Tánaiste promises no effort will be spared to avoid the 1997 marching season becoming a "ground-hog day"

Speaking today in the Seanad on the last year's developments in the peace process, the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Dick Spring, T.D., explained the Government's continuing emphasis on the potential value of an unequivocal restoration of the IRA ceasefire. This, he said, "would be the right decision, morally, politically and economically. If set out in convincing and unequivocal terms, and consistently observed, it would have the capacity to break the current stalemate and create renewed possibilities." The Tánaiste also described the necessity of a sustained loyalist ceasefire as "absolute."

The loyalist leadership, he said " have set out their own fresh political vision, and made a most constructive contribution to the talks so far. It would be tragic if their capacity to articulate politically the views and needs of their community were to be lost because of a recrudescence of loyalist violence." Constitutional politicians must also overcome their understandable fears and inhibitions and to demonstrate in practice the validity, and the potential inclusiveness, of the political path. "It is vital that others make clear that they, too, will automatically and rapidly engage in serious dialogue if and when there is a complete unequivocal and lasting restoration of the ceasefire. But this does not in any way lessen the prime responsibility for the restoration of the ceasefire - which rests fairly and squarely, on the IRA."

The Tánaiste admitted that progress in the Talks has been tortuously slow. However, he said that the Irish and British Governments "were considering how best to prepare the ground for a renewed and reinvigorated process of negotiation following the British election...It is important that we maintain the framework which was so carefully and painstakingly constructed, and at the same time overcome initial hurdles and get into the real heart of the issues." The high degree of bipartisanship in both Westminster and Dublin, he said, would mean that an immediate restoration of the IRA ceasefire would open the way for the rebuilding of confidence on all sides, and provide the platform for a revitalised negotiating process.

Mr Spring warned that many challenges lie ahead, particularly with the start of the marching season only two months away. "We must use that time as productively as possible to ensure that the events of last year are not repeated. We must work to ensure that July 1997 is not remembered as another doleful anniversary of confrontation, mistrust and disillusion." He said that the debate on the parades issue and its resolution has been enhanced by the publication of the North Review, its recommendations being considered, comprehensive and thoughtful. He said that he and the Taoiseach had urged the British Government to act on the North Review and that it was a matter of concern that their have indicated their intention to begin only a partial; implementation of the Review's recommendations. He would be raising this issue in ongoing contacts with the British Government an more fully at the next meeting of the next meeting of the Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Conference. Given the widespread trepidation an anxiety widely felt in Northern Ireland about this year's marching season, the Tánaiste said that he believed that "no effort should be spared to avoid a repeat of the trauma of last year...The Government will leave no avenue unexplored in our efforts to ensure that 1997 is remembered both as a "ground-hog day" of bleak familiarity but rather as the point at which the parades issue was steered away from the brink."

[Optional] Speaking about Bloody Sunday, Mr Spring said that he hoped that in future years we may commemorate those events as a tragic chapter of our history which has been brought to a just and dignified close through an official apology. "Our concern must be to redress the wrong to the memory of the victims, and to the feelings of their families, not to rekindle anger, or relive the horror, of those events...If controversial and violent events of the past, including Bloody Sunday, can be reassessed and re-evaluated objectively and in a non-partisan spirit of truth and justice, then we can begin to bind up the wounds of the past and bring them to a close." Top