the foundation on which we will build a united society in the coming years. “
Francie Molloy: “ … I think the very fact that we have the parties here around the one table, talking, is certainly a benefit and wouldn’t have happened a number of years back. If the Alliance party and the Women’s Coalition, and if everybody else in the North were in the middle, then they would be the largest parties. They are not. The reality is on the ground that the Ulster Unionist Party, the SDLP and Sinn Fein are the largest parties. I make no apology for being more republican, and I don’t make any response to that situation, but I am not simply hard line. I am dealing with the reality on the ground that I have to deal with. “
Policing: “In relation to policing, whenever we get that new beginning for policing, then certainly we will be the first to say so. But we are a long way off it. The British Government know what legislation is required to make that happen, and if they bring about the Patten implementation, then certainly I think it will happen. But the main thing is that we are to make politics work and we have to have the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement for to move on. Thank you.”
Trudy Miller: “Just briefly, I am glad to recognise the gentleman from Fianna Fail and Cllr. Cantwell, they both said they have moved on in the North, it is a slow process. I can remember, and maybe somebody can fill in, I can remember in the ‘50s the era of something called ‘An Toastal’, which I think De Valera initiated as a kind of a rejig of Irish nationalism, cum ‘wear your tricolour’ and all little shamrocks, and I can’t remember anything else really, but I was very little and I asked my mother what this was and I don’t know what the parlance of the day was but basically she said it’s a load of bull and I was very glad. The Irish State has matured since then, we all have to move on, and that is where we have made some progress. And I am optimistic, in spite of the things we said this evening, we are optimistic. It is not going to fall underneath and we are not going to be placed with these huge problems. People are going to talk. There is no alternative.”
Chris McGimpsey: “… I notice the nerves are starting to get a bit rawer the later we go on in the night, so it’s probably a good time to finish. The Forum, massive changes to the whole concept of discussions between Irish men and Irish women on both sides of the border. Communication has opened up in a way that didn’t exist in 1984 when I went on the Forum. You wouldn’t believe the shit I took when I came back! “It seemed like a good idea at the time and I’m still glad I did it. But you are right, I think it is still important that we got to keep talking. Let me say one thing, all this talk about the majority of people don’t see themselves as unionists and nationalists. Every opinion poll in Northern Ireland indicates the majority of people in the Protestant community view themselves as unionists and the majority of people in the Catholic community view themselves as nationalist. … I don’t know, the councillor said about being on the Shankill … I haven’t met anybody on the Shankill that didn’t feel themselves to be a unionist or a loyalist and there’s a Shankill grown women sitting over there, ask her and if we don’t know what we are, we know what we aren’t. I am sort of attacked for not condemning the Specialist Powers Act. I got to tell you the reason I didn’t mention the Special Powers Act, I didn’t hear anybody mention the Special Powers Act in years, but it wouldn’t be my idea of the way we legislate for a modern, democratic society. Nor would I say the Offences Against the State Act, which you had in the Irish Republic and for all I know probably still have, and was indeed even more draconian than the Special Powers Act, wouldn’t exactly be my cup of tea either. “
“Nationalists, why not admit that nationalists were walked on for years? I think there is an element of that which is true. I think there is also an element of lots of people – a lot of working class people were walked on for years, and I think that the fact that in 80 years of self-rule that the Protestant population in the South dropped from 22% to 7%, and the Catholic population in the North went from whatever it is 38% to 48%, gives some indication that things are not just as black and white as people would suggest.
Policing: “Two points about the RUC. The lady from Australia, or from Co. Antrim rather, I must say shocked me a little bit. “Perhaps if the police force in Northern Ireland had been more neutral the IRA wouldn’t have needed their arms”. I mean I really don’t know how to respond to that.
Questioner: “Sorry I didn’t say police force, I said a neutral protection force”.
Chris McGimpsey: “Oh, well okay. You said if a neutral protection force had existed in Northern Ireland, people usually look upon, in civil society, the police being the protection force, the IRA wouldn’t have needed their arms. To justify what we have had over the last 30 years in saying: “well it’s all Northern Ireland’s fault”. There is nothing justifies some of the actions the IRA have undertaken and there is nothing.
Questioner: “I didn’t say that.”
Chris McGimpsey: “No, but you said maybe that is why the IRA needed their arms. I mean paramilitary groups if they don’t have arms, they don’t use them. They don’t get arms to use them.”
Questioner: “You have Catholic groups, and I know groups of eighty people in parts … where police men came into public bars and shot them.”
Chris McGimpsey: “Can I just say, the 20th century was never the part of Irish history that I studied. I have a Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh in Irish History. Can I just say I have never read of policemen going into pubs and machine gunning and killing eighty people…”
Questioner: “I didn’t say they killed them, the guns jammed.
Chris McGimpsey: “Oh the guns jammed. I would love to read … thirty years in journalism, I don’t know if you know what I am saying. Let’s pass over that, I just don’t believe that, certainly not in any of the pubs I’ve drunk in.
Treaty of 1921 and the Irish Constitution: “The 1937 Constitution was brought in unilaterally. That is the one thing you have got to remember. This state unilaterally brought in the Constitution. When the Treaty was set up, when the Irish Free State was set up, there was a thing called the ‘Confirmation of Agreement Ireland Act’ and it talked about the two states recognising the legitimacy, this was 1925, the legitimacy of the borders, each State of the other, and being “united in amity” the one with the other to foster good relations on the island of Ireland. The Irish Free State signed that, and so did the UK Government and that’s what De Valera threw away in ’37 with his Constitution and that is what we are bringing back. We are clawing back to a situation where people in the Republic and people in the Northern Ireland are united in amity to bring forward reconciliation on the island of Ireland.”
CLOSING WORDS
Andy Pollak: “Right I am going to finish on a positive note, because you could think, having listened to some of this conversation, that not much has changed in Northern Ireland, but actually a huge amount has changed. The last five years there has been a sea change in many things. People talk to each other, local councillors greet each other, things are happening across the border. I’ll give you three examples: The Lord Mayor of Belfast, Alex Maskey of Sinn Fein, going to the Somme memorial last summer. The involvement of unionist Ministers in regular practical North South co-operation talks. A magazine which is being run out of Monaghan by a group of loyalist and republican prisoners, ex-prisoners together. I could multiply that dozens and dozens of times. There is stuff going on. We have moved a great distance since the Good Friday Agreement. What we need to do now is not to lose that movement, not to lose that progress. So we are pessimistic, we are naturally pessimistic in the North, we have seen a lot of false dawns, but there are huge possibilities in the Good Friday Agreement, in the Belfast Agreement. And even on the level of IRA decommissioning, disbandment and British demilitarisation, there is great possibility of movement. Some of us would be very critical of the slow pace of British demilitarisation of the forts along the border, but it does mean that there is a bargaining card there. That if the IRA give up something considerable, the British Army can give up something considerable as well, so nobody is seen to be losing. There are possibilities there, there is hope there.
“So if I could just finish by thanking you all for coming out. I have to say I am very cheered and impressed. I sometimes think, as somebody who lives in Dublin but works in the North, I’d understand why people in the South would be a bit sick of the North now and these kinds of discussions, but it’s very impressive and very cheering that people in Co. Meath come out on a bitterly cold night in such numbers to talk about and listen about the North, and I’d just like to pay tribute to the Meath Peace Group for the vanguard work they do in keeping the vital, vital issue of Northern Ireland in front of people. I remember Julitta rightly rebuked me the last time I was on a public platform, about ten years ago, when I said that the people in the South should leave the people in the North to work out their own future together. And she rebuked me and she was right, and I just want to thank you all very much for coming out and making this such a very interesting and compelling occasion. Thank you very much. And if I could just thank the four speakers for coming down from Northern Ireland again on a cold night to address this occasion, if I could thank the speakers as well.”
Julitta Clancy: “On behalf of the Meath Peace Group I would just to thank Andy Pollak for so ably chairing the talk, and to echo his tributes to the speakers. Thank you all very much. You have all come very long distances today, coming out of your way to come here to talk to us and we very much appreciate that. I also want to again extend our appreciation to the audience here, who have come out on a very, very cold night, and have done so consistently for ten years, we have had very good attendances here. I don’t know how long more they can go on, maybe you’d want us to dissolve this year, but I just want to thank you very much. I am in the happy position that I never remember the rebukes I deliver to anybody else so I fortunately don’t remember that, Andy, but again thank you all and we wish you well in the coming talks and negotiations. And we hope, that if you can resolve these kind of immediate issues which are long outstanding and need to be resolved, that somehow some lesson will be learned from the last five years and that some way reconciliation – whatever it is – that we will start to really address it, because there is a gaping hole there and we are meeting groups privately and publicly and there are huge hurts and huge pains and lot and lots of misunderstanding and misperceptions and there is a need for the political parties to start giving leadership to the wider community. So thank you all again.”
Ends
Meath Peace Group report, March 2003 Transcribed by Catriona Fitzgerald and edited by Julitta Clancy. Taped by Oliver Ward, Catriona Fitzgerald and John Clancy. © Meath Peace Group
Acknowledgments: Meath Peace Group would like to thank all who assisted in the planning, organisation, publicity, recording and transcribing of the talk, and those who prepared refreshments. Special thanks as always to the Columban Fathers for permitting us the facilities of Dalgan Park, to the Dept. of Foreign Affairs Reconciliation Fund for assistance towards the running costs of the talks, and to all who made contributions to our expenses. We thank all our speakers for taking the time to come to address us in Meath and a special thanks to our guest chair, Andy Pollak.
Biographical Notes on Speakers and Chair
David Ford, MLA, Alliance Party (South Antrim). Before entering politicsDavid Ford worked as a social worker with the NHSS. He was appointed Gen. Secretary of the Alliance Party in 1990 and has been a member of Antrim Borough Council since 1993. He represented the party on the NI Forum between 1996 and 1998, and was elected to the Assembly (for S. Antrim) in 1998. He stood in the Westminster elections 1997, 2000, and 2001, and was appointed Alliance Chief Whip in 1998. Elected Party Leader in October 2001, he is currently the party’s Assembly Spokesperson on Agriculture and Rural Development, and on the Environment, and serves on several committees.
Cllr. Dr. Chris McGimpsey, Ulster Unionist Party (Shankill Road). Chris McGimpsey has represented the Court Electoral Area on Belfast City Council since 1993. He is Chairman of the Council’s Policy & Resources Committee, and is a member of the Contract Services Committee, the Client Services Committee and the Health and Environmental Services Committee. He has represented Belfast City Council on numerous bodies including the Advisory Committee on Travellers, Belfast Education and Library Board, and the Community Work Programme Regional Partnership Board. He is the UUP constituency chairman for West Belfast.
Trudy Miller, NI Women’s Coalition (South Down). Trudy Carrol Miller originally came from Co. Meath but has lived in South Down since 1981. She is a former teacher and primary school principal, and is a strong advocate of high quality education for every pupil and lifelong learning opportunities for every adult. She joined the NI Women’s Coalition in 2000, serving on the Executive Committee and the Education Policy team, and is party candidate for South Down. Trudy believes that the NIWC has brought new hope, new energy and new political thinking into public life She wants to encourage more women to get involved in politics and has been active on environmental and road safety issues in her South Down constituency.
Cllr. Francis Molloy, MLA, Sinn Fein (Mid Ulster). Francie Molloy has been involved with civil rights and republican movements since the 1960s. He was director of operations for the election campaigns of Bobby Sands and Owen Carron in 1981, and was first elected to Dungannon District Council in 1985 (representing Torrents area). In 1996 he was elected to the Northern Ireland Forum and was a member of Sinn Fein’s talks delegation between 1997 and 1998. He was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly (Mid Ulster constituency) in June 1998 and chaired the Finance Committee. He was also a member of the Environment Committee of the Assembly and is a former mayor of Dungannon.
Andy Pollak, Director of the Centre for Cross Border Studies, Armagh. For many years Andy Pollak served as a Belfast reporter, religious affairs correspondent and education correspondent with the Irish Times. In the early 1990s he was co-coordinator of Initiative ’92’s citizens’ inquiry into ways forward for Northern Ireland, and edited its subsequent report A Citizens’ Inquiry: The Opsahl Commission Report (1993). In 1999 he was appointed Director of the newly founded Centre for Cross Border Studies, based in Armagh, which researches and develops co-operation across the Irish border in education, health, business, public administration, communications, agriculture, the environment and a range of other practical areas. He is a former editor of the Belfast magazine ‘Fortnight’ and co-author of a political biography of Rev Ian Paisley.
©Meath Peace Group 2003
Meath Peace Group Committee 2003: Julitta and John Clancy, Parsonstown, Batterstown, Dunboyne, Co. Meath; Fr. Michael Kane, An Tobar, Ardbraccan; Canon John Clarke, The Rectory, Navan; Anne Nolan, Slane; John Keaveney, Ratoath; Philomena Boylan-Stewart, Longwood; Olive Kelly, Garlow Cross, Lismullen; Leona Rennicks, Ardbraccan; Catriona Fitzgerald, Warrenstown, Kilcock; Pauline Ryan, Navan
MEATH PEACE GROUP TALKS
No. 46: “Peace and Stability in Northern Ireland – A DUP Perspective”
Monday, 18th November 2002
St. Columban’s College, Dalgan Park, Navan, Co. Meath
Speaker:
Gregory Campbell, MLA, MP (Democratic Unionist Party)
Chaired by Paul Murphy (Former Group Editor, Drogheda Independent)
Official welcome by Cllr Jim Holloway
Contents:
Welcome and introductions: Cllr James Holloway and Paul Murphy
Gregory Campbell
Questions and comments
Closing words
Biographical notes and acknowledgements
[Editor’s note: over 100 people attended this talk, the first of our public talks to be addressed by the DUP]
WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS
Cllr. James Holloway (Fine Gael, Navan UDC): “Good evening. I came here tonight on behalf of Deputy Damien English, the new young TD for Meath. He couldn’t be here tonight and he sends his apologies. … Now I’ve been involved in local politics for the last eight years and I want to say one thing: while I have spent all my life teaching, you could say that I was very much involved in the community. Well, like lots of people in their particular careers I didn’t necessarily have to meet the different sections of the community but since I became involved in local politics I have had to go out there and meet the different sectoral interests, the different religious groups, social classes, and for me that has been the most rewarding thing. To know what beats in the heart of a community you have to go into the heart of that community. It has been a most enriching experience for me – to know other people, to speak to them, look into their faces and try and understand where they are coming from. I’m here tonight in Dalgan which is part of a community of religious who never had the choice but to be in the heart of different communities. I’m just saying that by way of introducing Gregory Campbell, MP and Member of the Legislative Assembly in Northern Ireland, the first time that a member of the DUP has come here and spoken to this group. My introductory remarks had that in mind – we will have a chance here to meet with one another, look eye to eye, hear what we are saying and that is a great opportunity. Without further ado I welcome you, Gregory.”
Chair (Paul Murphy). “Thank you Councillor. I have a warm welcome for Gregory here – coincidentally we just met a year ago at a peace conference in Cork. That conference was organised by the Westgate Foundation, a social services and community group operating in West Cork and doing a wonderful job down there. They have been working quietly for peace for two decades at least. We were delighted to be present and to hear all shades of opinion in Cork from people from Belfast and Derry/Londonderry and from Dublin and Cork itself. It was an interesting event and well-supported I know by the Department of Foreign Affairs and I see Peadar [Carpenter] here tonight, and I’m delighted to see him…
“Just to introduce Gregory: he is an MLA and MP for the DUP – the Democratic Unionist Party. He was first elected to local government in 1981 and has been re-elected every four years since then. He has contested Assembly and Parliamentary elections on behalf of the DUP and was elected Assembly Member in 1998 and MP in June 2001 for the East Londonderry constituency. He was Regional Development Minister in the Northern Ireland Executive from July 2000 to September 2001…. From 1981 to 1994 he was the party spokesman on Fair Employment, from 1994 he was spokesman for security, and from 1996 to1997 he was a delegate to the all-party talks…[see further Biographical notes at end of this report] … “I am sure you will give a very very warm welcome to Gregory.”
Gregory Campbell, MLA, MP
“Thank you, Chairman and could I thank the organisers for inviting me along this evening. As I listened to the CV being read out I began to wonder whether it was me or someone else he was talking about! I want to thank the organisers for the invite along tonight. On the way here we were talking about the best way to proceed in the meeting. My view is that at meetings like this I tend to think that the people who are the listeners get more out of a two-way process of questions and answers than simply a monologue, and if you don’t agree with me at the start, if I were to speak for an hour and a half, I venture to suggest that you would all agree with me at the end of that.
“You would say “yes, it was a good idea – he should have spoken for an hour and twenty minutes less and posed more questions”! So I do think it is more beneficial to take the questions. I’m going to try and keep to that, and I am going to speak for a shortish time and hopefully those comments will be sufficiently robust, controversial, whatever, to inspire a number of questions which may then lead to further enlightenment – on either side – and hopefully that will be the case.”
Value of dialogue: “I always like to come to the Irish Republic and explain the unionist position because I think – and I really want to subdivide my talk tonight under two headings – I really do think that part of the problem in understanding Northern Ireland, particularly to those who come from outside of Northern Ireland, is one of caricature, one of perception, and one of misunderstanding, and therefore a meeting like this, with discussions and questions and answers, oftentimes can lead to a breaking down of those perceptions, hopefully setting the record straight in terms of caricatures and hopefully trying to open up lines of communication between us in Northern Ireland and you in the Irish Republic. So I want to dwell on that.”
Peace and Stability in Northern Ireland: “The other thing I wanted to speak on was: as the heading of tonight’s meeting is “Peace and Stability in Northern Ireland”, I wanted to say a few words about any process that is likely to lead to greater peace and greater stability in Northern Ireland. It has got to do something that no process up to now has done. That is a major statement and yet I believe it is fundamentally true.”
Perceptions and caricature: “So first of all I want to turn my mind to this issue of caricature and perceptions in Northern Ireland. I have no doubt, and as I came on previous occasions to the Republic, there are people who when they hear the letters “DUP” have a particular image of what that means, of what someone who is in the DUP will say, and they almost have the pigeon-hole carved out and ready to slot the person into that particular pigeon-hole. And that comes about because of a whole variety of factors which I will not go into, you’ll be glad to hear, down through the years.”
Unionist opposition to Belfast Agreement: “In Northern Ireland we have a very difficult, very elaborate and complicated scenario. It isn’t a simplistic problem to be solved. It isn’t the case that what needs to happen is that, for example, the IRA need to show their bona fides, they need to disarm and they need to go away, and if they did then the unionist community would simply say “well now we are in favour of an Agreement which up to now we have been opposed to”. In other words, the reason for opposition in the unionist community, to the Belfast Agreement, isn’t just because the IRA have been active since the Agreement, it isn’t just because of Colombia and the – I think they were called “eco-tourists” at the time, who knows what the court in Colombia will find them guilty of? – it’s not just because of Castlereagh, it’s not just because of a conviction in Florida, and it’s not just because of a spy-ring in Stormont. Some people, not only in Northern Ireland but also people in the Republic, believe that if those issues regarding the IRA were satisfactorily resolved then the unionist community would be in support of the Agreement. If they believe that then they are guilty of creating another caricature.”
One-sided nature of the Agreement: “Because you see unionists weren’t just opposed to the Agreement because they saw the IRA being in breach of their commitment to exclusively peaceful and democratic means. They were opposed to the Agreement because the Agreement itself – the actual structure of the Agreement – is a one-sided structure.”
North-South and East-West strands: “I will give you an example. Before the suspension of the Northern Ireland Assembly I tabled a question in Stormont – in fact it was two questions, and the first one was: to detail how many meetings, and what the subject matters were, of all the North-South Ministerial Council meetings that there had been. And the second question was very similar: how many meetings, and the subject matters, of the British-Irish Council. Now the reason I did that was because way back four and a half years ago when the Agreement was signed, those pro-Agreement unionists who tried to sell the benefits of the Agreement, when they were under some criticism about the strength and the vibrancy and the growing evolution of the North-South strand in the Agreement, pointed to the East-West or the British-Irish strand in the Agreement and tried to get people to accept that one was a counter-balance to the other. In other words, for the 50% of weight that you would put on the North-South strand of the Agreement, it would be counter-balanced by 50% on the East-West [strand]. And that was what David Trimble and others attempted to say. Now we said at the time – those of us who were opposed to the Agreement – we said: “look, quite frankly this is a nonsense. The Agreement is built on the North-South axis and any East-West liaison is just window-dressing to try and fool gullible Unionists into accepting the North-South business.” Of course we were then told this is scare-mongering.”
“The answers to my question: there was a whole litany of subject-matters on the North-South, a veritable litany of them, but over fifty meetings had taken place of the North-South Ministerial Council, which sounded pretty impressive in four years. The answer to the East-West question, however, wasn’t quite so comprehensive. Five meetings of the East-West relationship! Now, does that say to me that the North-South axis is ten times more important than the East-West? Maybe not ten times, maybe twelve times, maybe eight times, but certainly more important than the East-West – the ratio we will not quibble about. The point about posing those questions was to demonstrate that, if you like, the real game for the Agreement was North-South – we can have the pretend game on the sidelines for Unionists, to try and keep them from getting very annoyed and angry about the development of the North-South basis.”
Two criteria required for unionist support: “So, the whole issue in Northern Ireland today is more fundamental than even the issue of whether the IRA is active or not. It’s much more fundamental than that. Because unionists need to be satisfied on two counts – two counts only. For any agreement to get success, or to be approved, or to get the imprimatur of the unionist community it needs to fulfil two criteria.
