Agreement has not been suspended - Cowen

The Belfast Agreement has not been suspended, the Minister for Foreign Affairs insisted last night. Mr Cowen told the Dáil that the agreement was "still the only agenda".

Speaking during the two-hour debate on the suspension of the Northern Ireland institutions, the Minister stressed that they could not let the achievements of the agreement be dismantled slowly, "by a thousand cuts and erosions".

He added: "The basic political fact of life is that the agreement is the only sustainable basis for an accommodation that is acceptable, fair and honourable to both unionists and nationalists."

Mr Cowen also emphasised that the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference was not a means to create "joint authority by stealth", or a way to take power-sharing off the agenda. The conference was the basis for ongoing co-operation to facilitate the two governments in the management of the process "until the restoration of the institutions".

It was essential that the ongoing transition to democracy be brought to completion. "It is no longer possible for the use or threat of force or other non-democratic means to have any place in politics on this island."

Sinn Féin's leader, in the Dáil, Mr Caoimhghín O Caoláin, said the suspension "is about bringing an end to changes that were required of unionism in respect of the agreement.

"It is their reluctance to share power and to be part of real change that is driving their agenda to have Sinn Féin ejected from Stormont." The Cavan-Monaghan TD would "defy anybody to point to areas where Sinn Féin have not lived up to our responsibilities in relation to the agreement.

"We have been one of the main driving forces behind it. Our commitment to the peace process and to the full implementation of the Good Friday agreement is absolute. It is a pity that others have not also been so committed."

The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell said he was pleased to hear Mr O Caoláin's commitment to the agreement "is absolute".

He added that if the "principle of consent is accepted by Sinn Féin, those who reject that principle and who believe in the principles of conquest, sectarianism or sectarian violence are a small minority indeed".

He warned the "enemies of the agreement" that if they thought they would "get lucky" by reverting to violence "they will discover that in taking that path they will become very unlucky indeed".

The Fine Gael leader, Mr Enda Kenny, said "there is no Plan B for the Belfast Agreement" and called on the Government to consider reconvening the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation.

He said there was "no escape from the agreement as the sole hope of Northern Ireland. There is nothing else. It if is to work now, and it must, there can be no more deadlines, no more posturing."