1. Parties to agreement must be genuine democrats: “The first one is that we need to be talking about people involved in that agreement, parties to that agreement, signatories to it, who are genuine democrats. And when I say “genuine democrats” I mean that they come to the table without the force of a private army, but with the force of their logic. Because when I come to any table – tonight’s table, or a discussion table or a talks table – I don’t have a private illegal army whom I can call upon if my logic is found wanting. But Gerry Adams does. Now that’s the difference.
“That’s why there is inequality in Northern Ireland – not the kind of inequality that you may have heard about. But that’s the kind of inequality which unionists say has to be taken out of the equation. So when we all come to the table to devise an agreement – which hopefully we can all sign up to – we all come there as equals. The quality and the force of our reasoning and our logic, nothing else. That means the arms have to go – not some of them, but all of them for all time. All of the illegal arms out of the equation. That’s the first prerequisite.”
2. Concerns of all sides to be treated on equal basis: “The second one, and oftentimes overlooked: even if the first one were met, the second one also has to be met. And I don’t think that we are being unreasonable in the first count and I think we are equally reasonable in demanding that the second requirement should be met. The second requirement is that as we reach the table of talks and discussions to work our way through the quagmire that is trying to get an agreement in Northern Ireland, that all of our identities, our communal outlooks, our grievances, our fears and our concerns are treated on an equal basis. Now some people might say – who haven’t followed Northern Ireland too closely – they might say: “Well what on earth is wrong with that? Of course that should be the case.” But you see the Belfast Agreement doesn’t work on that basis. It accepts one set of prejudices, one set of grievances, one set of disadvantages but not another.”
Marginalisation, exclusion and discrimination: “That’s why we need to get a new agreement, and that’s why – and I will move on to the second part of my talk – we need to get agreement that there is more than one community who feel marginalized, excluded and discriminated against.
Cold house for Protestants: “Now, as I say, someone coming from outside with no interest in Northern Ireland might say: “What’s wrong with that? Perfectly acceptable. Any democrat would accept that” But in Northern Ireland, unfortunately, what happens is that most of the previous attempts to get some form of agreement or devolved structure have floundered, and they have floundered because – whether you look back to the 1970s, or the 1980s, or the 1990s – you will always see an acceptance, for example, of the nationalist complaint – that nationalists have been systematically discriminated against in Northern Ireland for fifty years. And many people will say – and I remember some people describing the Belfast Agreement as “Sunningdale for slow learners” – and at the time of Sunningdale we were told that what needs to happen is: “nationalists must be brought in from the cold, nationalists must be shown that there is a place in the sun in Northern Ireland for them”.
“Now the closest any Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has come to conceding the second point was the previous Secretary of State who has just left to take up another post, Dr. John Reid. Because when he spoke in Liverpool University last year he came quite close to being the first Secretary of State to recognise something that some of us have been saying for over 20 years. When he made the statement – and I’ll come to the one thing where he made a mistake in that – where he made a statement that the one thing they had to avoid was creating a Northern Ireland which would become a “cold place for Protestants”. He came very close to being the first Secretary of State to hit the nail on the head. The one mistake that he made in that statement was the tense that he used. He talked about it as if it was a future possibility, or a future probability, when in fact it is a present reality. It’s not just the case that unionists may at some future date become disenfranchised or marginalized: they have been so for years, for years they have been so.”
Fair Employment: Civil Service recruitment: “I remember way back in the 1970s when I and some others started to address the issue of Fair Employment. At first it was the case that we were dismissed as some sort of crankish element on the fringe of the unionist community, and then eventually the debate moved on and I can remember in the 1980s almost recognition of what we were saying, but in some very small pockets of Northern Ireland. The Minister for Finance and Personnel in the Northern Ireland Assembly, Dr. Sean Farren, undertook a review of the Civil Service. The Civil Service in Northern Ireland is the largest employer by far – it employs over 20, 000 people. It is four times the size of the largest private employer in Northern Ireland. That review of employment procedures showed what I and others had been saying was the case for many years – that the unionist community are at a severe disadvantage whenever you look at recruitment into the Civil Service.”
Northern Ireland Housing Executive: “Last year I had a series of correspondences with the head of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive – the largest public housing body in Western Europe. Again, an employer of several thousand people. The recruitment practices of that large public body showed that there is an under-representation of the unionist community.”
“These two factors demonstrate why Dr. John Reid was almost right. Northern Ireland doesn’t have the possibility of being a cold house for the unionist community: tens of thousands of them feel as if they are in an igloo. That’s how cold it is now and has been so over 20 years.”
Criteria for talks: “So what do we do about trying to get the heat turned up? Those two factors are crucial. We’ve got to be operating in an entirely peaceful environment and all the participants coming to any talks table need to be coming with no strength of force of arms but only the strength of their argument, all of us coming to that table. We all need to be at the table to address grievances and wrongs on bothour sides. And if people come and say “no, the object of the exercise is to create a new agreement or a new Sunningdale, and that’s to bring nationalists in because they believe that unionists are already in, then we’re going to fail again. So there has to be an acceptance that those are the parameters that we will come to address”.
Repeating the mantra: “Now I have no doubt that there are those who will come to the table and they will be putting forward viewpoints and arguments, and their assessment of the situation will be radically different to mine and to ours, and I have to accept their right to put those arguments. I have to accept that because we have a divided society in Northern Ireland. But equally they will have to accept that it isn’t of any use to keep repeating the mantra – “that there is no other show in town but the Belfast Agreement, that we’re going to keep on working at implementing the Agreement.”
Lack of unionist consent: “There is a very simple – and I say “simple” not “simplistic” – a very simple way of looking at the problems that we are faced with at the moment in Northern Ireland. People say to me: “the people had their vote and their views at the time of the Referendum, four and a half years ago: 71.9% of the people of Northern Ireland, 95% of the people of the Republic voted in favour of it.” And what I say to them is very straightforward. I say to them: “Yes, do you accept that Northern Ireland is a deeply deeply divided society?” Virtually everybody says “yes”. “Do you accept that in the past the problem was: that whereas unionists gave their assent and their consent to how Northern Ireland was governed, that nationalists didn’t?”
“Virtually everybody says “yes” to that as well. And I then go on to say to them: “Did that lack of consent from the nationalist community lead to changes in the way Northern Ireland was governed?” Of course it did. And usually when I lead people along that route, at this point they realise where we are going. Because then I say to them: “Where we are now is that almost all the nationalist community support the Belfast Agreement in Northern Ireland, but only a small fraction of the unionist community support it.” Now I ask you, in terms of equity and in terms of logic: if in the past a system of government in Northern Ireland had to be changed, and changed radically and drastically, because the nationalist community wouldn’t buy into it, why does the same logic not apply to the present? We have a system of government now to which the unionists take the same exception, are resentful to the same degree as nationalists were in the old days, but why do governments say “oh but there’s a settlement now, we’re going to implement this Agreement, even if unionists don’t like it”?
Legitimacy of grievances: “Why was it then that in the old days the system that didn’t have nationalist support didn’t get the same demand that it would have to stay and would have to be put in place and wouldn’t be changed and wouldn’t be altered, but now, we’re told: “well, the unionists had their chance five years ago”. And we’ll not go into what the Prime Minister promised would happen and hasn’t happened. The reality at the moment in 2002 is very straightforward. The nationalist community by and large are very very content with the Agreement as it sits at the moment. And I would have to say to you that if I were a nationalist I would be very content with the Agreement. I would think it is a tremendous achievement because it accepts the legitimacy of my grievances and seeks to address them. But I am not a nationalist. I am a unionist. Until we can get our own Government, and your Government in this country, to accept the legitimacy of our grievances and get them to establish a system that says “yes, you can put forward the legitimacy of your grievances, within the parameters of this system of government”, then we are going to be bound to repeat the failures of the Belfast Agreement and other agreements. Mr Chairman, I hope I’ve said enough to provoke at least some questions and I’ll be happy to respond.”
Chair – Paul Murphy: “Thank you, Gregory, I’m sure there is plenty of food for thought there. What I intend to do is try to take questions in groups of three and allow Gregory then to reply…”
Questions and comments (main points only):
[Names of questioners are not given here except where the questioner is a public representative or politician]
Q.1. [Drogheda resident]: “Who are the people who would argue against equality in housing and employment and how do you anticipate they would conduct those arguments?”
Q. 2. [Navan resident]: “Gregory, thank you for your openness and your honesty. A great deal of your argumentation is that unionist grievances have not been addressed in the past and certainly are not being addressed now. Maybe you could spell out specifically what are the grievances that need to be addressed?”
Q. 3. [Navan resident]: “We’ve had the two referenda and the Belfast Agreement. What, Gregory, would you propose – how do you take it on from here? What do we do now?”
Replies to questions 1-3:
Gregory Campbell: Inequality: “The first question was those who would argue against the equality in the housing issue and how they would conduct their campaign. What I found in relation to this and other equality issues – and I alluded to this in my address – there is almost a denial that the situation exists. That’s normally how they conduct it. They normally say: “This can’t be happening, this is not right.” And then when you present them with the figures, when you show the figures, and you show them not just as I might present them but you show them from the body itself, so for example, the Housing Executive: if you refer people to those figures that that body produces itself, and you then establish the bona fides of your case – that there is a position to be answered and a response to be made – there is usually then a sort of a fall-back by those who bring their side of the argument that “we all must try and create an equal society”. It’s almost as if, you know, it doesn’t exist and then if it does exist, it’s almost like motherhood and apple pie, “we’ve all got to be equal, we all have to put forward our arguments in our new era, our new society”. But I haven’t really found anyone who [tape unclear] … is saying that they agree with the disadvantage. I don’t find that people are saying: “well yes, that is the case, and it is right that it is the case that unionists are disadvantaged”. I don’t find people saying that. As I say, normally it’s denial, and then when the reality of the figures are presented to them, it’s normally then a sort of a motherhood and apple-pie defence – you know “we all must be equal and we all have to be seen to be even-handed in how we get employment opportunities.” But that doesn’t really address the problem.
Unionist grievances: “The second question was the question on the grievances. I hope that I did outline one of them, in terms of employment, the Civil Service which is the largest employer in Northern Ireland, by far, and there is a major problem there. The other issue I alluded to, was the North-South as opposed to the East-West, in other words the greater weight and importance given to the North-South connection, between Northern Ireland and the Republic, as opposed to between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.”
Irish language: “Another example – this is at a very superfluous level, but hopefully it will give you an example of what I am talking about – there is a significant amount of money now deployed in the various Departments of Northern Ireland for the promotion of the Irish language, and I don’t have a difficulty with that, where it’s not being used as a political tool. I don’t have a problem with that. But there isn’t the same degree of importance attached to the cultural background that I come from, in Northern Ireland, as there would be to Irish. Now again I would like to see more equity coming into that particular situation.”
Cultural tourism: “To give you another example: on the tourism – andcultural tourism, which is being developed in Northern Ireland as it has in the Republic and elsewhere over the past eight or ten years – it is very difficult to get Government Departments to promote the entity that is Northern Ireland in cultural tourism. It’s very difficult to get them to do anything about that. Again they pay lip-service to it but it is quite difficult to get examples of how that is promoted. And yet the Irish diaspora – Tourism Ireland, you know other examples of the Irish dimension – there is no difficulty whatsoever in getting that promoted.
Policing recruitment: “So those are some of the examples. Another one is a very controversial one, and it is one which needs answering in the short term. That is in policing. In Northern Ireland at the moment we have what is called a 50:50 rule in recruitment. People who pay close attention to the problems will probably be aware of that. What happened was for a period of 70, 80 years there was a lack of applications from the Catholic community into the old RUC. Now part of the reason for that was that the IRA shot many of those who did apply. But there were quite a few Catholic police officers who served very well and admirably. But there was a very low take-up. Before the 1995 period only about 9% of the old RUC would have been Catholic. In order to address that they introduced what many in my community find offensive, which is almost a system of reverse discrimination, which means that however many people apply, and historically, because of the policing situation that I’ve just outlined, if you’ve got 1, 000 application forms you will get possibly 700 or 800 from my community and possibly only 200 or 300 from the nationalist community, and that’s what has happened. But now what they have done, because of this 50:50 rule, however many from my community apply, and however few from the nationalist community apply, they boil that down, they go through the procedures to find out if they would be suitable police officers and they then simply eliminate from the selection procedure all of the numbers from my community who exceed the 50% rule. Now, out of 1, 000 applications – let’s say there are 800 from my community and 200 from the nationalist community – if there are 200 out of the 1,000 who are suitably qualified I’m sure 150 of them are from my community and 50 are from the nationalist community. 100 of the 150 in my community will get a letter saying “we’re sorry, but under the 50:50 rule you will not be offered employment.”
Discrimination: “That is effectively telling them they are the wrong religion, and then only 50 from my community and 50 from the nationalist community will be recruited. Now that has caused a problem in policing numbers, because of the low numbers coming from the nationalist community. So the actual number of police officers being brought into the police force is reduced because of that 50:50 rule, and the rule itself causes huge resentment, absolutely huge resentment, not just to the people who apply, have gone through the process, been told they are suitably qualified and then rejected on religious grounds, but also to their families and their friends because they see that the system actively discriminates against my community.
“So we have to replace that with a system of merit, pure merit, so that whoever applies, if they’re suitably qualified they are offered a post, irrespective of their religious background.”
Where now? “The third question – excuse me Mr Chairman I think I can summarise the question just by saying “Where now? Where do we go from here?” It’s my view that we have now had almost 5 years since the Belfast Agreement, since the referendum. The Assembly’s life span should terminate on the 30th of April next year. Elections are scheduled to be held on the 1st May. Really, I think to devise another system which is going to be acceptable to both communities – and that is what we have to get. I’m not seeking to replace a system of government that is unacceptable to my community with another system that is unacceptable to nationalists. I think we have to get a system that is going to be acceptable to both, because the past has shown us that where you have a sizeable section of one community resentful and antagonised and alienated, it doesn’t work. But I don’t know why people can’t accept that that criterion applies now, in reverse, and they say “but it does have acceptance” when it doesn’t. And the polls in favour of our party show that there isn’t support”
Elections and talks: “So the thing to do now is I think we need to get that election, we need to hold those elections, see what the numerical strengths of the various political parties are, and we then need to get down to the earnest and urgent business of trying to devise that talks table that I alluded to in my opening remarks. So that all the political parties come to that table purely with the force of argument, no force of arms, and we then sit down to try and hammer out a deal to which both our communities can sign up to and give their allegiance to. I think to prolong the agony with the present system, with the present Assembly, will only exacerbate matters and make matters worse. I think we need a fresh mandate so that people can see what the relative strengths of the parties are, and we need to get those negotiations up and running as soon as absolutely possible.”
Questions 4-8
Q.4: Cllr Brian Fitzgerald (Ind., Meath Co. Council, former Labour Party TD) : “First of all I would like to welcome you Gregory to Co. Meath. About seven or eight years ago I took a delegation to Belfast of Labour Party parliamentarians at the time. We met every political party in Belfast, but unfortunately your party leader declined the invitation to meet with us in Belfast, and that is one of the things I regret – that every other party met with us, and we had hours of debate over a number of days, trying to get behind the difficulties that you had, the fears and perceptions that were there. So I do welcome you here tonight, and I am thankful to the Meath Peace Group for encouraging you to come here.
“I am a little disappointed with some of the remarks, if you don’t mind me picking some points in some of the things that you did say. Those of us who are here, and the vast majority of people on this island, particularly in southern Ireland, would not support the IRA. The vast majority of people do not support Sinn Fein. So we’ve all been very democratic politicians down through the years and we’ve tried to [extend] the hand of friendship. But it would appear to me, though, that your leader, who came into being when the late Terence O’Neill decided to come south to meet with the late Sean Lemass who was then Taoiseach of this country – it was from then on that your party grew, from this. And it was because he handed out the hand of friendship to the South, and we tried to work with our Northern colleagues in the hope of developing the island because they knew what was facing them. They had the vision to know what was facing them in Europe and the rest of the world. So I am a little disappointed that we’re still thinking about those divisions that are still there and still being built upon. I do not see why you allow the IRA and Sinn Fein to continue to set the agenda, because that is effectively what you are doing. You are allowing them to set the agenda. But the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland will support the democratic process, let it be the SDLP, the Alliance or anybody else up there, and I don’t see why you should continue to allow that to happen by excluding the rest of us, and the rest of those people, from trying to develop the Good Friday Agreement. Because let’s be honest about it – you say “why is it being reversed now?” It’s being reversed because in 1974 when we tried to do something here, together with our colleagues in Northern Ireland, it was your party that dragged it down. I’m not saying you did, Gregory, but certainly the leaders of the day – they developed the workers’ strike which ensured that it would fall down….. [tape change]…
Sinn Fein on Policing Board: “The question I want to ask you is this ….at the present time Sinn Fein is refusing to sit on the Policing Board. If there’s a possibility that they would come in, would your party remain on the Policing Board?
Q. 5. [Dunsany resident, originally from Northern Ireland]: “Gregory, I’m glad to hear you speak and to get a chance to speak to you. You’re welcome.
I’m somewhat saddened, over the years I’ve been saddened, by the contribution of the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland. You talk about discrimination and you try to draw a parallel between what happened in Northern Ireland in the late 60s and early 70sand the discrimination that was perpetrated against the nationalist community, to the discrimination that is being perpetrated against the unionist community today. Gladly that is not the case – that there is such discrimination being perpetrated against the unionist community, and I see little evidence of such a scale of discrimination. Now with regard to your own people and the representation: it often saddens me that your party sometimes in the past has urged people on to the streets … and violence ensues. And that causes – to the people of Northern Ireland, the people of your community and the nationalist community – great pain and great sadness, a great pain and great sadness that has been in evidence for far too many years. And I would plead with you, as a relatively young man – that is relative to Ian – that you would take a look at your community and the people who are suffering in the lower socio-economic groupings of Belfast who are nightly angered. And the words that you speak, sadly, cause them to fear even further their future in Northern Ireland living alongside the nationalist community. And their fears are based on the terrible pain that they have suffered at the hands of the IRA, in the same way as members of the IRA and the nationalist community have suffered great pain. The divisions have been there too long, Gregory, we need you tart talking about bringing people together, and not just focusing on one side. I find it quite difficult to appreciate how the republican community will leave down their arms whilst nightly their people are attacked by members of the unionist/loyalist community. And I would love to see you, or some members of your party, standing up and talking about the future that does not fester into the divisions that we have had in the past, so that your words will not be used to nurture the festering sores that are so real in the minds and hearts of the people of both communities. That’s what I wish from you and your party: to liberate your people from their pain, not remind them of the discrimination but lead them to a new land …..I am certain that within the unionist community there are great minds that would see this little piece of land governed by the intellect of the people …… I would wish that the borders of our minds would in some way be decommissioned in the hope that you and I and all the people here, North and South, could find a common goal. Stop the pain.”
Chair: “I’ll allow that as a question even though it was a speech! Thank you.”
Q. 6: [Dublin resident] Policing recruitment: “I had a very interesting lunch today with a young Protestant girl from the Republic of Ireland who applied for a job with the PSNI [Police Service of Northern Ireland] as a civilian worker. I think it was a triple interview system. She went through the first two it seems successfully and when she got to the third interview the interview started by somebody explaining to her that she wouldn’t be taken on in a job, if at all, unless first of all there was a Roman Catholic appointed. And she wondered, as a citizen of the European Union, how such discrimination could exist. Thank you, Gregory.”
Q. 7. [Drogheda businessman] Re investment in N.I. “Gregory, I found it quite painful to listen to what you had to say. I think your politics are quite petty, and I think they belong in the past. Last week I spent some time with the managing director of a very large old prestigious English company. He was looking to set up a factory in Ireland, and I was wondering when I spoke to him why he was considering southern Ireland, when his natural territory would be perhaps in the North.
“Over the course of this meeting I began to realise that I had more in common with him than what my unionist cousins in the North have, and that he felt more at home down here than what he would have felt in the North. And I thought that was a pity because you people are obviously more British than we. And the reason this man won’t invest in the Northern section of our country, and he won’t build a factory, and the reason we are going to get it, is because of politics on both sides of your community – just like yours and just like the republicans. If you want your communities to grow as one community and if you want to make money and make a good country or a state of Northern Ireland, you’ve got to leave this politics behind you. The greatest mistake you’ve made is the trashing of your Assembly. Who would invest up there? I could not encourage anyone to invest in your country. As I said, the politics is insular and it belongs in the past. You’ve got to leave this behind you, you’ve got to embrace the other community. Constantly whining and putting each other down. You can make something of it, you should make something of it, but you must embrace them. Now, you talk about Colombia and all these small little things that happened – they may be great things to you, but could they be anything worse than the dissembling of Stormont? If you bring the republicans in from the cold and work with them, show them that your politics works. I think they want to work with you, I think you should work with them, to make something of it. And I think, as a leader, you owe it to yourself and to your community to act like a leader, and the person I saw speaking here tonight – you’re no leader.”
Chair: “I’ll allow that as a question too. Now we’re drifting a little bit, I have to remind you. I know you want to express your feelings but I’d really like you to ask questions.”
Q. 8 [Navan resident]: “In view of the fact that the DUP Ministers in the North of Ireland did a powerful job, by all reports – including Mr Campbell when he was there – is that the reason why the DUP has increased their support since the Belfast Agreement? Or is it because they are constantly saying “no” to things?”
Replies to Questions 4-8:
Gregory Campbell: “In answer to the question from Cllr. [Brian] Fitzgerald with reference to the Lemass visit, and also – quite frankly I couldn’t understand this business – about allowing Sinn Fein to set the agenda, and then the Policing Board
Lemass visit and relationships with Irish Republic: “The whole issue of Lemass and anything like that – it’s not the case that the DUP and the forerunners of the DUP were opposed to everything from the Irish Republic and that that in some way led to the problems we are now faced with and now we are having to address the legacy of that, if you like. The issue for unionists is – not that Ian Paisley or anyone else opposed the visit of Lemass, but it is what is lying behind the people of the Republic wanting to have a closer liaison with those of us in Northern Ireland. If it is purely and simply creating a better environment than we are 100% behind that. But if we believe that there are those who want to use a better liaison, a better relationship, build a stronger North-South axis, in order to lay the foundation for some form of unified state in the future, then it will be resolutely opposed. So it is not what happens more as why is it happening. I mean I hope I’ve explained that.”
“I hear some people say things like – and it really does annoy me, and I heard David Trimble at it the weekend just past – I’ve heard things in the past, and I’m sure you’ve heard them as well, about, for example, the Angelus on RTE and if that was done away with that that would make the Republic a more accommodating place to unionists. Somebody remarked on my honesty. Let me be absolutely honest: it doesn’t matter! I don’t care whether they play the Angelus or not, because I am British. If you want the Angelus, or a secular introduction to your News, or if you want Mahatma Ghandi, it’s entirely a matter for you people, as long as you don’t do things in order to make the Republic more accommodating to people who are not part of the State, aren’t Irish or won’t be whatever you do. Then we can make progress. But if it’s seen to be a design to try and get unionists to say “Well, perhaps if we could all join in an Irish rugby team, and if we could drop the Angelus, and if it wasn’t such a sectarian “mono-ethnic” state as David Trimble talked about, then unionists might want to be part of it.” Now this is utter nonsense! Utter nonsense!
Sinn Fein: “Re Sinn Fein setting the agenda – I just do not accept that. I mean I’ve said what the agenda is tonight: that we want every party as democrats to come to the table to devise a new agreement that we can all sign up to.
Politics of the past: “Dealing with the next question, I just don’t understand the question about the issue of the politics of the past. Is it the politics of the past to get an agreement that everybody in Northern Ireland can support? Is that the politics of the past? The politics of the past is an Agreement that said to unionists: if we con you or get you to sign up to it, then you’re caught for ever and a day. That’s the politics of the past.
Politics of the future: “The politics of the future is some sort of diversity in Northern Ireland that everybody says “we are no longer threatened, we are no longer marginalized, we are no longer excluded, we are all in from the cold.” I can’t for the life of me see how anybody could describe that as the politics of the past.”
Policing Board: “If Sinn Fein under the present circumstances, with the IRA still active – not just “little things” like Colombia, “little things” like shooting people, kidnapping people and planting bombs and bringing in guns, “little things” like that as they are called – if Sinn Fein come in then we will have to take definitive and decisive action to ensure that they aren’t legitimised by so doing, and we certainly will do that.”
Unionists on the streets: “The next question I think was about unionists coming on to the streets. I came into politics – I have no history in my family or in my background of political involvement. I came into politics because nationalists were on the streets, because nationalists were demanding something that I didn’t have. And not only were they demanding something that I didn’t have, but they were blaming me – equal rights, equal rights that I didn’t have. And that’s where I came into politics, because nationalists were on the streets, and I deeply resented that they were blaming me for not getting something which I didn’t have either.”
Telling it as it is: “Then there was the other issue about words that you speak bringing about these vexing sores. Well I would have thought that tonight I’m trying to show – I mean I’ve come to the Republic before. I was in the Republic 20 years ago, 1983, and I’ve been to Glencree, I’ve been to Dublin, Donegal, I come to the Republic as often as I can.
“But because I come to the Republic doesn’t mean that I somehow change the spots that I have. I come to tell you as it is. Now people might not like it, but that’s the way it is.
Support for DUP: “And one of the questions was about support for the DUP – the support for the DUP is because we tell it as it is. Because our community says: “These people are speaking for us. We’ve been marginalized, discriminated and internationally nobody cares about us. Nobody cares about us. They back the nationalists, the Irish-American lobby back Sinn Fein, nobody cares about the unionists.” But people say “the DUP speak up for the unionist community.” That’s why there has been a rising tide for our party.”
Policing recruitment: “There was a question about discrimination against Irish Protestants in the police….”
Chair: “Yes, a clerical position.”
Gregory Campbell: “ If that is the case, and it is the first I’ve heard about it, unfortunately it only goes to prove what I was saying earlier – that there is this huge resentment amongst my community, and if there are Protestants in this State who also suffer as a result of it, then it ought not to be in place. Wherever people come from – Northern Ireland, the Republic, or any other country – they should get into our police force because they are the best qualified person to be a police officer, be they Protestant, Catholic, Jewish or Hindu. No religion should be a barrier to that person being a police officer.
Questions 9-12
Q. 9: Cllr. Sean Collins (Fianna Fail, Drogheda): “First of all, can I welcome Gregory here? I’ve heard him speak a number of times in the past, and we’ve had a few debates in the past. The one thing I will always say about Gregory is – like him or lump him – he is consistent. He stands over his arguments all the way. I welcome him here. … We’re often told that the DUP are not coming south , are not prepared to come south, but they have done that and I would appeal to them to keep doing that, because we’ll not get anywhere unless we keep talking.
Just to make a slight observation. I would just appeal to everyone not to be getting bogged down in history, that may sound funny coming from me, but we have to move on. We’ve had four years of peace and the Good Friday Agreement. I’m one of the people that’s optimistic about that. For God’s sake, here in our own country we had a Civil War in 1922 and the parties are only getting over it in the last five years…. So I think in the four years of peace in Northern Ireland we’ve achieved an awful lot and moved on.”
Fear in unionist community: “The issues discussed by Gregory tonight – while I wouldn’t dismiss them, they’re very logical and important issues – but they’re not the real issues, as far as I’m concerned, in Northern Ireland Two or three weeks ago I was working with a group of active old people from both sides of the divide, brought together under the Peace and Reconciliation format. We had a very productive week, working together and discussing the Troubles and the things that concerned us in our lives. But the one thing that amazed me and shocked me was that the people from the nationalist community of both Derry and Belfast and other towns could say to me “when you’re up there, Sean, why don’t you drop in and have a cup of tea?
“We live in Ballymurphy, but we’re easy to find, we live in the Springfield Road, we’re easy to find.” The people from the unionist community said to me: “Sean, if you’re up we’d love to see you, give us a ring, but for God’s sake don’t come to the house, don’t come to our area, it wouldn’t be safe for you, it wouldn’t be safe for us.” The big bogey as far as Gregory and his colleagues are saying over and over again is the IRA, but surely the IRA are not living in Glenwood or those places? So what’s being done about that fear, what’s your party going to do about that fear? The word on the ground about your party is excellent. In many places – though you won’t admit it – I’m told Sinn Fein behind closed doors feel they can work the best with the DUP of all the parties in Northern Ireland, because the DUP, like Sinn Fein, are hungry. They are hungry for more seats and more control and more power, which is the natural part of the democratic process, that’s how it works, we see it down here all the time with other parties. That’s what I am concerned about. What are you going to do about that fear in your community? And the fear in your community of me knocking on their front door is not because the IRA are going to attack them. Thank you.”
Q. 10. Chair (Paul Murphy): “I’m going to throw in two questions of my own, if I may. The first relates to an article in the Observer a year ago when Henry McDonald reported that there were 87 paramilitary gangs operating in Northern Ireland, and I would like to know what can be done about that problem? And the second question I would like to ask is about the possibility of having a Truth Commission. That was one of the questions exercised at a conference in Cork at the weekend and we had a very interesting talk there from the Executive Director of the Truth Commission. That’s one thing I’ve always felt myself we should have – not in a punitive way but to give at least the truth and the facts to the relatives of the victims of the Troubles.”
Q. 11. Derek Mooney (Fianna Fail, Dublin): “Just two points – in your opening remarks you asserted that the Good Friday Agreement was one-sided and geared towards one community. If you could just expand on that because I don’t see the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement being like that. And secondly, you were talking about the differences between the North-South relationship and the East-West relationship, can I take it from that that the DUP – now with their increased strength at Westminster – will be taking their seats in the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body which is an East-West body?”
Q. 12. Cllr. James Holloway (Fine Gael, Navan): “You made reference, Gregory, earlier on, in relation to the Civil Service – the profile there is almost in favour of the nationalist community. I didn’t know that, but it might not appear to be as bad as it seems from your point of view. It may be because there is a propensity among the nationalist community to go into public service, whereas in Northern Ireland the professional community certainly – and they are famous for this – go more into business, so you have more people in business rather than in the public service.
“The other question is – and it is not intended to be frivolous – but I was listening to an Assembly Member from Northern Ireland saying recently – he gave an insight into what goes on in the dining room of the Assembly, and he said that never since the operation started there have the DUP, on the extreme of one side, or the nationalists, that never had they sat down together and eaten at the one table…. You could make a good start there. A famous philosopher once said that when we have been shown hospitality and eat a little we are disposed to be benevolent…”
Replies to questions 9-12:
Gregory Campbell: Moving on: “It’s good to see Sean [Collins] here – I met with him last year in Cork. I agree with him about the issue of moving on. …Sometimes I would attempt to bring some humour to the situation because it can defuse otherwise difficult circumstances. Sometimes I would hear people accusing me, for example, and those who think like me, of wanting to live in the past – that’s an accusation, one of those caricatures I was referring to at the start – and yet it seems to me that there are some people who want Northern Ireland to stop around Easter time in 1998, and they constantly go back to the vote on the Referendum. And you say “but look, it’s 2002”, but they say “oh no no, we go back to 1998.” And then I go: “but I thought it was we that lived in the past!”… It’s almost as if the world stopped at Easter 1998, and we got a vote and that’s it. Forever and a day we are going to live, die and be resurrected on Easter 1998! I’m sorry it just ain’t gonna happen! Just as the world didn’t stop in 1690, whether I wanted it to or not, just as it didn’t stop in 1916 or 1922, it didn’t stop in 1998 either. Life’s going to go on. We do have to move on. And that’s what I hope I was alluding to earlier on.
Fear in unionist community: “There is a fear – you are exactly right, Sean – and it’s not a fear of the IRA. It’s a combination of things, and really until you would be there, living the scenario 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, it would be difficult to try and explain. But if you have the situation of some of those people that Sean wanted to go and knock on their door – and I think you should, and I think we should work until we get those doors opened, so that you can go in, and people can see that the man they thought had horns actually doesn’t have horns – but they have got to appreciate and understand that there isn’t a hidden agenda from you going up and knocking at their door. And you can do things and I can do things to help with that. For example, if I had steadfastly refused always to come to the Republic of Ireland to explain my case, I think I would be doing a disservice to Sean and the like of him who want to come to Northern Ireland, because my people would be saying: “Well, you never go to the Republic so why should we welcome him here?” I think by coming here – even though I am saying things that people don’t like or might not agree with or whatever – then I think it is more likely that people will say, provided there is no hidden agenda: “Yes, let’s hear what these people have to say” in Northern Ireland. I don’t pretend that it’s going to be an overnight – it’s going to be a long long process to get rid of that fear.”
Paramilitary gangs: “I think, Chairman, you mentioned the 87 paramilitary gangs. I get the impression – I mean there is appalling violence in Northern Ireland perpetrated by loyalists and perpetrated by republicans. There’s nail bombs, attacks on Catholics, attacks on Protestants. There is appalling violence – violence has gone up in the past five years rather than gone down. We had a meeting with Tony Blair about ten weeks ago and we presented him with figures of violence since the Agreement. He shook his head in disbelief until Reid butted in and said “no, I’m afraid they’re right, Prime Minister.” Attacks up, intimidation up, bombings up, shootings up – all of those instances, the statistics show increases rather than decreases. Now you asked me for an explanation: I don’t think there is a single explanation for that. I honestly believe that the more we create a sort of a vacuum where the type of government that we have allows people to believe that violence is in some way legitimised, then you increase the propensity for people engaging in that violence.
Truth Commission: “The business of a Truth Commission – I would personally be opposed to the establishment of a Truth Commission. I’ve been to South Africa several times, I remain to be convinced of the merits of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission as outlined there.
One-sidedness: “The next question I have is the one-sidedness of the Belfast Agreement. Well I thought I’d outlined the business of the North-South so I’ll not go over that again. When you look at the Agreement – I’ll give you a couple of examples. Unionists would say that what should happen in any future agreement there ought to be Ministers who are responsible to the Assembly, not Ministers who can act in isolation. Now we think that that’s a pragmatic way of having good government in any case, but the experience of what some Sinn Fein Ministers did in the past – some of you might be aware of an issue regarding a maternity hospital in Belfast. The Health Minister who was Sinn Fein – Bairbre de Brun – she was having a discussion about where a maternity hospital should be based, and there were a number of options. Her Health Committee – an all-party committee, all of the main parties were represented on that committee – many of the representations to her were that she could locate it in another hospital in another part of Belfast. She represents West Belfast where the Royal Victoria Hospital is located. She decided to go against her committee, against the views of the Assembly and locate it in her own constituency. Now I know there is a belief in the Republic that that goes on all the time, that people simply locate in their own back yard for electoral purposes, but it hasn’t happened in Northern Ireland until that occurred. That caused outrage, particularly in the unionist community. It was purely a self-serving decision, and a sectarian one. When I was Minister, I had the opportunity to take decisions based on sectarian grounds. Not only did I decline to take them, I refused to take them, precisely because I think we have to move away from that. It’s things like that we have to change. We have to try and get a balance in an agreement rather than have what appears to be an agenda for republicans who pursue their agenda within the agreement.”
British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body: “The British-Irish Body. You probably are aware that that was established as a result of the forerunner of the Belfast Agreement – the Anglo-Irish Agreement – and again it had the same rationale which was to accommodate nationalist disenfranchisement but not unionist. So why would we want to join a body like that? If a body emerges that treats us as equals then I would be the first at the door to join.”
“I have a note here about the Civil Service – but I can’t remember what that [question] was for…
Chair: “There was one that said – “why not dine together?”
Gregory Campbell: “Oh yes. I take it that the person who asked that question thought that it would be quite natural for us to dine together. You’d need to be in Northern Ireland for a few weeks and a few months to understand the absolute intensity of distrust. It isn’t just a political disagreement. I have political disagreements with the SDLP, with the Alliance Party, with the PUP, with Sinn Fein, with all the political parties. If it was just political disagreements then I would happily dine with any of them. But where one of them is in the Government, not just because they get votes to get them in Government but because they have a private illegal army that got them there, then I have to draw the line, I have to say: “No, I’m not going to give you the legitimacy which I would talking to any political opponent” –
to sit down and have a debate, a discussion and an argument, with an ordinary political opponent who disagrees fundamentally. If you disagreed fundamentally with me to the point that you shot me before I reached that door, I think I would be legitimate in saying “well, I’m going to treat you differently from everyone else until I am sure that the guns are gone”. So the short answer is no, we haven’t dined with them because they still have the guns.”
Questions 13-15
Q. 13. Pat Hynes [Fianna Fail, Dublin]: “There’s an old political phrase that some people never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. While I’m not actually convinced of that fact as of yet, your preoccupation, if you like, with the need for perfection in what is essentially an imperfect agreement and an imperfect process – simply by the fact that it is the result of human design and creation – it does leave me somewhat foreboding. However there were some remarks that you did make that I found quite positive. One in particular was that you wanted to see an agreement which represented the wishes of the nationalist community – you didn’t want to force on them some sort of arrangement that would not be acceptable. Given the fact that the Belfast Agreement received such overwhelming support from the nationalist people, would I be right in assuming that, in advance of the forthcoming election in May, that you would go to your people and to your constituency seeking a review of the institutions and an examination of where perhaps there were failures, rather than, if you like, a return and a disassembling of what we would regard as fundamental tenets or principles of the Agreement?”
Q. 14. [Co. Louth resident] “ You told us your party was consistent, and that you want to look to the future and that you represent the majority of unionist people. I find the DUP are inconsistent – on an almost weekly basis, on your county councils in the Six Counties you regularly sit down with Sinn Fein representatives, yet your Ministers refuse to attend Ministerial meetings with the same Sinn Fein representatives. When the elections do come up on the 1st of May there’s a strong possibility of an even bigger polarisation of votes. The scenario will be that Sinn Fein and the DUP will hold the majority of votes on either side, and today you refuse to speak to these people. So what’s the future for Northern Ireland if that’s the scenario?”
Q. 15: Identity: “It’s a bit of a personal question…. The Scotch-Irish that Gregory would be very proud of have been with us now for 400 years. You mentioned the contribution they made to America. The greatest contribution that the Scotch-Irish made in America – and the most lasting one politically – was the fact that they formed the vast majority of Washington’s army in rejecting their Britishness. I’m glad they came, however, because a tiny percentage of my blood came with them. I think, to get on to the more personal side of the question, I recognise the legitimacy of Ulster Unionism as a democratic ideal, provided it is democratic. I share your suspicion of private armies. We’ve had private armies in Northern Ireland, and I’m talking specifically here of your suspicion of Sinn Fein and the IRA, but there’s a folk memory here of another private army, it’s called the “B” Specials. Finally what I have to say to you is this: I recognise your Britishness, I accept that you’re British, but your people have been here for 400 years. Can you not accept in your heart that you’re also Irish? I heard you tonight, you’re not Irish you’re British – can you not be both?”
Replies to Questions 13-15:
Chair: “It’s now just past ten and I would hope to finish by half-past ten, so if there are any future questions I would ask you to keep them very brief, with as little preamble as possible.”
Gregory Campbell: Missing the opportunity: “The first questioner in this round talked about the missing of the opportunity … At the meeting last year in Cork, I spent a full weekend what I thought was explaining what I said about the Angelus, and changes in the Republic, that if the Republic wanted to do that it was fine, but that would not change the Britishness of Northern Ireland – those of us who want to stay British. And at the end of the weekend one of the people who were involved in the trip – after I had gone out of my way to explain all this, what I thought was time without number – said to me on the way back: “What is it that you are afraid of in the Republic?” I said, “have I wasted the whole weekend? Do you not get the point? It’s nothing to do with what we are afraid of. Are the Canadians afraid of the United States?” Of course they’re not. If the United States wanted to take them over, they may oppose them, but it wouldn’t be a case of “what have you got to fear? It would be a case of “we’re not part of that State. We’re different. We’re from a different State”. That’s not apartheid. That’s just a reality, just as the Portuguese aren’t Spanish, just as the Canadians aren’t Americans. “
Imperfections of the Agreement: “The questioner talked about the imperfections of the Agreement. It’s our view that the imperfections of the Agreement are such that they require fundamental reassessing. One of your, I think it was an adviser to a previous Taoiseach, said about seven or eight years ago that any agreement in Northern Ireland without Sinn Fein “wasn’t worth a penny candle”. Fergus Finlay said that. Does anybody here believe that any agreement without the DUP isn’t worth a penny candle? Because if there’s a different answer to that question, if no agreement can survive without Sinn Fein, but an agreement can survive without the DUP, then I have to ask myself: what’s the difference? Do we have to go out and get a private army, to get the same merit, the same consideration, as Sinn Fein? Is that the difference? We have a larger mandate than they have, but if some people say “we can’t live without Sinn Fein, but we can live without the DUP” – and that’s what appears to come across since 1998, numerous attempts to exclude us. I just don’t think it will work. There needs to be a fundamental change.”
Sitting down with Sinn Fein: “The second question was about the inconsistency. There’s absolutely no inconsistency. I’ve been on local government for 20 years, 21, but I’ve been on for 17 years since Sinn Fein have come on – Sinn Fein came on in 1985. Now, it’s a very straightforward, pragmatic approach: I’m not going to leave an elected body that people vote me on to because Sinn Fein come on. In other words, I have a decision to make, which is that I represent people. If Sinn Fein come, then I have a choice to make. The way I usually describe it when people ask me about this – “you sit with Sinn Fein on the Councils but you won’t do it in the Executive”. A very straightforward analogy: I go into a restaurant, I have my meal. If Martin McGuinness comes into the restaurant and sits at a table across the way from me, does anybody think I am going to say “I’m not staying here, I’m leaving”? I’m going to eat my meal and go. He’s there and I’m there, we’re there in the same room. Now, the difference – and I would put that in the Council context – the difference between that and the Executive is when the manager of the restaurant comes down to me and says: “Gregory, we’d like you to reorganise this restaurant and rewrite the menu, and would you do it with Martin and Gerry there?” He’d get a very short answer.
“Because one is I am doing what I am supposed to do – I’m not going to leave my people unrepresented – but when it comes down to saying to gunmen that we will get into bed with them and run the country with them, then that’s a completely different story. If there is a future with Sinn Fein and the DUP as the largest parties then we are not going to run away from our responsibilities, but we are not going to legitimise terror. Now there will be two ends of the spectrum there that will have to be reconciled, and I don’t know how they will be reconciled. But we won’t legitimise terror, neither will we run away from our responsibilities.”
Scotch-Irish: “The question about the Scotch-Irish. I’m glad you raised it because that’s one that I omitted. Even though I didn’t mention it, I’m very proud of my Scotch-Irish heritage, and I think I’ve every right to be. For good or ill, the largest single super-power in this world today is the United States of America, for good or ill. Its origins came about because of my predecessors. The first Presidents of the United States of America came from what is now Northern Ireland. In my schools, in my country, my children aren’t taught that. If I go to maintained schools. The nationalist community’s children are taught everything, or at least a substantial part, of their Irish history, and it is quite right and proper that they should be. But my children aren’t. They aren’t taught about Andrew Jackson, they aren’t taught about Sam Houston, they aren’t taught about the American Declaration of Independence, they aren’t taught about a whole range and plethora of things which any country would give their eye teeth for – to say “we are the people who created that super-power”. It isn’t done, it’s been neglected and it’s fallen into disrepair. I want to see that imbalance redressed. And I omitted to say it earlier on, but thanks for the opportunity to say it in the question.”
Identity: “And the thing about being Irish and British. I’ve no difficulty with that. I think I alluded to the Canadian analogy. The Canadians don’t like it if you call them Americans. And the reason they don’t like it – any of the Canadians I have met – is because the word “American” for them means United States of America. They live on the land mass that is America, but they don’t like being called “Americans” because that usually means United States of America, and they’re very proud of the fact that they are part of the land mass, but a different part of the same land mass. That’s the way I feel. When people say I’m Irish, I resist it, not because I’m not on the island of Ireland – of course I am, and in that sense I am Irish – but because Irishness is generally presented as being of your nation-state and I am not part of it. So, if you could take that away, I’m Irish in that sense, in that I’m from this island, but I’m British in terms of my birthright and my citizenship. I hope that explains that question.”
Q. 16. [Dublin resident] Re attitudes towards Sinn Fein in Government:
“… Gregory, you explained why the Good Friday Agreement is flawed. I’d be inclined to agree with you. There are very serious flaws in it. One of the difficulties has been, I think, without a doubt, the Sinn Fein/IRA situation, and I do think it is hypocritical for our own Government in the South to say: “You will share power with Sinn Fein and the IRA, but we won’t, we won’t share government with them.” And I think actually Blair said recently, when he visited Belfast, that this argument was a bit sophisticated…. Do you think a change has taken place since the suspension of Stormont, both with Tony Blair’s attitude towards that situation, and indeed Bertie Ahern’s attitude, and that perhaps if we are to go forward that will have to be resolved once and for all, or you’re going to have direct rule for a very long time?”
Gregory Campbell: “I was wondering if someone in the audience would raise this issue … Tony Blair quite rightly said there are convoluted defences of the position but they are not as straightforward as the accusation which is, from the South’s point of view: “we won’t have them in our government, but you must have them in yours”. And that’s the way many unionists see it, you know you can dress it up about the status of this state and its sovereign authority, but to unionists … it’s a case of “they’re not good enough for us, but they’re good enough for you”….. [break in tape]
“This is a personal view but I suspect they still haven’t – I don’t detect that there’s any movement on the fundamental issue which is: are we going to all be there as equals, without any guns on the table, or under it, as somebody once said, or outside the door? Are we all going to be there on the basis of equality? And are we going to be trying to devise an agreement that tries to reconcile inadequacies all round the table, not just one set of inadequacies which is what we believe that the old agreement had, and the view that it promulgated. I don’t know if there has been a change. I suspect that it will require an election. That’s why we are so keen to have an election, because we believe that our views will hold the greater number of the unionist community and then the attempt by my Government and, I think, by your Government, to sideline our view will then be shown to be a futile attempt. And I think the sooner we face up to grasping that nettle the better it will be in the long run. It may be uncomfortable in the short term, but the better it will be in the long run.”
Q. 17. “What percentage of unionists voted in favour of the Good Friday Agreement in the Referendum?”
Gregory Campbell: “It’s quite difficult because at the time of the Referendum, it was a province-wide referendum, there wasn’t constituency break-downs, but the general consensus is that was somewhere between 48% and 55%. Those people who are generally very much in favour of the Agreement would say that 55% of unionists voted for the Agreement. Those of us that are against the Agreement would say that it was slightly less than 50%. The truth, as in all these things, is probably somewhere in between, but, wherever it lies, again what I normally say to people is: “let’s just take it at 50%, we’ll not split hairs …
Questioner: “Do you not agree that there was a majority in favour and that it was your duty then to work towards implementing the Agreement?”
Gregory Campbell: “What I would say to you is this. It’s a very simple question: if 50% of nationalists voted against the system of government would it be implemented in Northern Ireland? No, it would not, and history shows us – it’s not just conjecture on my part – history shows us that when nationalists, as they repeatedly did, said “no” to a deal it wasn’t implemented. When we put our views to the people, and we get 65% or 70% of the wishes of the people of Northern Ireland, the British Government, Tory and Labour, said to us: “you must have cross-community support”. Well then we must have it in this instance as well. If 50% of the unionists are against it we’ve got to get a deal that 80% or 90% of both communities can endorse. Is that so horrible a prospect: that we might actually get a deal that people on both sides of the divide can take ownership of? I would have thought that’s preferable to a deal that only gets a minority – and remember that was five years ago, 50%; the truth now is probably something like 30% of unionists …. But the numbers don’t matter, what matters is getting a deal that both communities can endorse.”
CLOSING WORDS:
Chair (Paul Murphy): “I am not going to try to sum up the debate for you. I only hope that you’ve managed to get some of the answers from Gregory. I thank him very much for coming down here, it’s not his first visit and I hope it won’t be his last. I remember when we were in Roscarberry last year – you might remember this – at a very late hour of night we were having a drink, I was having a gin and tonic and Gregory was having an orange juice, if I remember rightly, and I was asked to contribute musically to the event, which is really a disaster, because I sang that most “PC” and non-political of tunes, “Jingle Bells”. The only thing I got wrong was my timing – I sang it in early November! But we had a good night that night, and I believe strongly that if we are able to meet on a one-to-one basis, as human beings, we can achieve a great deal more. …. Where you get 30 people in a room, from all persuasions and none, and you get them talking, and they talk about the ordinary things that human beings want to talk about, at that level we can meet and hopefully we can continue to do that. And of course I hope again, Gregory, that you will come and visit us and that you will deliver straight from the shoulder as you did tonight. Thank you very much indeed.”
Meath Peace Group report, November 2002. (c)Meath Peace Group
Transcribed and edited by Julitta Clancy
Taped by Oliver Ward, Catriona Fitzgerald, Anne Nolan and John Mark Clancy
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
Gregory Campbell, MLA, MP (DUP): Alderman Gregory Campbell was first elected to local government in 1981 and has been re-elected every four years since then. He has contested Assembly and Parliamentary elections on behalf of the Democratic Unionist Party and was elected Assembly Member in 1998 and Member of Parliament in June 2001 for the East Londonderry constituency. He was Regional Development Minister in the NI Executive from July 2000 to September 2001. Gregory has been the leader of the DUP group on Londonderry Council since 1981. From 1981-1994 he was the party spokesman on Fair Employment, from 1994 he was spokesman for security and from 1996-97 was a delegate in the All Party Talks. Born in 1953, educated at Ebrington Primary School and the former Londonderry Technical College, he is married to Frances and has three daughters, one son and a grand-daughter. In 1982 he became the first politician in Northern Ireland to gain an extra-mural certificate in political studies at Magee College. Before full-time politics he established a local publishing company which was designed to create greater awareness of Ulster history and tradition, especially the Ulster-Scots contribution to the origins of the United States of America. Gregory has also written a number of booklets on the question of discrimination against the Protestant community in Northern Ireland: “Discrimination – the Truth” 91987); “Discrimination – Where Now?” (1993); “Ulster’s Verdict on the Joint Declaration” (1994) and “Working Toward 2000” (1998). His leisure interests are soccer, music and reading.
Paul Murphy was formerly Group Editor with the Drogheda Independent, a post he held for 16 years. Prior to his appointment as Group Editor, Paul worked as a journalist with the Irish Independent, covering Northern Ireland issues from 1968 to 1976. Paul is associated with the Drogheda-Shankill Partnership and Drogheda Homeless Aid and is Secretary of the Old Drogheda Society.
Acknowledgments: The Meath Peace Group would like to thank all who came to the talk and all who assisted in the planning, organisation, publicity and recording, and those who prepared refreshments. Our grateful thanks to the Columban Fathers for kindly permitting us the facilities at Dalgan Park, to the Dept. of Foreign Affairs Reconciliation Fund for assistance towards the costs of the talks, and to all who made contributions towards our expenses. Special thanks to our speaker, Gregory Campbell, for coming to address the group and also to our guest chair, Paul Murphy who also chaired a previous talk – on the Good Friday Agreement – in May 1998.Meath Peace Group Committee 2002: Julitta and John Clancy, Parsonstown, Batterstown, Co. Meath; Pauline Ryan, Navan; Fr. Michael Kane, An Tobar, Ardbraccan; Anne Nolan, Slane; Canon John Clarke, The Rectory, Navan; John Keaveney, Ratoath; Philomena Boylan-Stewart, Longwood; Olive Kelly, Garlow Cross, Lismullen; Leona Rennicks, Ardbraccan, Navan; Catriona Fitzgerald, Warrenstown
©Meath Peace Group
MEATH PEACE GROUP TALKS
No. 45: “The Good Friday Agreement – Where Are We Now?”
Monday, 30th September 2002
St. Columban’s College, Dalgan Park, Navan, Co. Meath
Speakers:
Professor Paul Bew (Professor of Irish Politics, Queen’s University Belfast)
Michael McDowell, T.D., S.C. (Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform;
President of the Progressive Democrats)
Chaired by Ercus Stewart, S.C.
Official welcome by Cllr. Shane Cassells, Mayor of Navan
Contents:
Welcome and introductions: Shane Cassells
Addresses of Paul Bew and Michael McDowell
Questions and comments
Closing words: Ercus Stewart and Julitta Clancy
Appendix A: UUC Resolution of 21 September 2002
Appendix B: Minister McDowell’s supplied script
Biographical notes and acknowledgments
[Editor’s note – context of talk: this talk took place in the immediate aftermath of the Ulster Unionist Council (UUC) meeting held on September 21st and just a few days before the events which led to the latest suspension of the institutions set up under the Good Friday Agreement. As the UUC resolution formed much of the context of the discussion, we have reproduced the text of that resolution motion in Appendix A of this report. Over 130 people attended this talk]
Official Welcome by Mayor of Navan, Cllr. Shane Cassells
Welcoming the speakers, the guest chair and the large audience, Cllr. Shane Cassells, Mayor of Navan, said that “the Good Friday Agreement for the first time ever brought together everyone on the island of Ireland and was formally endorsed by both sides”. On a personal note, he said that “when the Agreement was put to the people of Ireland, as a member of Fianna Fáil whose primary aim is the reunification of this country, I did not vote lightly on the Agreement that gave up our territorial claim but, like many other people, when we were voting for the Agreement we were voting for a greater good, and that can never be forgotten.” Mayor Cassells then introduced the speakers before handing over to the Chair, Ercus Stewart, S.C.
1. Paul Bew (Professor of Irish Politics, Queen’s University Belfast):
“The first thing I’d like to say is to thank the Meath Peace Group who have asked me to come here this evening. I have long been impressed by the interventions that group has made in the public domain, and I am very grateful for the invitation to speak, and I am grateful above all to you for attending in such large numbers, which indicates the seriousness of the topic and the interest that you all have in it.
Crisis facing the Good Friday Agreement: “Now I want to say a few words about the Good Friday Agreement and the crisis it currently faces before suggesting some tentative ways by which we might actually get out of that crisis and preserve that Agreement. I want to say that because sometimes in the last few months when I have been speaking on this matter and I have been trying to alert audiences to the fact that we were heading for a major crisis. Most recently in Oxford about three weeks ago, speaking to the British-Irish Association, a very large percentage of a well-informed audience simply did not want to hear that we were heading for a major crisis, and there is a very good reason why that should be so. From the point of view of many in Dublin – and completely understandably – the Good Friday Agreement solved the Northern Question and the less they hear about it the better in future, a mood which I have every sympathy with, I regard it as an entirely rational attitude. In Britain the same attitude prevails, they don’t want to hear that there are serious difficulties afflicting the course of the Agreement. I noted a strong tendency at the British-Irish Association at the beginning of September for people to have almost a mystical sense that somehow it would work, it would be all right on the night, that somehow the various problems that are afflicting the Agreement would solve themselves, they would go away and that it would be a mistake to listen too much to what were described as “Jeremiah-like prophecies”. My own speech there was referred to as a “Jeremiah-like prophecy”. One person in the audience came up to me and said nobody seems to have realised, or to have looked in their Bible recently in this audience – unfortunately Jeremiah was right! The events since then demonstrated unfortunately that Jeremiah was right in this particular case. But the events were entirely predictable and indeed not as bad as they might have been.
Commitment to the Agreement: “But, stressing the existence of the crisis, and the reality of the crisis, I want to leave you in no doubt of my own personal commitment to the Agreement. It is something I believed was possible and argued for throughout the early and mid-1990s when the conventional view was that it was impossible. One reason why it was widely believed to be impossible, in terms of Dublin opinion, was an assumption about Unionist/Protestant/Presbyterian traditions. The assumption was that these traditions are so reactionary that they will not actually make a power-sharing deal with their neighbours, taking into account also an Irish dimension. I would draw attention to the fact that very few people argued against that view, very few people said it would be possible to mobilise a majority in the Unionist community in favour of this Agreement. That is what actually happened on the day of the referendum in 1998 – it was possible to do it. I still feel that a large part of Nationalist Ireland has not really changed its mindset on that point and come to terms with the fact and the implications that it was possible to do it. But it was actually possible to do it and I would remind you of that.
Nature of the problem: “The problems that we have in the Agreement are nothing to do with the problem of equality in Northern Ireland. If you go up to the Northern Irish Assembly, you will find even the DUP perfectly happy sitting in committees with Sinn Fein. You will find that these committees are working perfectly well. There is no problem in terms of people from different groups in society working together. The problem of equality is nothing to do with the crisis of this Agreement and it is very very important to grasp that. The problem is a very much more profound problem and I will come to it. Because I wish it was the problem of equality, because if it were, it would be more easily soluble, actually. But it isn’t, unfortunately, and therefore is so much more difficult to come to terms with.
“But the simple reality that I would remind you of is, that a majority of Unionists and Protestants voted for this Agreement in 1998, a much larger majority of Catholics and Nationalists, and the difficulties that have arisen and exist today do not exist because people don’t want a new beginning in Northern Ireland. They do not exist because people do not understand that you have to make compromises for peace. And so much of the commentary – perhaps 90% of it – misses this point which a moment’s thought would stare you in the face. And I think to get into the reality framework which we have to be in to get ourselves out of this mess, that’s the first thing that you actually have to do. They do not exist because Mr David Trimble did not sell this Agreement. They do not exist because he doesn’t believe in this Agreement. One of the difficulties that happened in the Ulster Unionist Party in the last two or three weeks is that he was very slow, and late in the day, to see the scale of the forces that were ranged against him, very very late in the day. And one of the reasons for that – not the only reason, but one of the strongest reasons for that – was his commitment to the Agreement, which, at a private level, is fervent and idealistic.
Realities: “There is no possibility however of going out into the streets of Northern Ireland and selling a happy-clappy version of this Agreement. There is no possibility, none at all in the real world, of trying to revisit the mood of the referendum, of April 1998. We all understand impossibilities in Irish politics. Nobody in this room believes it is possible that the [Irish] Government will get an 80% majority in the Nice Referendum, for example. The realities in the North are just as real now. The reality is you cannot return to that mood that existed then because too many people have gone wrong, and I’ll try and explain what they were.
“But there is no possibility that some active will of super-salesmanship is going to come to the rescue here. Now why? I wish it were true, by the way, because I can arrange the act of will, I can arrange the super-salesmanship. I have been there when there were other acts of will and other dramas and super-salesmanship. I just know that this can’t be done, in this particular occasion.
Nature of the difficulties: “We have to face up to the difficulties and what they actually are. They spring from two sources – the first which I will acknowledge quite explicitly is the scale of Protestant violence within Northern Ireland coming from loyalist paramilitary groups which, inevitably, have dragged the IRA in certain places into violence as well. And the destabilising effects of that over the summer. I am quite prepared to concede the version of the police, and I think it is probably right, that the majority of that inter-communal violence comes from disenchanted loyalist groupings. And there seems to me to be no point in arguing about it, this is the truth and it is a major problem.
“However, there are two other major difficulties which are creating the current malaise.
Colombia: “One is Colombia and the question of what the IRA is doing in Colombia. The grim realisation that it cannot, for a Unionist leadership, be swept under the carpet. Let me remind you of something – look at the first page, the statement of principles which underpins the Good Friday Agreement. On that first page, look at para. 4. It states quite explicitly that it is not a matter simply of having a prohibition against political violence, the threat or the use of violence in Northern Ireland against this Agreement, it said anywhere in any context. The parties involved in this are not committed to non-violence locally in the six counties – they are committed anywhere in the world not to use violence to change political arrangements. It is a very simple point. In other words, the explanation often given for Colombia is that I don’t know what the IRA were getting up to there, it has nothing to do with the Northern Irish peace process. I’m afraid anybody who reads the first page of the Good Friday Agreement can see that that is not an explanation that will work. And of course, by the way, the most benign interpretation of the reason why these three gentlemen were in Colombia is that they were being paid….. [tape unclear] That’s at its most benign! The most malign is that new weapons are being tested for re-importation back here. But the most benign interpretation that’s being given is that large sums of money are passed from FARC to the IRA. The richest political party on this island is Sinn Fein by some long way, and you will feel the effects of that as you did in your last election. You will feel it shortly in the Nice Referendum campaign. Now that is a problem for any liberal democrat.
Re-commitment to principles of Good Friday Agreement: “When Mark Durkan calls for a recommitment to the founding principles of the Agreement on page one I could not agree with him more. But the truth is the parties of government in Northern Ireland could not credibly make that recommitment at this moment. There is a gaping hole right through the heart of the philosophy of the Good Friday Agreement, and it is not going to go away, the consequences of that, it is not going to go away when the trial begins, and so on. And it can’t be said that it is something that just happened somewhere else. It is at the heart of our politics and it won’t go away.
Castlereagh [raid on Castlereagh police station]: “Now similarly again there is the problem of Castlereagh. This is an enormously messy complex series of events but we are assured by the former acting head constable that the view of the police now is that most of their investigations are focused on the IRA. We are now facing the news that the chef, who was allegedly involved in all these things, is to be extradited back to the country. Widespread throughout this society is the story of what happened and how this happened.
“Now let me just explain at a practical level the problem. I was at a dinner party about a month ago; a chap arrived late, and he said “I am very sorry I am late, my brother had to move house today. He’s a policeman, and because of the Castlereagh raid his details have fallen into the hands of terrorists and he had to move house and I had to help him”. …. Most of the people around the table were Ulster Unionists. And what struck me about this was that this was being repeated at near enough 100 dinner parties in Northern Ireland that night, all of them exactly the sort of people at that dinner party who attended the Ulster Unionist Council, all of them in social class and outlook exactly the same sort of people. It does not require a huge effort of imagination to realise how destabilising this is, how difficult it is then for Mr. David Trimble to say “the politics of threat are over, we are in a new order, the IRA is in a transition, it may not have got down the road as far enough as we would want but it is going in the right direction”. That’s what he wants to say, that was the message of his speech in Oxford, that’s what he wants to say but he is just running up against a brick wall of bad news.
“And that is why this Agreement is in crisis, not because of inequality problems, but because of these real problems which the minute you live in Belfast you can’t miss any more than you can miss the fact that the City Hall is in the centre of the town. And it is very very important to come to terms with what the problem is if you want to see a way around this.
Slippage in Unionist support for the Agreement: “Now in Oxford David Trimble said something else which I think some people did listen to carefully and pick up on. He said – and this would be my own view too – in fact I am filling out what he said but this is what he was in essence saying: if you ask people today about the Good Friday Agreement in the Unionist community there is no question but that support has dropped and the polls which showed near enough 60% not that long ago now are showing – well the conventional view of most people is that Unionists/Protestants are now 6:4 against. And this is being reflected in the de-selection of pro-Agreement candidates in the last week and so on. It is being reflected in the crisis that goes on in the Ulster Unionist Council.
“But if you ask them the question, “do you still love the Agreement in the way you did?” you’re going to get a dusty answer, and it is something like asking someone four years into a marriage “is your wife still as beautiful as she was the day you married her?” Or “do you still love your wife as much or do you still feel the same way?” Now the answer might very well be, and realistically for most people it is, “I am perfectly happy in this marriage, I wish it could continue, but do I feel exactly as I did on my wedding day? No probably I don’t, we’ve had several quarrels since” and so on.
“Now this is the same situation with the Agreement. I don’t think you should become over-alarmed by the fact that in all human affairs a certain jadedness sets in, and I don’t think we should become over-alarmed at that, even if one should face up to the problem. I think instead, and David Trimble drew attention to this, the important question is this – to all the political parties in Northern Ireland: “you are a supporter of the Ulster Unionist Party, the Democratic Unionist Party, Sinn Fein, SDLP – do you want your party now to withdraw from the institutions?”
“That is the real question. Not “are you still in love as you were in April 1998, do you still feel as optimistic?” Too many bad things have happened, but “do you want your party to withdraw from the institutions?”
Potential source of stability: “Now in my view, all the pollings we have, and there will be a new polling shortly on this question, is that neither the supporters of the UUP nor the DUP want their parties at this point to withdraw from the institutions. Now that may be changing but I still think it is likely that the polls will show that there is still a majority there. Now that is a potential source of stability working for the Agreement in a context where there are so many other sources of instability working against the Agreement.
UUC resolution: “Now, one of the reasons why I am mentioning this – and I have to say that I am speaking purely personally – is that in my view we are looking at an Ulster Unionist Council about four months from now or just under, and the crucial question will be the mood of those people when they meet. Do not get tied up in the details of the resolution that was passed. Some of it is a wish list. I do think the resolution indicates a very serious problem that the Ulster Unionist Council wants to meet in the middle of January feeling that it has some reason to believe that Sinn Fein is moving away from the world of paramilitarism. And somehow or other, raids on police stations, the seizure of intelligence documents, adventures in Colombia, it just doesn’t feel like that.
Gerry Adams: “By the way, I am totally convinced that Mr Adams is committed to peace here, totally committed to peace on these matters. This is not a comment on his personal position within these matters. I think he has every incentive, both good and bad, to maintain this process. But what has actually happened here in essence is that his means of man-management are that he allows adventures, he allows young fellows their adventures, and he allows these adventures and he asks David Trimble to pick up the pieces. That’s what is going on here, starkly in front of your eyes. He asks David Trimble to live with the problems and the consequences within his constituency when they read Castlereagh, Colombia, in particular. That’s the problem. It represents a real human political problem, but if I was thinking about this I would be thinking more about this group of people meeting in a context in which they felt more confident about the future.
Assembly elections: “Now one problem that is very real is the imminence of the election. One reason why now the Ulster Unionist Party is prepared, in a way it was never prepared before, to challenge the existence of the institutions is that a lot of those people who meet believe these institutions are done for anyway. They certainly believe that an election in a very short few months is coming up, and that that election is either going to be an horrendously polarising election – most of them believe, and I think most commentators believe that the SDLP is finished, it’s a particularly sad development, heartbreaking development from my own point of view, but nonetheless we again need not fantasise, we have to face the realities. They think therefore that they are going to be faced with a massively polarised election in which they will be very seriously challenged by the DUP. Let me say this: the SDLP I think is finished, the UUP is not yet finished. There is a distinction between the crises that they both face here, and again I think most realists understand that. But the SDLP I think, sadly, is – at least in the sense that it will not return a majority of Nationalists and will not have the say on who the Deputy First Minister is going to be – and in that crucial sense it is a goner. It may very well be as Dr. Brian Feeney says that actually within Northern Nationalists it is going to be 70:30 in favour of Sinn Fein.
“But even if that doesn’t happen, there is nobody who believes the SDLP can produce a majority in this situation. So, looking into this vista, those people no longer feel the need to protect – they are instinctively a conservative group of people, they instinctively are not inordinately dissatisfied with the way the institutions currently operate.
“But looking into that vista, they do not feel they are being irresponsible because they think these institutions are going down the Swanee anyway, pretty damn quick. So you have to realise that, and understand why this shift in their mood is occurring.
Postponing date of elections: “And one of the things I think that ought to be very seriously considered here is the simple reality that this Assembly was intended to work for four years. By May it will not have been in existence for four years. Because of the suspensions, the delay in having it set up and so on, we will have had a little over three years of devolved government in actual practice. In my view it was the intention of Parliament to at least allow a four-year working practical devolution experiment. And in my view that was the original intention, the Agreement makes no specifications about dates for elections, and in my view the case for a delay in election at least until the full four years has operated – in other words it would effectively delay the election until the beginning of 2004. In my view that ought to be very seriously considered, because at that point, this group of people who meet will not be challenging, if they are in a bloody-minded mood, institutions which they think are shortly about to go down the tubes anyway, but they would be challenging the institutions which have a year’s life or more ahead of them. And I think that you have to understand the instinctive conservatism of most Ulster Unionists, and indeed their instinctive happiness – happiness is an overstatement – their instinctive willingness to accept the working of devolution. It’s more common among the people who attend the UUC, more pleasure in the fact that there’s a local Parliament back, than there is in the population.
Cynicism about the institutions: “One of the reasons why people are so wrong to say that David Trimble could sell devolution harder is that the population as a whole is quite cynical. The population as a whole – and the polls make this perfectly clear – think it’s not very good value for money, it’s a bit of a white elephant, and so on. They do, though, think that if we don’t have it things are going to get nastier. And that’s the best you have in the population. That might be enough to work with but the population does not have a rosy view particularly of the working of devolution. Every poll tells you that. They do not believe, for example, that their economic well-being is intimately linked to it. The polls tell you that quite clearly. But they do believe life would be that bit worse and nastier. And that’s enough to work with, and they will accept that. There is a widespread willingness to accept things as they now are – it’s the fear of the consequences after the election. And, as I said, in my view anyway, the intention always was that one should have four years of fully working experiment, and I think that would change the mood of this group of people.
Border poll: “I have argued in the past very strongly that I also believe that there is a case for having a border poll on the day of the next Assembly election, whenever it is held. This is often misunderstood, and particularly I think in Dublin there is a view that this argument was something to do with allowing Unionists some great flag-waving exercise. Or indeed that it was all about getting out moderate Unionist voters. I can tell you now it’s not absolutely certain to do it, it probably will do it – the history of large turnouts, which a border poll will certainly bring about, is that Unionists who come to polls in a large turnout tend to be more moderate.
“That’s what happened on the day of the referendum. But it may be that it’s not like that. It will certainly prevent a UUP meltdown………..[break in tape] In the context of the next election, where Unionists may have to live with Sinn Fein advancing Gerry Adams as Deputy First Minister rather than an SDLP candidate, the Unionist community needs the strength of a victory on the day of the election which is – not by some abstract reflection on the principle of consent, but a reality that Northern Ireland for the foreseeable future is going to remain part of the United Kingdom. And from that position, they may be in a position to come to terms with what will be an extremely difficult thing – which is to accept a Sinn Fein Deputy First Minister.
Ed Moloney’s book: “If you think it’s easy, just read Ed Moloney’s book about Mr Adams. This is not an anti-peace process book. It argues that for a very long time, fifteen years, Mr Adams has known that the Republican project was doomed, that he hid this from his colleagues, but pugnaciously and with great brilliance carried on a process which eventually led to the Agreement that we currently have. But on the other hand, there is quite enough detail of a human sort – I’m not on here about political judgment – about what the IRA did under this leadership to make the hair stand on the back of your neck. It is gruelling reading. By the time of the election tens of thousands of people will have read it and it should remind you of some things: just the sheer horror of what actually went on.
Loyalist violence: “And I accept Loyalist violence is a very large part of it – 30% or so of those who died died at the hands of Loyalist paramilitaries, most of them innocent and not connected Catholics. But the most important figure of the Troubles, the one that is never fully internalised within the Nationalist body politic, is that Republicans and their allies, INLA, and so on, took 58.8% of the fatal casualties, did the killing of just under 60% of those who died. That is the lion’s share of the killing. And this is based on the philosophy that the way to preserve political objectives in Ireland is through a project of human sacrifice. And some things are particularly horrifying – the murder of a mother of ten and the disappearing of her body. There are other things in the book which are particularly horrifying. And these are things which Mr Moloney argues the current political leadership of Sinn Fein is intimately connected to. It surely does not require a feat of extraordinary imagination or empathy for another set of people – Unionists, Orangemen, Protestants, who are very full of faults, very tiresome, very stubborn people – it surely is not asking for too much empathy to realise that accepting a Deputy First Minister from such a party is one hell of a swallow. After all, your own government has made clear that it is not willing to do that, in the strongest terms, and the Irish people at the last election, the exit polls, said that they were no more willing to have Sinn Fein in government than they were five years previously. So it cannot be a hugely difficult thing to understand why it is a problem.
Co-Premiership: “But let me say, ‘First Minister’ and ‘Deputy First Minister’ in Northern Ireland are slightly misleading titles. This is a co-premiership. The position of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister in terms of actual influence over governmental processes is the same. The person who is Deputy First Minister is not a John Prescott like figure while the real power lies with the First Minister. It is a co-premiership, and there is going to be a huge difficulty in facing up to the fact of a Sinn Fein [Deputy] First Minister, and you have to look at means and ways in which the Unionist community might be able to do that. Unless you are in that market, unless you are thinking about that, you are not thinking about the crisis of the Good Friday Agreement. If you are just saying somebody should be selling it, or it’s all about equality, you’re not thinking about the crisis in the Good Friday Agreement. You have to think about that problem, that is the nub of the problem, and you have to get your head around it.
Coming to terms with Sinn Fein as major nationalist party: “And in my opinion there are ideas – and I’ve just mentioned two – which help to create a context in which you might see the Unionist community coming to terms with the emergence of Sinn Fein as the dominant force within Northern Nationalism. Because I am totally committed to this Agreement, I am totally committed to the idea that there is no other way out, I think that if the majority of Northern Nationalists support Sinn Fein then that is something which the Unionist community has to come to terms with. There is no way of evading it, and it is best that it be done within the framework of the institutions that we currently have and that would be the most benign outcome. But it is going to be an incredibly difficult operation – you know that phrase of getting the rich man through the eye of the needle, something like that – and you have to realise what it is going to be.
Process requires Trimble: “And so far what disappoints me over the summer months is neither government actually is formally addressing the problem – as it really actually is. If we are going to save the Agreement you have to identify and address this problem as it actually is. I don’t think the Agreement is much weaker, I have to say, because of the events of the Ulster Unionist Council. Had David Trimble been defeated – which very nearly happened, had he lost his leadership – and it came within an inch of that happening, then I think we would have been in a mess because essentially this process requires Trimble and the people around him who are committed to making the thing work. And if you remove that from the centre of the political framework you have nothing. He is the boy with the finger in the dike. And, however crazy and irritating he gets, you have to remember that, because if he takes his finger out of the dike you’ll feel the water on your heads – every corner of this island, if he takes his finger out of that dike. And you must remember it. Now, in fact, he survived. In fact he still has the direction of his party policy. And that is crucial.
One chance left: “There is one more chance to put this right. Don’t, as I say, over-obsess about the terms of the resolution, think instead of 800 people emotionally conservative, torn both ways, meeting in the middle of January, a group of people most of whom in the past have supported this Agreement, and think what you might do to make them say “we should try to keep this going a bit longer.” And if you start thinking about that, I think ideas such as delaying the timing of the election – by the way it’s an idea which you can find in all the parties in the Assembly, with the exception I would say of Sinn Fein, but even for Sinn Fein there is no great hardship here, eventually they are going to beat the SDLP, it’s going to happen, and there is no great hardship in delaying that if it allows other people more time to come to terms with that almost inevitable development.
“Therefore if you think in terms of that group of people who meet, think in terms of their mood, certain other things may happen anyway, in terms of a ceasefire monitor which may help a little bit.
Ceasefire monitor: “Again, in my opinion, the British Government in this case was amazingly dilatory. If it is right to have a monitor today, it was right to have an agreement on this going ahead in July. If we had agreement going ahead in July, Trimble might not have been – and probably would not, in the view of most of those closest to the process – been confronted with the crisis that happened in his own party.
“If it was wrong, sure, it’s wrong. If it is a bad idea, sure it’s wrong. But if it was right, it was right in September, it was right in July. If it had been done in July his position would have been significantly stronger going into this meeting. Instead of which he looked like somebody who was unable to get even a minimal concession of respectability from the two governments. That is a mis-reading.
“I think for some long time Downing Street has actually believed in this policy, believed it was a useful thing to try, and it is a misreading of the situation, but one that did enormous harm to Trimble in the late summer and in September.
All is not lost: “We are entering into this crisis but all is not lost. But it requires people to escape from the world of self-serving rhetoric, it requires people to look coolly at the balance of forces that there are in Northern Ireland, it requires people to work with what remains. What remains is an unwillingness to bring down these institutions if they seem to have a bit of life in them. What remains is a fear that things could be nastier without them, a perfectly reasonable fear. A lot of people – this includes people who are formally anti-Agreement – are very very worried about the consequences of some awful smash-up, and it seems to be that the British and Irish governments have an overriding interest in preserving this Agreement , they have an overriding interest in working with that sentiment, and creating the situation that when those 800 people meet in the middle of January they don’t meet in the agitated negative frame of mind that they met last week, and that they meet in a better frame of mind. And if that is the case there is every chance this Agreement will be preserved. Thank you very very much for your attention.”
Chair (Ercus Stewart): “Thank you. We will take questions at the very end, with the aim to try and finish by 10pm. Our next speaker needs no introduction – Minister Michael McDowell:
2. Michael McDowell, T.D. (Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform): “Ladies and gentlemen, first of all thank you very much for inviting me here this evening. When Julitta – who I know and trust and cherish as a friend and a long-standing collaborator on various other projects which most of you wouldn’t be too worried about – they are to do with law publishing and the like – when she asked me would I come here today, I hesitated, because one of the problems of being Minister for Justice in the Irish Government is that if you commit yourself to be present on an occasion and on a particular topic the ground shifts beneath you with such rapidity that you may find yourself pretty isolated or beached. Therefore – and I don’t think it is a terrible secret to say – she modified the topic of this evening’s discussion from one in which we were going to discuss a united Ireland – the pros and cons of it – to one which is the “Good Friday Agreement – Where Are We Now?”
“I want to, if I may, compliment the Meath Peace Group for all the work it has done and echo what Paul Bew has said about what valuable work it does to achieve understanding on this island. I know that sometimes the task of looking at the centre ground is a difficult one, and sometimes the task of reaching over the void in Irish politics to understand other people’s attitudes is difficult, but nonetheless it lies at the heart of any chance we have of achieving reconciliation between the people who live on this island. However you describe that form of reconciliation, it is a matter of leaping over the void of understanding which is at the heart of many of our problems.
Supplied script: “Now I have to say that another great aspect of being a Minister for Justice is that people work long and hard to provide me with supplied scripts, and it occurs to me that if I were to confine myself, or indeed to major on what I have come here with under my arm, I might not do justice to the points that Paul Bew has made. On the other hand, it is extremely perilous to depart from your supplied script because every word, comma and all the rest of it is subject to intense scrutiny. But here goes! [Editor’s note: the Minister’s supplied script is reproduced below in Appendix B]
Paul Bew’s analysis: “I have to say that I found Paul Bew’s analysis very interesting, candid, honest, but very much one-sided. And it’s not that he wasn’t leaning over backwards – as many people have done in the South – to understand the Republican point of view, because I don’t really expect him to spend too much time doing that. Where I would take issue with what he said is that I don’t agree with his premise, I don’t agree with his analysis, and I don’t agree with his conclusions. His primary point, and the one on which he ended, was that if a number of things happened then it is possible that when the Unionist Council meets on the 18th January, they will be meeting in happier times, more relaxed atmosphere, less fraught, and therefore in circumstances where it could decide to proceed with the implementation of the Agreement.
Four-year period for institutions to bed down: “And there are two legs to that argument as I understood them – one of which is that he believes that the whole of the Good Friday Agreement was predicated on an assumption that the institutions would bed down over a four-year period of co-operation where the benefits of the Agreement would become apparent to all sides and that in those circumstances, I suppose, the centre ground, or those who were willing to co-operate from either side, or to put their hands out across the void that I spoke of, would feel more confident about it and that it would be politically more viable for their leadership to engage in that exercise. Well, there are two points about that. Yes indeed a four-year period was envisaged, but we will have to recall that a lot of time was spent at the outset on this prior decommissioning issue which chewed up time, chewed up a lot of time, and that was done at the behest of people who said that if they didn’t get a concession on that they couldn’t go on with it at all. That’s the first thing.
Postponing the Assembly elections: “And the second point of course is, that if the implication is that the elections should be postponed, Paul argues – and he is closer to some aspects of Northern society than I am – he argues that in those circumstances most of the parties would be secretly relieved, with the exception of Sinn Fein. Now, I don’t think the DUP would be secretly relieved, Paul, because I think this is a plan to ensure that they fail in becoming the majority party. And I would defer to you in most things, but I don’t believe that if a question were put to a DUP politician tomorrow, either secretly or unsecretly, as to whether he would like a postponement of the Assembly elections to get a better run at the UUP and to wipe them out by putting them two more years of torture, then he would say “yes, I prefer a delay”. I don’t believe that. I think that piece of analysis is not correct – I do accept, and I agree with him, that Sinn Fein wouldn’t agree to this proposition – but there’s a point on which I disagree with his analysis.
“The second point I would make is that it has not been suggested yet that a two-year extension of the life of the present Assembly would, in fact, create circumstances in which there would be a cross-party agreement to postpone a lot of issues and to just get on with the business of co-operation.
“And if you look to what has happened in the involvement of the UUP with the process, I don’t accept the proposition that the further two years would be spent on normalisation.
“Because I think that we have to remember too – and Paul, in fairness to him, conceded this – that as more and more candidates are being nominated for the Assembly the tilt of the Ulster Unionist Party is becoming more and more hostile to the Agreement. Instead of pro-Agreement candidates being nominated and selected by constituency associations across Northern Ireland for the Assembly elections, it is hostile anti-Agreement candidates who are edging the pro-Agreement candidates out. So I feel pessimistic on a second count, that the UUP is a body which just needs two more years of normality and that is somehow the key to solving the problems in Northern Ireland.
SDLP: “I was struck – because again I believe that this is totally honestly said, and it may be true, Jeremiah may be true on this – but that effectively the SDLP is finished is part of the analysis that Paul is putting before you. So he is effectively saying – and I hope I am not caricaturing his arguments but it seems to me to have this force – that the SDLP is finished, Sinn Fein is going to be the largest Nationalist party, let’s get on with the job and let’s do everything we can to accept that that is the case and therefore the only people who can do business with Sinn Fein, on the Unionist side, are the UUP. And the two governments should, effectively, acknowledge those things, because I mean it’s been said openly here tonight – get on with the process of killing off the SDLP by engaging in an electoral strategy which is based on the proposition that they are going to fade away. Well I don’t accept that the SDLP are finished. And I don’t accept, by the way, that it would be good for the centre ground in Northern politics for either of the two governments – and I believe they will not accept this proposition – that the centre ground should be swept away on the Nationalist side in order that the centre ground, insofar as the Unionist Party is the centre ground, can prosper on the Unionist side of the equation, especially when you have growing evidence that the UUP internally is mutating into a party which is fielding more and more anti-Agreement candidates. I don’t accept that proposition, I don’t accept that analysis.
“And I don’t accept that it makes sense to write off the SDLP and to go ahead full board towards a strategy in which, effectively, David Trimble will be there to deal with Martin McGuinness, or whoever the candidate for Deputy First Minister would be thrown up by Sinn Fein as the majority party after the election. I don’t accept that that’s a reasonable way of going about the business at all. And I do believe, though – and again I compliment Paul on his honesty – I do believe that that is the Ulster Unionist Party attitude, right from the top to the bottom: contempt for the SDLP, for their political prospects, and saying “we’ll deal with Nationalism, and we’ll be quite content to deal with it under Sinn Fein management because we know the enemy then.” That’s not a healthy attitude, really, for us to say should be a cornerstone of our analysis here. I don’t think that that is a constructive approach, I have to say.
“I’m being blunt now with you Paul, because I think you have been blunt on the facts as you see them.
Ceasefire monitor: “On the question of a monitor, I am interested to note what Paul said about the monitor, and, as he suggested, a sense of foot-dragging on the part of the Westminster government to appoint a monitor to the ceasefire at the behest of David Trimble.
“There isn’t opposition at a governmental level to monitoring the process, either in Dublin or in London. Clearly Sinn Fein regards it as a device which is hostile to their interests, but there isn’t such opposition at a governmental level. And if it is delivered, I don’t think it will change the attitude of the Unionist Party at all. I think, in effect, it was something which was more useful to demand and not have delivered than it will be when it is delivered, and that’s a problem about it.
Border poll: “But on the question of a border poll, the argument – and Paul has advanced it before – the argument is, that if you have a border poll on the same day as the next Assembly election you ensure a maximum turnout, just looking at it on the Unionist side of the fence. And that by doing that it is hoped – but Paul again is honest enough to say that he can’t guarantee that this would be the consequence – that a lot of people will go down to the polling booths and vote UUP rather than DUP, but they will come out to save the Union and to have their heads counted. That may be something that suits the Unionist Party, it may be a device that suits the Unionist Party, and I’m not sure that it would have that effect.
Polarisation: “Because I think that an equally plausible effect is that the months running up to the election, or the weeks running up to the election and the border poll day, would be one of intense and increasing polarisation. It would be like bringing in the Twelfth season back into May, or whenever this poll coupled with a plebiscite would be held. It will be a circumstance in which it would be Orange versus Green – you know, empty your graveyards and bring everybody down to the polling station for the tribal headcount. And in that process I ask you this: who is going to prosper and who is going to fail? It plays straight into Sinn Fein’s hands to give them that particular outcome. Straight into their hands.
SDLP: “And effectively it is another re-echo of the remarks that Paul has made, and that is that the SDLP is finished, that it’s effectively a write-off. But worse than that, it accelerates the process, because the SDLP in those circumstances would be fighting in a battle where it was Green versus Orange, where moderation was of diminished interest to people, where, on my view of it, the chances of an SDLP person throwing their third or fourth or fifth preferences across the political divide to an Alliance Party person, or to a moderate Unionist standing in their constituency, would be thrown away, because they would know that the name of the game on the day was the usual old head count about a border poll.
“So I don’t believe that it would have of the effects for which Paul canvassed. I believe it would polarise Northern Ireland. And I think that the process whereby the future of Northern Ireland, within the UK or not within the UK – which is not now in issue, there is nobody suggesting for instance – under the legislation the Secretary of State is entitled to hold such a poll when he wishes but legally obliged to hold such a poll where there is reason effectively to believe that the underlying attitude of the population of Northern Ireland towards the Union has changed. I believe that the holding of such a poll in those circumstances would produce massive polarisation, create a political season in which everybody had to go back to the atavistic headcount of old, where moderate parties in the centre would suffer most – I mean, if you’re writing off the SDLP you might as well write off the Alliance as well, and the Women’s Coalition and the rest of it – and in which a cannibalistic enterprise was put forward instead, in which it’s survival at all costs for the Unionist Party regardless of whether it internally is mutating to the point where a majority of candidates are taking what is broadly described as an anti-Agreement point of view.
“I just wonder – is that wisdom, or is that desperation? I just pose that question to you, because it doesn’t convince me at all….[Editor’s note: break in tape here]
UUC resolution of 21st September: “Now I take on board what has been said by Paul about the wording of the motion which was passed the other day by the Ulster Unionist Council. But with respect, Paul, that motion was the result of careful negotiation which took place at the meeting – we all read about it in the papers.
Every single word of it was parsed and analysed. And all the stuff in it, about reversing Patten, stopping 50/50 recruitment, revisiting the symbols of the police force and the like, isn’t just simply stage furniture. It shows a regressive attitude on those issues to those who aren’t present in that meeting. [Editor’s note: the text of the UUC resolution is reproduced in Appendix A below]
Patten reforms: “And it isn’t simply good enough to say to the SDLP who were outraged by the motion that was passed – and let’s, before we write them off, at least say that they have made a very substantial sacrifice in terms of building the Good Friday Agreement – if they were outraged by it, by the terms of that resolution, are we to say that they are wrong? That this is mock outrage on their part? That a carefully tailored resolution which seems to be rowing back on the Patten reform, which seems to be getting back to the old agenda, that that resolution is, as Paul is arguing before us now, to be ignored in its detail because effectively on the basis that “they would say that, wouldn’t they?” and that when they get together in more reasonable humour, with weeks to go to this election, that they would be less demanding and less negative in their approach. I doubt it. I doubt it. All I would say to you in relation to that particular issue is that Paul has amply described the group of people there as being of conservative demeanour – and I agree they are of conservative demeanour – but there does seem to me, in all of these uncertainties, to be a huge appetite to revert to old certainties and to revert to old positions, and to pretend that what has happened hasn’t happened, and to go back to all the business, you know, that “Patten wasn’t really necessary, Patten was a bad thing, Patten isn’t part of the deal”. Patten most certainly is part of the deal.
Good Friday Agreement still commands respect: “Now, rather than be proved wrong in whatever it is, 6, 7 or 8 months time, and just simply have Paul come before you at a replay of this match and say “I told you so”, I have to put to you the following propositions. That the Good Friday Agreement is one which has tremendous potential – on that we are both agreed. That the Good Friday Agreement is one which demands a very considerable movement on the part of all sides in Northern Ireland – and Paul has on other occasions acknowledged the extent of the Sinn Fein movement. And whether it’s put in terms of Gerry Adams acknowledging the failure of the Republican enterprise, which is one way of putting it, or the triumph of democratic politics over sectarian violent politics, which is another way of putting it, that Agreement is one which in my view still commands our respect and still is the set of principles in which we all have to place our hope.
“And what worries me about Paul’s analysis is this: that you wouldn’t have to be very very cynical to say that the name of the game was to get the Unionist Council from here to next January, so that in next January they can go into, effectively, opposition mode, withdraw from the institutions, and contest the elections, effectively as outsiders, having demonstrated their Unionist purity by being seen not to be wreckers at first instance, but being seen to be people who are driven, in their view, by Republican intransigence and paramilitarism to taking a stance on principle at long last, which will given them enough time and a window of opportunity within which to succeed in the election and to appear to be the champions of the Union, rather than the ‘Lundies’ or whatever that the DUP will throw at the UUP if things go on as they are. You wouldn’t have to be totally cynical to see things in that light.
“So am I pessimistic now, having heard Paul Bew, who is a very influential figure in terms of commenting and, I think, influencing some at least of Unionist opinion in Northern Ireland? Am I now driven to total pessimism and despair, having heard this analysis? I’m not. Because I don’t accept that the great majority – and he agrees with me on this – that the great majority of people in Northern Ireland, or in these islands, have abandoned the principles of the Good Friday Agreement, or think there is a better Agreement out there on offer. And I think everybody agrees with that.
Economic stability and growth: “And I also make the point that the Belfast Agreement – or the Good Friday Agreement, call it what you will – has in it the prospect for economic stability and growth. And Paul said that talk about economic well-being wouldn’t effectively cut much mustard, at this point, with the Unionist Council, because they don’t see the economic well-being that is there. Well, that’s strange, because every time I speak to people who are in the business community and in civil society and not in politics in Northern Ireland, they do see the enormous improvements in their economic well-being, and they are substantial, and they are real. I think that a lot of people would look to them and say “do I want to throw all of this away?”
Two Governments will not walk away from the Good Friday Agreement: “And the second question is: throw it away for what? Because the two governments have as their fundamental project a partnership between London and Dublin to ensure that Northern Ireland is no longer run in a way that excludes either section of that community. So that if, for whatever reason, the political parties in Northern Ireland find themselves unable or unwilling to operate those institutions, nothing substantially different in terms of outcome is going to be pressed upon the two governments as a result of that co-operation, or lack of co-operation. The governments are not going to walk away from the terms of that Agreement – or its principles – and deliver a different result because the two sets of politicians in Northern Ireland cannot find their way to operate it, whosever fault that may be. And therefore the notion of ending devolved power and devolved authority in the interest of the purity of the Unionist position is not a notion which I think is well thought out at all, and in this I think there has been an element of weakness in Unionist rhetoric and in Unionist politics in the last two years.
No renegotiation: “Because there is not going to be renegotiation of that Agreement. There can be withdrawal. There can be people who say “we won’t work it”. But the two governments, London and Dublin, will nonetheless proceed to implement the fruits of that Agreement, and the methodology of that Agreement and the values of that Agreement, as far as they can, even if there is a failure or a vacuum in terms of operating devolved institutions for the time being. So there is no “Plan B” which is of greater interest to either moderate Nationalists or moderate Unionists. There is nothing better out there on offer. And I would just make that point, that anybody who thinks that we are going into a process of renegotiation, and that the governments will walk away from the principles of this Agreement, faced with an impasse as a result of an election, I think is engaging in a bit of wishful thinking. It’s simply not there. And particularly from a moderate Unionist point of view. I think in large measure that Agreement – and I’ll come to the paramilitary situation in a moment – that Agreement is as good as it gets, and it ain’t going to get no better.
Transformation of paramilitarism into democratic politics: “Now I come finally, if I may, to the question, Chairman, of paramilitarism. As I see it, nobody is tougher on the subject of paramilitarism than I am. And nobody is quicker, if I can, to acknowledge the shortcomings of anybody or any group which taints its involvement in the democratic process with paramilitarism. I defer to no one in hostililty to paramilitarism or the way in which it threatens democratic society. The purpose of getting an inclusive result in Northern Ireland was to woo the radical elements on all sides, but particularly on the Republican side, into democratic politics, to persuade the Republican movement, if they required to be persuaded, of the obvious proposition that the way forward was to engage in democratic politics within a Northern Ireland that was based on partnership and which was open to the democratic achievement of their particular aim. Part of the process of transformation of paramilitarism into democratic politics is persuading those who wanted to have it both ways that they can’t have it both ways any more, and that they must move decisively and irreversibly towards the democratic path.
“If the Republican movement were represented by politicians who simply cast aside their roots and said “that’s the end of our connection with the Republican movement, because it carries within it people who have in the past espoused paramilitarism”, the purpose of the Belfast Agreement wouldn’t be served if the result of that was that the political leadership of Sinn Fein became an isolated rump. The idea is to bring the whole of the Republican movement into the democratic tent in more or less one piece. Now hesitation on that point clearly creates distrust. And I agree with Paul that the Unionist population of Northern Ireland must look to Colombia and other events and say “what is going on here?” And the monitor process is one means whereby there can be on the ground some mechanism to assess whether the commitment to democratic politics is irreversible and definite. But what I am arguing for strongly is that the process of bringing Republicanism into the democratic tent isn’t going to take place at the click of a finger, and isn’t going to take place in circumstances where it is seen to be at the behest of people who are hostile to the Republican point of view.
Orange Order delegation on Ulster Unionist Council: “Bear in mind that from a Republican perspective – and I would not share this – you could criticise the Ulster Unionist Council meeting as a meeting at which 200 of the delegates, at least, come from the Orange Order. This isn’t a normal political party. The SDLP doesn’t have 200 AOH members. Fianna Fail doesn’t have 200 Knights of Columbanus members at its Ard-fheiseanna! …. But, from a Republican point of view, what happened the other day, they are not dealing with people who, in their view, they trust completely. They point to the detail – that Paul has asked us to ignore – of the resolution and say “that’s what they are really talking about, that’s their real motivation, that’s their real agenda, and, if it weren’t their real agenda, why did David Trimble make those concessions in rolling back Patten in order to survive? Why did he do that?
Squaring the circle: “So I’m saying it is a process in which we are – use any cliché you like – trying to square a circle. And it’s the people who are in favour of circles point to the square aspects of the other people’s arguments, and vice versa. But what we are about in all of this is bringing forward the democratic process in Northern Ireland and persuading those who looked to it suspiciously on either side that they should plunge their entire political effort into making it work. And whereas Paul is arguing here for a scenario that effectively says “it’s all hands to the pump, save David Trimble” there is another side which the two governments have to bear in mind, and say “we can’t, for instance, cast aside the SDLP and say moderate Nationalism doesn’t matter, hand the victory to the Republican end.” We can’t just do that, it wouldn’t be responsible politics. We can’t premise our strategy on such propositions.
Ambivalence of UUP: “It’s true that David Trimble has taken a fair amount of stick from commentators in the South in particular – and in Britain – for failing to sell the positive aspects of the Agreement to the Unionist population of Northern Ireland. It’s true he takes a fair amount of stick on that and it’s true that his life on occasion has not been made as easy as it might be. But, on the other hand, I am strongly of the view that there is some truth in the proposition that the Unionist Party has remained ambivalent in some respects on some aspects of the Agreement, and that this is perceived in the Republican community as giving them justification for the snail-like progress that they have made so far.
Conclusions: “So, I come down to this point of optimism. I do believe that the principles of the Belfast Agreement will win out in the end. I don’t believe that the two governments can ever reward those who do not operate the Agreement. I don’t believe that it makes sense to predicate a political strategy on the atrophying of the centre ground. I don’t believe, in particular, that we can possibly take an attitude based on the proposition that the SDLP is effectively to be discarded as a spent force and let’s get down to the real struggle afterwards. I don’t accept that proposition. I think that Northern Irish society is more complex than that, and the truth is more complex than that, and the solutions to the truth will be more complex than that, and that no single party should look simply to its own electoral success as the starting point for the next phase.
“No single party should simply say: “the better we do, the better it will be for the Agreement”, regardless of the consequences for other parties. And I say that very conscious of one thing: that in the last election the lesson was borne in, on me particularly, but on many, that if you don’t get your seats, you’re really not at the races. There’s no point in being right, from either the sidelines or from being excluded from office. But I make this point too: the idea that the Agreement can be pursued, or that the interests of the Agreement can be pursued, wholly on the basis that the Unionist Party must be saved, and that every effort must be made to bolster up the Unionist point of view, even to the extent, for instance, of having a border poll, that, in my view, would be a mistaken approach and I think would end up producing a worse situation than the one which David Trimble claims up to now has been intolerable. So, if you didn’t get the script, you can ask the reporters for it!”
[Editor’s note: text of the Minister’s supplied script is reproduced at Appendix B below]
QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS
(summaries only)
Questions 1 and 2:
Q. 1. Roy Garland (Ulster Unionist, Co-chair of Guild of Uriel in Louth): “Just a couple of points in passing for Minister McDowell. As a long time member of the Ulster Unionist party, I am very, very strongly pro-Agreement. … In my view the Unionist Party remains pro-Agreement, but, as I think Paul Bew was suggesting, what has happened has leached away that support for the Agreement. There were always doubts, there were doubts in both communities, and the doubt was whether an organisation that had committed acts of terrorism was prepared to move into the democratic process, and Colombia and these other items has not strengthened that and it’s leached away support, much to my dismay, and I’m still working on the ground. But I listened to Jeffrey Donaldson a week or so ago and the conclusion most people at the meeting came to was: Jeffrey Donaldson is not anti-Agreement.
“The main thrust is: how can we sit in government with what he calls “unreconstructed terrorists”, in view of Colombia, Castlereagh and so on and so forth?
SDLP: “I don’t believe Unionists are full of contempt for the SDLP. As one who spoke at the SDLP conference last week, there was not the slightest criticism or suggestion that the SDLP are contemptible. In fact it’s the very opposite. The difficulty is, if the SDLP is not going to be a right-off, Unionists are wondering why they are moving too much towards the Sinn Fein camp and emphasising Irish unity and the approach that is really likely to alienate Unionists.
Border poll: “The thing about the border poll, just a quick comment on that, about it being polarising. I understand the worries about it being polarising. It’s very difficult to appreciate the position David Trimble and the people who support him are in, and if there’s a border poll … there will be a very precise result in that border poll. It would settle the Unionist community and if the Unionist community pick up enough strength, they will do a deal, even at this stage with Sinn Fein….
Q.2. Fr John Feighery (member of Irish Association): “Speaking as a very non-expert commentator from the North, it struck me that we were very, very privileged this evening. We have heard two outstanding contributions. Paul Bew, in my view, has for a very long time been an outstandingly lucid and objective commentator on the North, and I think now we need to remind ourselves that the Minister and his party have had a very liberal and generous view of the position of the Unionists, and of course has taken a very courageous view on paramilitarism. Now I thought Paul’s analysis was very convincing, and especially in establishing the drift towards the destruction, unfortunately, or withdrawal of the Unionist Party from the institutions, however might we lament that. What we are dealing with here is a pathology, not necessarily a rational process, because the Minister and Paul will agree that the Agreement is in the best interests of all the community. I thought the Minister put some very good objections, but I didn’t hear him say clearly anything to convince me that the Irish Government, as of the moment, have the ideas that will arrest the drift to the collapse of the institutions.
Loyalist violence: “Two things Paul said that could perhaps be commented on later. He talked about the fact that most of the violence now is from the Loyalist side. Is there a possibility that in some way that can be combated and, in some measure, arrested?
Republican “adventures”: “Secondly, he spoke about the fact that Gerry Adams lets the “boys”, get up to their tricks in Colombia and Castlereagh, something which is incredibly provocative and upsetting to the Unionist community. Is that something that he and his leadership could take seriously and in some way meet the Unionist concern? The overall suggestion tonight, and Paul, as a Professor of politics might have something interesting to say here: we all know that hard-liners become soft-liners once they are in power. Is it possible, Paul, that the Minister is correct in saying that this is the only game in town and if then Jeffrey Donaldson or somebody else replaces David Trimble that in fact he will essentially pursue the Trimble agenda with perhaps a rather different rhetoric?
Replies to questions 1 and 2:
Paul Bew: Re SDLP “I will immediately address the issue of the role of the SDLP. It is something I am very worried about, in the discussion so far, and it’s not the Minister’s fault. It was an amazing bravura performance. But it’s this: because I am and have been for twenty years a friend of David Trimble’s, you should not assume that the views that I have put tonight are his views – unless you know it to be the case. Now in the case of the border poll, you know it is to be the case. But I think it is very important to understand -this goes back on something that Roy Garland has said – that actually there is no contempt in the Ulster Unionist Party for the SDLP. And I have a view, which I have expressed to you, which I think is the realistic view of the great majority of political commentators in Northern Ireland: that it may not be as Dr. Brian Feeney says it is going to go to seventy-thirty rapidly among Nationalists, but that it is as certain as we can be sure about any electoral result that the majority of members returned to the next parliament from the Nationalist community will be Sinn Fein rather than SDLP. This is actually a commonplace of contemporary discourse. I said myself, I used the phrase “heartbreaking”. That was my genuine attitude towards that, but I do not think that you should presume that the First Minister believes this, because in my view he still retains a totally open mind on this question.
Border poll: “And, if I can add further, he believes that there is no evidence that the border poll will weaken the SDLP. The advice from pollsters is: a high turnout in the Catholic community is likely to help the party which has the least organisation. That there will be a high turnout of Catholics, and they will in the great majority of cases be voting for a united Ireland, but it will actually help the party which doesn’t have the organisation on the ground. So it is absolutely vital that my remarks – which are not in any way original, the conventional wisdom of all political commentators to be honest in Belfast, the only difference between me and the majority of commentators is that I regard it with horror. A lot of people are worshipping now at the rising sun of Mr. Adams – but that my remarks are not taken as his [David Trimble’s] particular view on this particular point. He is still of the belief that the way forward is the strengthening of the centre for Ireland, if that is at all possible, and he is still of the view that the border poll does not conflict with that. It is vitally important that what I have said should not be run in to any opinions of his, I’ve just been made very nervous about that.
Alternatives: “Now John [Feighery] has raised a crucial question which is: should we be obsessed with personalities? And he’s raised the possibility – and it’s in Roy Garland’s remarks as well – where is Jeffrey Donaldson on these matters? Jeffrey Donaldson, the day of the referendum said, as a democrat, he’d lost the referendum. He is still saying that we want to retain Stormont, but we do not want to pay the price of dealing with what he calls “unreconstructed terrorists”, but that is obviously a concept that is open to debate. What is an “unreconstructed terrorist”? There is obviously a space there. I would go further. I think that there are people in the DUP – and Peter Robinson is an obvious example – who are looking desperately for ways to preserve Stormont. … These people are afraid of a smash-up. There is no belief that there is a better deal for Unionists on offer. I should warn the Minister – and he may be flattered by this – there is a bit of a view in the Unionist community which is that, “well, so what if there is joint authority or there is a united Ireland or whatever? I’d rather have that nice Michael McDowell as Minister for Justice, than some of the candidates I’m likely to have in Northern Ireland”. That view is there, believe me!
“And its quite a widespread view that “so what, this is dirty, this current arrangement, unless Sinn Fein are made to clean up their act somewhat, I can’t tolerate this and don’t bother me about there’s going to be direct rule and Irish input, there’s going to be joint authority”. In actual fact I think the British government would be very wary of joint authority for profound reasons of it’s own: self-interest and financial interests and so on. The point is the electorate is not frightened, it’s not even frightened of a united Ireland. The mood is quite different. It is not motivated in most cases – except by a few cadres of the Ulster Unionist Party and not the people – by the idea that a better deal is possible. It’s very important to understand that aspect of the mood, very important indeed.
DUP cannot save the Agreement if UUP moves hard to the right: “But the DUP cannot deliver if the Ulster Unionist Party is driven hard to the right. The DUP delivers what it currently delivers, via Peter Robinson, to keep the institutions afloat, because the Ulster Unionist Party is in the centre, and that then creates a pressure on the DUP to keep the thing going. It is vitally important to understand this. There is no possibility of Peter Robinson riding to the rescue of this Agreement if David Trimble goes down. None. Dr. Ian Paisley will make absolutely certain that doesn’t happen. Trimble has to be there in place, or somebody like him, with something like those policies, to create the incentive for the DUP to carry on. It’s a complete failure of understanding of dynamics to believe that the DUP can suddenly save the Agreement in a context in which the Ulster Unionist Party has moved hard to the right.
Border poll: “And it’s not really all that much about the election, I have to tell you. The election is stupid, stupid, if you have an election, which is going to be an election to nothing, and all the candidates know it is an election to institutions which are going down. And let me say this, it will be horribly polarised. If I can say – well John [Feighery] is here and he knows my background in this matter, we both worked together in the Irish Association. I actually believe in that approach to Irish affairs, very profoundly. I believe in the moderate consensus coming together. I am totally opposed to sectarianism and therefore why am I taking about a border poll here, which has such a risk? I’ll tell you two reasons: one, without it I suspect this election is going to be horrendously polarising and destabilising anyway, it’s not going to add much to that. But secondarily, I have come to realise from the days when John and I were running around organising the Irish Association in Dublin and Belfast, that you have to take as a given the passions of the population of Northern Ireland – either Nationalist, Republican or Catholic or Unionist, Protestant and so on – and there is no point in wishing they were different. You have to look at where they are and then you have to say “well now that’s where they are, but they’re not bad people and they’d rather have peace than war, so how can we arrange it that we allow their better emotions and their more common-sense emotions to triumph?”
Ingrained sectarianism: “That what the ideas that I put to you tonight are all about and I’m afraid you just have to accept the ingrained sectarianism in most people in Northern Ireland. Something I came extremely reluctantly to, very much in my forties, but I’ve had a lot more success in terms of the influence of benign political developments in Northern Ireland once I came to terms with that simple logic. So it’s just no good to say we don’t want it polarising, it’s going to be awful. The question is what’s the outcome going to be? Imagine the outcome, imagine that you actually get the situation with a Unionist community, because of a border poll, had enough confidence to make a deal with Sinn Fein. That’s the prize that we’re talking about here.
Difficulty about being prescriptive: “Just a final word on all of this. There’s a very tricky referendum now on Nice [Nice Treaty]. I could not honestly give you serious analysis of that referendum. Now, I’m a Professor of Irish politics, my family comes from Cork, I’ve written books – two books – about the politics of the Republic. I still would not be able to advise the Minister on the right course to get a “yes” vote. I couldn’t do it, because the rhythms of the society in the Republic today, I’m not sufficiently attuned to, even though I know a lot more about it than most people who live in Northern Ireland. I spend a lot more time there. Now, I do think it behoves even the most brilliant members of the Irish Government to come to terms with the possibility, just the possibility, that there is a difficulty about being prescriptive about the balance of forces in the North, which is similar to the difficulty that I would have if I started telling you how to run a Nice referendum campaign and what the right buttons to press are and what they are not. Thank you.”
Questions 3-10
Q. 3: “It’s interesting to hear the government telling the Unionists that they have to accept former terrorists in government. In the next five years, or whenever the next Flood Tribunal report comes out, the Government might well have to share power with Sinn Fein, and then what is their attitude to that going to be?”
Q.4: “I think that there’s a fundamental contradiction in much of what Paul was saying tonight. On the one hand he’s saying that he’s in favour of the Good Friday Agreement, and at the same time he says he’s disheartened at the rise of Sinn Fein. Well, to my mind the whole idea of the Good Friday Agreement was to bring people like Sinn Fein into the democratic process, so if you support the Good Friday Agreement, you’ve got to support the rise of Sinn Fein, because that is what it was all about and that was what was going to happen. If you want to see the demise of Sinn Fein, then what I suggest is that if you don’t support the Good Friday Agreement then you encourage them to go back to war.
Q.5 Cllr. Sean Collins (Fianna Fail, Drogheda): “If you say that the SDLP are on the slide, what is the answer? What should they do? What would make them hungry enough to fight back? You know, history, I think, is repeating itself in many ways. If you look to 1926, with the establishment of Fianna Fail and the appearance of the “bogey man” in De Valera. Same way as Adams is the “bogey man” today. Sinn Fein today are in many ways like Fianna Fail was then: they were hungry then, they’ve got out on the ground they’ve organised themselves. I couldn’t believe the result of the last general election in the South, to see them take so many seats and you know in this constituency, they could possibly have taken another one. What would make the SDLP hungry enough to fight back?
Q. 6. Cllr. Phil Cantwell (Ind., Trim UDC): “I was recently at a mass in the Short Strand and there used to be a very, very strong voice, a priest there called Fr. O’Brien and unfortunately and he’s gone from the area, so I was just wondering how does the influence of Fr. O’Brien – which would be equivalent to Fr. Troy – I wonder is that missed? Because what concerns me is that at that church I was rather intimidated by a group of individuals, obviously they were in the IRA, with dark glasses marching on a Sunday morning through the Short Strand, and then I was worried to see graffiti on the wall which said: “the Village supports Sharon” [Ariel Sharon] I was wondering is that an ominous trend? And the question I want to ask is, did the ‘missing’ of Gary McMichael in the process, had it any influence on the infighting of the Loyalist groups and is the exclusion by the Irish Government of Sinn Fein, has it been causing problems?
Q.7: Senator Mary White (Fianna Fail, Dublin): “I would like to ask Paul Bew why David Trimble doesn’t criticise more the Loyalist paramilitary activity in North Belfast and East Belfast? There doesn’t seem to be any mainstream Unionist leadership on the paramilitary activity on the Loyalist side.
Q.8: [Slane resident] “May I make some comment, not specifically on the Nice referendum here, but on the issue of globalisation, because that’s what the Nice referendum to some extent is about. The increased sovereignty within Europe as a bundle of countries and maybe slightly decreased sovereignty in some senses of Ireland as an island, but that these issues may contribute a lot in terms of dissipating this localised Republican versus Loyalist heat. We end up with maybe a couple of ghettoes, a few small ghettoes when this process is over, because a lot of the younger generation in the North are actually voting with their feet, walking out and walking away from this kind of localised, tribalised violence. That may be, as Minister McDowell said, economic prosperity takes away the need for tribal warfare, but that there is a global consumerist issue which may be a greater political threat to everybody. We sense the younger generation not interested in political thought and communal responsibility and that these are issues, global issues, that often supersede many of these smaller local republican problems that we have.
Q.9: [Kells resident]: “The speaker referred to the Westminster pro-Patten legislation about to be introduced. On an optimistic point of view I would suggest that it seems likely that Sinn Fein will join the Police Board in the event of it being to their satisfaction. That could all happen before the January meeting, in which case it may free up the decommissioning problem, and maybe things will free up, a list of events that will follow as a result of it. Thank you.”
Q.10: Cllr. Jim Cousins (PD, Dundalk): “…. Paul Bew said about these agreements with the Unionists, these propositions that come up, these motions that come up, Paul Bew more or less said “pass no remarks on them”, it’s just word-playing. But Mark Durkan issued a warning tonight, that if that kind of thing goes through, the SDLP will withdraw from the Police Board …. because the Unionists have more or less said, you know, they want to change Patten. And I don’t agree that the SDLP is a party that’s on the down. There have been plenty of parties here in the South that people thought were wiped out, but we came back with a bang.
Replies to questions 3-10
[Initial fragment of this section inaudible on tape]
Minister McDowell: Re SDLP: “… I don’t want to seem to be scoring points here and I’m conscious that it may be that when Paul said that the SDLP are finished – it was his phrase not my phrase – that he was purely saying that as the larger of the two parties in Northern Ireland on the Nationalist side they were finished, and there is a nod there in agreement and I’m glad of that at any rate, because to see them as a party, which was finished in the ordinary understanding of that term is to me a deeply and profoundly depressing scenario.
Sinn Fein’s Marxism: “Let’s be clear about Sinn Fein: Sinn Fein as far as we know, is a party whose ideology on economic matters is old-fashioned Marxism. In so far as they ever make themselves clear on these issues – and it’s mainly in internal documents and party productions of one kind or another which the rest of us are fortunate enough not to have to read – the gist of what they are saying is old-fashioned Marxist, socialist analysis of an economic kind. They’re not in the mainstream of modern, liberal democracy as far as the economic side of it is concerned. There is no point in calling a spade anything other than a spade. And, therefore if people say to me “would you coalesce with them?” No. I went into politics to oppose Marxism. I opposed it when it came from the Worker’s Party, I opposed it when it comes from Joe Higgins’ Trotskyite form of Marxism, I oppose it when it comes from Sinn Fein. That’s the first thing.
“The second thing is I don’t ever envisage a circumstance in which I will sit down around a Cabinet table with a group of Marxists to try and plan out our economy, because I believe that I fundamentally differ with them on what this country needs. So people who say to me, you know, “why would you rule out Sinn Fein?” – it isn’t solely their paramilitary side that disqualifies them. In my view they are not what I would consider to be people with whom I could do business with on economic issues. That’s my personal point of view, you may like it or dislike it, but that’s the way it is as far as I’m concerned.
Sinn Fein joining the Police Board: “Sinn Fein could easily join the Police Board, if they chose to do it, but at the moment it’s quite clear that they’re keeping their options open on that, because they say they’d consider doing it in certain circumstances, and they are playing a hard game of electoral poker, because they consider that they have an advantage over the SDLP by withholding support for the policing institutions of Northern Ireland at the moment. It may well be that they might decide that they are so advantaged in the present thing, and that Paul’s pessimistic view about the SDLP’s prospects are so correct, that they could take the risk of going into policing before the Christmas or before the next Assembly election. Somehow I doubt that. And the reason I doubt that I have to say very simply is that the Republican movement isn’t simply a whole load of Sinn Fein electoral offices or a whole load of Sinn Fein cumann meetings. It is a whole way of thinking, part of which regards itself as more legitimate as a group of people to decide what happens in the Short Strand, or the Bogside or anywhere else, than any police force. And that suits a lot of people because it gives them on a local basis power over their neighbours: power to determine disputes, influence, the right not to be insulted at its very least, the right to coerce other people to their way of thinking at the very worst. And therefore dismantling paramilitarism and adopting the police force of Northern Ireland as legitimate is going to require quite a wrench. I’m not saying it’s something which I justify withholding for a moment, but withholding support is something which is easier for them to do at the moment and present circumstances politically than not doing. That’s not a justification for that, it’s just a statement of fair analysis and fact.
UUC resolution: “I heard what was said here earlier, but I come back to this point: we cannot take it as a position that we are to disregard the fine print of the motion passed at the Unionist Council the other day. We just can’t do that. And, tempting though it is, Paul, to say “that’s just the usual guff” and “they would say that wouldn’t they” and all the rest. This was a composite statement put together by David Trimble with his antagonists. This was a means of uniting the Unionist Party and in order to get the degree of unity that David Trimble thought was necessary on the occasion in question, he and his supporters agreed to language which seems to threaten the Patten dispensation. And they can’t have it both ways, because whereas that may be okay, that’s the equivalent of letting the “lads” go to Colombia as far as other people in Northern Ireland are concerned. You can’t have it. You can’t say “we’re pro-Agreement, but let’s unravel Patten a little bit”, and at the same time say “you on the other side are breaching the Mitchell Principles” – which undoubtedly the Provisional movement has done in the past – but “your fault is something which is irremediable and is something serious, but just ignore us we do these strange little things from time to time on our side of the equation”.
Ethnic cleansing in Larne and Carrickfergus: “And I do take the point that was mentioned earlier about violence in Northern Ireland, and I do believe – and it’s a thing by the way which didn’t occur to me in recent weeks because it’s a thing that since I have been Attorney General and since I have been a Minister has been occurring to me more and more strongly – you can argue about who threw the first stone, or who fired the first firework or who put the first petrol bomb over the peace line here or there in Belfast. You can’t argue with what’s happening in Larne and Carrickfergus. There is systematic ethnic-cleansing going on there. Systematic ethnic-cleansing of Catholic families. They are being forced up the coast of Antrim to places like Glenarm and Cushendal. They are being forced out of their homes, and I do say that the pro-agreement Unionists and the SDLP could make a huge impression by going and standing in solidarity against that form of violence. And it’s very easy for politicians – not for the SDLP, because they find it very difficult in fact to get into interface areas and to fly the flag – but it’s easy for Republicans to stand on one side of a riot and say “look at the PSNI, look at the Loyalists and all the rest of it”. It’s easy for David Trimble to stand on the other side and say “here is the golf ball that was thrown at me in front of a ‘welcome to hell’ slogan”, but the real trick, if I may put it in those terms, would be for Mark Durkan and David Trimble – and I think this is where Unionism has most to give – to go up to the estates in Carrickfergus and in Larne and to stand up against vicious sectarian violence against ordinary people who have done no harm to anybody at all.
Countering sectarianism: “I accept Paul’s point, but it is a profoundly depressing one, that you have to address the fundamental sectarian nature of Northern Ireland’s society and that if you fail to do that, I suppose he’s effectively saying you are in the “Pollyanna” mode rather than in a real analytical mode. But sectarianism must be countered by the emergence of the centre, not by the two extremes. …The two extremes thrive on sectarianism. Sinn Fein thrives on sectarianism, in a sense that it is well served by the Loyalist viciousness which it claims to protect the Catholic people from, and it is well-served by vicious bigotry against isolated Protestants in border areas. That is the stuff on which Sinn Fein thrives. It’s the centre-ground, the SDLP, who oppose sectarianism, the people who vote for mayors of other parties, the people who try and bring out co-operation between the centre parties. It’s there that sectarianism will be challenged. And accepting, as I do, Paul’s statement that the SDLP was finished, meant only that they were finished in his view as the likely majority party within the Nationalist community, though I don’t agree with that proposition myself. Accepting that that’s his view, it still strikes me that the Unionists as a community should realise that they need the SDLP to be as strong as possible as it can be, and that that requires sacrifice on the Unionist side and that the tribalistic headcount and this pernicious, nasty, obnoxious election that Paul is referring to now, that that is not the way in which moderate politics are going to prosper and people are going to cross over the sectarian divides with their third, fourth and fifth preferences.
UUC resolution can’t be disregarded: “I know that Paul telling me that it would be hard for him to offer advice on the Nice referendum which was valuable, I know that what he was saying by implication was that I should be equally careful about making prescriptions about Northern Ireland, but, unsubtle thought that point was, we all live on an island, we all live in two islands, and the great majority of people on these two island are completely on the side of supporting the centre, the moderate centre. And we can’t be asked, as I say, to turn our eyes away from the small detail of the resolutions that are passed by the Unionist Council. We just can’t be asked to do that, because there two sides to this story and if you want to get SDLP people – and the point was made by Jim Cousins here – if you want Mark Durkan to survive in all of this, he has to respond to a motion which has as one of it’s elements the unravelling of the Patten Report. And you just can’t say “ignore that, we’ll just get on with it and after the election we’ll all sort this out”. If that is the price of Unionist unity it is an indication that public hostility to one of the cornerstones of the Good Friday Agreement, which is the Patten Report, is necessary to sustain the Unionist Party and that’s very hard to reconcile with the claim being made that it is an unambiguously pro-Agreement party. Thanks.
Prof. Paul Bew: “I am grateful to the Minister for just the whole spirit that he has approached that. I think we should all realise that we are all obviously privileged. For a Government Minister to come in and put aside his prepared script and engage with the issues the way that Michael has done is something, in most countries in Europe today, simply would not happen, and I’m extremely grateful to him for the way that he has done it, and also very glad to clarify my own remarks, which were probably ill-chosen.
SDLP: “I hope that there was no misunderstanding in the first place, but he is quite right, I simply meant finished as the largest Nationalist party, and I sincerely hope that the scenario of others like Dr. Brian Feeney, as I think I did indicate, that it is going to go very quickly to seventy-thirty within Nationalism, that that scenario is not the case and I’m not at all sure at this point that that is true, not at all sure, that that scenario of Dr. Feeney’s is right.
Policing and UUC resolution: “On the [UUC] motion, I quite accept the Minister’s point. I don’t think it’s possible for Mark Durkan not to say that this is a silly motion to which he takes objection and looks like an attempt to put the clock back. I could make points about why there are genuine Unionist concerns about policing. I could say that the Good Friday Agreement, in the language which prefaces and leads into the discussion on the need for something like the Patten Report, says that this must go on in the context in which it’s accepted the police force that cannot keep public order will have lost all respect. And we had the acting Chief Constable six weeks ago saying that there was now a police force that couldn’t keep public order. So there is a problem here about the Agreement, a non-fulfilment of it and it’s not all, the problem about non-fulfilment of the Agreement on policing matters is not simply a matter of: there are these Patten provisions that should be carried out.
“It’s also important language in the Agreement, which, by the open and explicit statements of the leadership of the Police Service of Northern Ireland themselves, have not been met. So the non-fulfilment of the Agreement on policing is a two-sided matter actually, not a one-sided matter, and it’s because of comments like that, which people visibly see on their streets every day. It’s because of comments like that that you do get part of the sentiment which leads into a motion, which personally I think was silly.
“I think that it’s perfectly credible if, in my opinion, worrying, for the Ulster Unionist Party to say “we have a problem with this transition, what is it about Castlereagh and Colombia that you don’t understand? Does anybody honestly believe that the day of the referendum you had told David Trimble that you are going to have to get by in the face of your supporters reading about such events in your newspaper?” There is a problem as to where the Republican movement is and clear signs that they are not, to many people, in the process of making a transition. I personally believe they are in the process of making that transition, but it’s a hard, hard argument to make now. There’s a lot of common sense that goes against it. Okay. So that’s the difficulty, that is the difficulty and that is the position that he’s in.
David Trimble: “I’ll tell you something now, David Trimble believed that when decommissioning was achieved that was it, it was over and the Agreement was safe and he had climbed his personal Everest, the breakthrough was done. He wasn’t too worried in the next election. Perhaps the DUP beat him. If so, in many ways he’s quite prepared to be – what you would understand in your own terms – the Liam Cosgrave of the situation, as somebody who established the institutions, got them up and running and, if another political party then takes over and runs them, there and good. That’s the worst-case scenario that he thought was the case after decommissioning. He found himself in an entirely different position. He has his weaknesses.
Countering sectarianism: “I quite agree with those who have raised the issue about his speaking out on sectarianism. He has done so, but not often enough in the situation in North Belfast, and I think what the Minister said about the situation in Carrickfergus and Antrim is entirely right, unfortunately, and that is something which, if the centre were working together better, at least more of a fist could be made of doing it. Which is not to say that those two men have not made a fist of trying to do things, for example Mark and David together in North Belfast. But unfortunately you have a situation where a great deal of Unionist political energy is taken up with this wretched internecine warfare. Other better things just quite frequently do not get done.
Trimble’s commitment to the Agreement: “But, you must remember, when you complain about Mr. Trimble’s commitment to this Agreement, who in this room has seen their wife kicked by a mob in the name of this Agreement? It’s very simple, there is really absolutely no doubt about his commitment to this Agreement and you should always bear this in mind.
Policing motion a Unionist “wish-list”: “It is going to be very difficult, I agree, this motion is a problem. I am not saying that as a matter of real political fact, people are not going to pick up on it and make the arguments – of course they are. I am saying that also as a matter of real political fact the truth is that the legislation is going to be introduced in the House of Commons, it’s going to take time going through parliament, these matters are not going to be sorted out on the 18th [January].
“What that resolution says: it expresses a Unionist wish-list on policing on some of the more reactionary members of the Ulster Unionist Party. That’s what it is – it’s a wish-list. If you want to say “well, I’m not going to think about how I’m going to save the Good Friday Agreement, because I’m so insulted about what they’ve said about policing”, you’re very welcome to say it, but then don’t tell me how you are “dying for the Agreement”, to use the phrase, because I think it is absolutely a futile thing to do. It expresses a Unionist wish-list.
“I want to just leave you with a thought. All the time just think of human beings, other human beings different from yourselves, and imagine what they might actually think. And the truth of the matter is that you have a group of people in the Ulster Unionist Assembly Party, you have a group in the DUP Assembly Party. I have absolutely no doubt, the DUP will issue a statement tomorrow saying let’s have an election and we’re going to romp home and so on, that this is said with a sickness in the heart, because they know that it’s an election to nothing in all probability, the way things are going now and they know we are heading for a smash-up the way things are now. And, most of these people basically are afraid of a smash-up, they want somehow to keep this show on the road, above all. That is the Assembly members, that is the people who will actually meet again on January the 18th . And they do not want to be responsible for a smash-up. They may not believe that the Agreement has made the Northern Irish economy flower in ways it didn’t flower before. They don’t. By the way they’re probably right, but they do believe that it would be a nastier place without it and they do not want that responsibility and I think you should focus on that.
Republican movement: John [Feighery] raised a key question here – is there anything the Republican movement could do? Well at this point, before this trial in Colombia is over, it is hard, but if it is over or if it happens quickly and if, for example, people are found guilty it would be very helpful indeed if we had an honest explanation, possibly even something along the lines of an apology for what actually happened there. An acceptance of the fact that it does fly in the face of the principles on the very first page of the Agreement. I actually believe that the governments are in a position to move the Republican movement along those lines. It’s impossible to do it before the trial, but I do think it is something that should be considered.
Border poll: “Now I am going to conclude by saying I have argued a case for the border poll, which I do believe in, although I totally accept some of the things which the Minister says about the risks, but at this point I would be perfectly happy with a statement from both governments that they were taking the matter under review and they were going to think about it for a good long time.
Delaying the Assembly election: “At this point it is more important to look at the issue of delay of the election. At this point, if you want to get stability into the politics of the North again, I think it very important. …. At this point I don’t think it is at the centre of the discussion. I believe it could come back. I believe, by the way, had the governments gone for it earlier in the year, we’d be in a totally different political situation now. And why? Because of a simple political fact: Jeffrey Donaldson and David Burnside wanted it, and it would have put them in a pro-Trimble alignment, because they believe for one reason or another it would work. And had that happened, then the Donaldson-Burnside pincer movement against Trimble did not happen this autumn. I believe a massive opportunity was missed to avoid the crisis that we’re now in. But it’s missed now, it’s water under the bridge, and at this point I think the important thing is simply that people in both governments look seriously at the proposal. At this stage what disappoints me is that the thinking in both governments – perhaps less in the British government – is still at a kind of very early stage, and the complexities of this thing have not been thought through, and people are still reacting on the basis of half an understanding on what’s actually at stake here. … And, as I say, this is not necessarily David’s view, but it is mine at the moment, but I do think you have to look seriously into a crucial issue which is this: the fact that if this election happens next May, this Assembly will only have been working for just over three years and it is clearly the original intention that it would work for four, and circumstances which are nobody’s fault have meant it hasn’t worked for that time. It seems to be entirely in the spirit of the Agreement. It doesn’t involve changing a word of the Agreement.
Need for review of mechanism for electing First and Deputy First Minister: “Now why do I say these things about the problem about Sinn Fein? Of course the Agreement is about bringing in Sinn Fein, but the truth of the matter is that the two parties who principally negotiated it – both the SDLP and the Ulster Unionists – in a fit of hubris, for which they are both guilty, agreed to arrangements for the election of the First Minister which now challenges both of them. In the last two or three days of the negotiation, those two parties had the power to do something which the Minister has talked about: strengthen the centre ground. And to strengthen the centre ground by privileging, not just in the voting for First Minister and Deputy First Minister, getting a certain percentage of the vote, they made a huge mistake by putting it at 50% rather that 40% and they made the huge mistake of not privileging your acceptability to the other side in the mechanism that was reached. And the reason why they did was that the SDLP believed on the eve of the Good Friday Agreement they were going from strength to strength. It never occurred to them, and I quite agree, it didn’t occur to me so I am not criticising them, that they would be unable to produce the 50% and that’s why they put it in and they didn’t put in safeguards that they were supposed to have done. And the Ulster Unionist Party the same. They are both equally guilty of a negotiating failure which could have saved all this worry about the next election and a review of the agreement now could deal with that. I will point out to you Senator George Mitchell was hinting at that a couple of years ago when he talked about the need to alter its architecture. That is another way out. If we actually simply moved and changed the provision under review to 40%: 40% to the election of First Minister and Deputy First Minister. That again would introduce that air of stability.
“But the simple point is: yes the Ulster Unionists in the Assembly and the DUP may be very reactionary, very silly, but most of them do not want to see a smash-up of this Agreement. Most of them are happy with the way it works and that includes working on a daily basis with Sinn Fein and we have to provide a means of concentrating, not on the detail, but the fundamental facts of people’s political psychology to turn this thing into a more benign context than we are currently in. Thank you very much.”
CLOSING WORDS
Chair: Ercus Stewart, S.C. “It’s just left to me to close down, and I want to thank both of our speakers. Clearly you have seen both of them – and I was delighted to see Michael putting aside his speech, although I hope we will read the other speech in the papers in the morning – both were clearly frank and forthright, they were definitely enthusiastic, all the elbowing and knees I gave to both of them wouldn’t shut them up! Both of them, I think, spoke forthrightly and frankly and it was a delight and a refreshing experience, whether you agree or disagree. I want to thank both of them, I want to thank those of you here who came and asked questions, those of you who came and listened, and those who came just to support. I think, last of all, neither speaker would be here, and none of us would be here, including myself, except for the Meath Peace Group, so I will hand over to Julitta for the last word…
Thanking the speakers and Chair, Julitta Clancy said: “I would just like to echo the Chairman’s words. I very much appreciate the honesty and candour of both speakers tonight. This is a very sensitive and serious issue and it needs honesty – honest talking and honest facing up to the difficulties of each side. We would hope that over the next few months there will be a lot of honest talking and listening, both publicly and privately. We need the public element also, because we need the people on the ground to carry whatever is going to be brought forward, we need a base to support it. Some of us were at the recent SDLP conference which Roy [Garland] addressed. It was the same day as the UUC meeting [21st September]. The news of the resolution came through while we were there, and one delegate, whom I have known for several years, said to me: “the reality is they just don’t want to share power with us, that’s it”. And I heard the same from several other delegates. What I am trying to say here is, that while a huge amount of work has been done at the leadership level in these parties – and there has been a lot of talk here tonight about the “centre” – there has been very little done, among those parties, to actually work together to start understanding and respecting each other, something which groups like ours and the Guild of Uriel in Louth, have been doing for many years now, working with small groups of people. There is a need for the pro-Agreement parties in particular to get down there and start facilitating the listening process, listening to the real concerns of the other…. Because sometimes it’s not the issues that are actually causing the problem: often it’s not being listened to. In the opening chapter of the Agreement the parties committed themselves to working for reconciliation, and while great progress has been made in setting up institutions and delivering reforms, that commitment to reconciliation has often taken second place The word “reconciliation” is sometimes seen as a dirty word in some quarters and the work of reconciliation is viewed with suspicion, but whatever we call it, the commitment [in the Agreement] is surely about the bringing about of an understanding and harmony between the two main traditions on this island. That is still the greatest challenge facing us and, in my view, it is the only way to effectively overcome sectarianism in the long term.”
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Meath Peace Group report, October 2002. © Meath Peace Group
Transcribed by Julitta Clancy and Catriona FitzGerald, and edited by Julitta Clancy. Taped by Oliver Ward, Catriona FitzGerald, and Anne Nolan.
APPENDIX A: UUC RESOLUTION OF 21 SEPTEMBER 2002
1. The Ulster Unionist Party reaffirms the commitment that we gave to the people of Northern Ireland in our election manifesto in 1998, namely that “we will not sit in government with reconstructed terrorists.”
2. The Ulster Unionist Party further affirms its commitment to the Mitchell Principles of democracy and non-violence and its determination to achieve a real and lasting peace, with stable government in Northern Ireland. The Ulster Unionist Party will judge all the terrorist organisations in terms of the level of their commitment to the Mitchell Principles. In particular, the UUP will continue to demand the total disarmament and disbandment of all terrorist groups including the IRA.
3. The Ulster Unionist Party supports devolution and has worked hard in the Assembly to deliver good government for all the people of Northern Ireland. Whilst we wish to sustain the institutions of government through the Assembly, we are equally determined to protect the democratic integrity of those institutions. In view of the failure of Sinn Fein/IRA to honour their commitment to exclusively peaceful means, the Ulster Unionist Party will, with immediate effect, adopt a policy of non-participation in meetings of the North-South Ministerial Council involving Sinn Fein, at both plenary and bilateral level. In the absence of Ulster Unionist ministers, the NSMC will cease to function.
4. The Ulster Unionist Party will seek an urgent meeting with our Prime Minister to place before him our demand that he honours the pledge he gave on April 10th, 1998, to provide an effective exclusion mechanism to enable Sinn Fein/IRA to be removed from ministerial office. The Prime Minister will be informed that the UUP will not return to the NSMC and will take further action in relation to our participation in the executive unless he honours his pledge.
5. The Ulster Unionist Party will initiate talks with the other parties and the Government over the next three months to ensure that there is a viable basis for the future governance of Northern Ireland and that unless upon the conclusion of such talks it has been demonstrably established that a real and genuine transition is proceeding to a conclusion, the party leader will recommend to a reconvened UUC meeting on January 18th, 2003, the immediate resignation of all Ulster Unionist ministers from the administration.
6. The Ulster Unionist Party reiterates its full support for the police and the rule of law. We will press the Prime Minister to set aside or vary the discriminatory 50/50 recruitment policy to enable additional officers to be recruited on the basis of merit alone and to give a firm commitment on the retention of the full-time reserve. The Ulster Unionist Party will oppose further unnecessary changes to the policing legislation and gives notice that it will withdraw from the Policing Board in the event of the government capitulating to the unreasonable demands of Sinn Fein/IRA for further police reform including places for convicted terrorists on district policing partnership boards.
7. The Ulster Unionist Party will press the government to introduce appropriate legislative measures and provide adequate resources in support of the Organised Crime Task Force to ensure that the criminal activities of the paramilitary organisations are closed down and that greater accountability is created.
8. The Ulster Unionist Party will further press the government to establish a special unit to support those who have been illegally exiled from Northern Ireland by terrorist organisations and will demand that these people and their families be enabled to return home. The UUP will also press for the formation of a Victims Commission to oversee and co-ordinate support for the innocent victims of terrorist violence.
9. The Ulster Unionist Party will continue to vigorously oppose any amnesty for IRA terrorists “on the run”.
APPENDIX B: WRITTEN SPEECH OF MINISTER MICHAEL MCDOWELL.
[Editor’s note: In responding to Professor Bew’s analysis, Minister for Justice Michael McDowell departed from his supplied script. We reproduce below the text of the original script for his talk as supplied on the night.]
“At the outset, I wish to thank the organisers of this evening’s event, the Meath Peace Group, and especially Julitta Clancy and our Chair for tonight, Ercus Stewart, for providing the opportunity for frank and constructive engagement and discussion of this topic which is vital to all people on this island. The Group continues to provide a constructive platform for debate on Northern Ireland related matters and I commend its success in developing contacts within Northern Ireland, particularly within the unionist community. I feel that the Group continues to perform a very useful outreach function.
I am especially pleased that the Group has also invited Paul Bew to be with us this evening. While he and I might reach different conclusions and judgements I believe that all of us find his perspective, insight and analysis extremely valuable.
I suppose that it is a measure of the complex and fraught nature of developments in relation to the Good Friday Agreement that, in considering in advance whether to accept an invitation to speak on the subject, one never quite knows what developments – positive or negative – will have taken place by the time the speaking engagement arrives. So, on the face of it, it might have been easier for me to take a more upbeat stance this evening if the developments at the Ulster Unionist Council last Saturday week hadn’t come about. But all of us who are committed to the process we are engaged in should remember that, while its course may never run as smoothly as we would wish, we would try to keep our eyes on the enormous prize that that process can deliver. It is very easy to point to what might be called crisis after crisis that seem to have bedevilled the process. But we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that through the persistent efforts of all the parties involved many of these problems have been worked through.
So, in attempting to address the question “where are we now?” I’m sure you will understand why I chose to accentuate the positive. And it is the case that, on four core issues of the Agreement – policing, decommissioning, security normalisation and the stability of the institutions – very substantial progress has been made. While this progress may have been obscured by negative developments emerging from other quarters in the process, it does not diminish the scale or importance of what has been achieved thus far.
A real example of encouraging and productive progress on the implementation of the Agreement can be seen in the process of change in policing. The Police Service of Northern Ireland has been established and its first cadre of recruits, representative of both communities, have taken up duty. A Policing Board, involving political representatives from both the nationalist and unionist traditions, is well established. It has been required to show maturity, cohesion and responsibility in addressing the major challenges which came its way over the last 10 months. Notwithstanding that all of these issues involved partisan pressures for the Board, it is fair to say that many people have been impressed with the distinction and determination members of the Board have shown in fulfilling its responsibilities.
The Irish Government has congratulated Hugh Orde on his appointment and we wish him well in his new post. The Garda Commissioner, Pat Byrne, and I have met him and we look forward to working closely with him in the months and years ahead.
It is very disappointing that Sinn Fein has not felt itself able to participate in the new policing structures. The view of the Government and of the SDLP was that, taken in their totality, the proposals of 1 August 2001 had the capacity to deliver the substance and spirit of the Patten Report. We believe that impressive developments since then have vindicated that judgement. I want to commend the SDLP for taking this great leap on behalf of nationalists. Their decision enables us to establish a vital foundation for lasting peace – a police service whose ethos and composition reflects the society it seeks to police and, in turn, merits the full support of that society. The current policing reviews and the forthcoming legislation, promised by the two Governments last August, provide the vehicle by which Sinn Fein can come on board, if it so chooses. I hope that Sinn Fein will make the decision to constructively engage with the new dispensation. But I think that it is important to stress that the issue of policing is not one to be seen in terms of concessions to one side of the community or the other. Too often developments in this area have tended to be judged, not on their objective merits, but on whether particular parties support or oppose them. We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that a police force that has the support of all communities is clearly in the interests of all communities.
On 29 April last, my predecessor and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland signed the Inter-Governmental Agreement on the implementation of the Patten recommendations on structured cooperation between the Garda Siochana and the PSNI. This landmark Agreement allows for closer liaison, joint investigations, an annual conference, joint emergency planning, exchange of personnel, and cooperation in the area of training. It also makes provision for reciprocal arrangements for lateral entry and secondment with policing powers between the two police services, thereby offering new opportunities for police officers in both services. In keeping with the intent of the Good Friday Agreement and the Patten Report, we are now laying the foundations for a new era of policing in Ireland.
Since September 2001 we have also seen two acts of decommissioning by the IRA. The Independent International Commission on Decommissioning described the first as a significant event in which the IRA had put a quantity of arms completely beyond use. It characterised the second act as involving a substantial and varied quantity of weapons. Regrettably, the reaction from some quarters was to minimise the importance of that step. What was once regarded as the litmus test of the bona fides of republicanism was, once it happened, dismissed by some as a cynical and tactical act. Given the sensitivity of this issue and its fundamental significance for the republican movement, any fair-minded observer must recognise that the achievement of two acts of decommissioning was a profoundly significant step forward in the peace process.
Welcome progress has also been made in the area of security normalisation. Two announcements in October and January last heralded the demolition of three observation towers in South Armagh, the dismantling of Magherafelt army base and the closure of Ebrington barracks in Derry. While all these decisions have got to be made in the context of an ongoing threat assessment, we should also recognise the confidence-building potential of such moves for communities which, in the past, have been heavily militarised. The more we normalise security arrangements on the ground, the more we reassure the affected communities that the promise of the Agreement is being realised.
Despite many challenges, the last year has also been a remarkably fertile period in the operation of the institutions of the Agreement. The Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive have been providing good and accountable government for the people of Northern Ireland. Substantial work and activity has also been going on in Strands 2 and 3 of the Agreement. As well as numerous Ministerial meetings at sectoral level, there have in the past year been two summit meetings of both the North/South Ministerial Council and the British-Irish Council. The fact that the operation of these institutions has not attracted a great deal of media attention is testament to the absence of discord in their proceedings and to the quiet success of the business at hand.
As I see it, these are the gains of the last year and they are, compared to where we were even twelve months ago, both considerable and impressive. And yet, as Ambassador Richard Haas has said, even before the developments of the last fortnight, the glass for many people is half empty rathern than half full. As well as gains, there have undeniably been strains over the last year. Cumulatively, these have had a debilitating effect on confidence in the capacity of the Agreement to deliver the promised new beginning.
These corrosive issues, including events in Colombia and the ongoing sectarian violence are of legitimate concern and must be addressed. However, they should first of all be addressed in the contexts in which they arise, rather than imported as crises into the institutional heart of the Agreement.
Community confidence in the outworking of the Agreement has been particularly affected by the constant media images of violence on the streets, rioting at the interfaces and the despicable sectarian attacks on innocent victims. That deficit of confidence exists in all communities and extends, not just to the actions of the paramilitaries, but also to the ability of the forces of law and order to protect people from sectarian attack. While North and East Belfast have dominated the news, minority communities in Larne, Antrim, Carrickfergus, Coleraine and Derry have also been victims of sectarian attack. I welcome the avowed determination of the new Chief Constable to identify and take action against those responsible.
In addition, effective and consistent policing will be required on the interfaces to get a firm grip on the instigators of violence and ensure they face the rigours of the law. Whoever started the trouble, whoever responded and whoever perpetuated it, the end-result in East Belfast has been a nightmare for the ordinary people who live in and around the Short Strand. I welcome the fact that recent policing tactics – involving a larger deployment of PSNI officers at this interface – seem to be having a positive impact on the ground.
However effective and robust, security and policing policies alone will not defuse the tensions in these interface areas. The communities themselves can assist by anticipating difficulties, providing an early alert to the other side of the community divide and managing trouble if it breaks out.
While the street violence experienced this summer has been intense, we can take some comfort from the fact that this year’s marching season passed off reasonably peacefully. While Drumcree Sunday saw some disgraceful scenes, they were at least short-lived and the PSNI managed the situation effectively and sensitively. In other areas, the parades passed off without incident or with relatively little trouble.
Considerable credit is due to the range of people who exercised a positive influence managing these parades and, where they were unwelcome, in urging calm and restraint. The considerable progress that has been made in Derry in recent years, involving dialogue between the loyal orders and the local residents, is a model which, in time, may commend itself to other contentious parades in Northern Ireland.
The Irish Government believes that the Parades Commission has been doing a good job in carrying out what is a very difficult task. The current Review being undertaken by Sir George Quigley will, we hope, add value to the work of managing contentious parades.
And yet, despite all the progress I have outlined above, there are some who believe that Northern Ireland society is now more divided, and that sectarianism is more deep-rooted, than ever before. While I understand why such a view might be advanced, I do not share it.
To those who assert that there is a deficit of confidence in the current process that must be addressed, I say – I agree. However, that deficit and the fear and suspicions I have just mentioned can only be addressed collectively and all sides have a contribution to make. The Agreement was a collective endeavour as was the ongoing effort to implement it. Sustaining confidence in the Agreement likewise requires a collective commitment.
I am on record as having said that the stakes are high and our responsibility great, and, previewing the period ahead, that remains the case. In the next year, the people of Northern Ireland pass verdict on those who have been the custodians of devolution in Northern Ireland. Inevitably, political decisions and positioning are increasingly influenced by the prospect of this electoral rendezvous. As one who, only a few months ago, emerged from a lengthy general election campaign, I can hardly decry the reality that, for all politicians, the first priority is to get elected. However, the second reality is that, once elected, those who have been entrusted by the people must be able to form a government.
Perhaps this is an appropriate point to say a few words about what was decided at the Ulster Unionist Council meeting last Saturday week. Obviously I don’t want to say anything which would be unhelpful but I cannot pretend that the outcome of that meeting was not disappointing and a matter of concern to the Irish Government. Partnership government and the full and inclusive operation of the institutions of the Agreement are the cornerstone of devolution in Northern Ireland. If there is to be devolved government, it must be on a basis which serves the interests of both communities and reflects the principle that the institutions are interlocking and independent. Of course, we recognise that further progress needs to be made in respect of all aspects of the Agreement. But our view is that experience has shown that this can be best advanced by fully working the Agreement. As the Taoiseach has pointed out, impeding its operation retards, rather than advances, the process of implementation and the achievement of political stability. In accordance with the Agreement, it is the responsibility of the two Governments, in consultation with the political parties, to address difficulties which may arise in its implementation. As you will know, last week Brian Cowen met John Reid as part of that process and consultations with the parties will, of course, continue.
I know that you would not expect me to come before you tonight to map out a detailed strategy as to where exactly we go from here. But, as always, the approach of the Irish Government will be to remain steadfastly committed to the fundamental principles of the Agreement: the constitutional status of Northern Ireland being grounded on consent; partnership and inclusive government open to all who use only democratic and non-violent means; the operation of the various institutions on an interlocking and interdependent basis; and the entrenchment of equality and civil and political liberties to protect both communities in Northern Ireland, irrespective of its constitutional status.
The months – and indeed the years – ahead will, without doubt, be challenging. However I believe those who had the courage to negotiate the Agreement and break out of the zero-sum mindset will be vindicated by the people. Because, in the final analysis, there is no visible alternative to the kind of balanced accommodation offered by the Agreement.
Partnership politics is at the core of the Agreement – partnership within the Assembly and Executive, between both parts of the island and between the peoples of these islands. The political institutions of the Agreement are the mechanisms through which those partnerships are formed and developed. They are partnerships which are not just worthy in themselves but deliver practical benefits for the people they are entrusted to serve. Within Northern Ireland there can be no gainsaying the fact that partnership is providing effective and accountable government. All shades of political opinion are involved in that process of government – even if the terms of their participation differ.
Partnership is also at the heart of the North/South structures, involving Ministers from the different traditions on this island working together. While my partners may come to the North/South table with different political values and identities than mine, their engagement had been motivated by a common desire to make a positive difference in the lives of the people they serve. The outputs of North/South partnership deliver mutual benefit to both parts of the island. They are the outworking of practical, sensible co-operation which threatens nobody’s cherished interests or aspirations. I am convinced that all of these initiatives represent win-win scenarios and, quite frankly, it makes all the more deep my sense of disappointment when the operation of these institutions is called into question for reasons not related to the benefits which they can bring to all the people of this island.
I should also mention the partnership and co-operation at the core of the British-Irish Council. This is working in a unique way to the mutual benefit of all the peoples of these islands.
So to return specifically to the question posed this evening: where are we now? I suspect not as far as many of us would have wished but, for all that, a lot further than many of us would have dared to hope even a decade ago. I do not seek to minimise the difficulties which we face. But I believe that we have to be clear about one thing: realistically we can only seek to address the difficulties which we face within the terms of the Good Friday Agreement and the principles of partnership which underpin it.
ENDS
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES ON SPEAKERS AND CHAIR
Paul Anthony Bew was born in January 1950 and was educated at Campbell College, Belfast, and Cambridge University where he was awarded a Ph.D. in 1974. He is Professor of Irish Politics at Queen’s University Belfast and has lectured at the Ulster College, the University of Pennsylvania (Visiting Lecturer 1982-83), and Surrey University (Visiting Professor, 1997- ) and was Parnell Fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge, from 1996-97. Professor Bew served as President of the Irish Association for Economic and Cultural Relations from 1990-92 and has been an Executive Member of the British-Irish Association since 1995. He is historical adviser to the Bloody Sunday Tribunal and is the author of numerous publications, articles and reviews including: Sean Lemass and the Making of Modern Ireland (1983), Conflict and Conciliation in Ireland, 1890-1910 (1987), The Dynamics of Irish Politics (1989), The Northern Ireland Peace Process, 1993-96 (1996), John Redmond (1996) and Northern Ireland: A Chronology of the Troubles (revised edition 1999)
Michael McDowell, T.D., Senior Counsel, was born in May 1951 and was educated at Gonzaga College, Dublin, UCD, and the King’s Inns, Dublin. He has been a member of the Council of King’s Inns since 1978 and was called to the Inner Bar in March 1987. His political career began when he was elected to the Dail for the Progressive Democrats in the constituency of Dublin South-East in 1987. Re-elected in 1992, he was party spokesman successively in Foreign Affairs, Northern Ireland, Trade and Tourism and Finance, and was appointed by the Tanaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment to chair the Working Group on Company Law Enforcement and Compliance. In 1999 he was appointed by the Government to chair the Implementation Advisory Group on the Establishment of the Single Regulatory Authority for the Financial Services Industry. He served as Attorney General from July 1999 to June 2002. In February 2002 he was appointed President of the Progressive Democrats and was appointed Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform following his re-election to the Dail last June.
Ercus Stewart, Senior Counsel, was born in March 1949, and was educated at Colaiste Mhuire, Dublin, UCD and the King’s Inns, Dublin. He was called to the Inner Bar in 1982 and is also a member of the Bars of N.I., England and Wales, and Australia (N.S.W.). He acts as arbitrator in commercial arbitration, both international and domestic, is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, and has wide experience in dispute resolution and mediation. He lectures to various institutions, including King’s Inns, UCD and DIT, and has published books and articles on labour/employment law and commercial arbitration law. He is a former chairman of the Irish Society for Labour Law, the Irish Association of Industrial Relations and the Broadcasting Complaints Commission, and is currently a member of Amnesty International (Lawyers Section), the European Lawyers’ Union, the International Bar Association and Co-operation Ireland.
Meath Peace Group Report. October 2002.
Transcribed by Julitta Clancy and Catriona FitzGerald, and edited by Julitta Clancy. Taped by Oliver Ward, Catriona FitzGerald, and Anne Nolan.
Acknowledgments: Meath Peace Group would like to thank the speakers and guest chair, Ercus Stewart for giving so generously of their time. We thank all who attended the talk, many coming from long distances, all who assisted in the planning, organisation, publicity and recording of the talk, all who prepared and served refreshments afterwards, and all who made contributions towards the costs of the talk. Special thanks as always to the Columban Fathers for permitting us the facilities of St. Columban’s, Dalgan Park, and to the Dept. of Foreign Affairs Reconciliation Fund for assistance towards the running costs of the talks.