The following is an edited version of the speech delivered last night by the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, to the Humbert Summer School in Ballina, Co Mayo"The last week has been a difficult, dangerous and tragic time. All our hearts went out, over the past few days, to the grief-stricken families burying their loved ones, to all those maimed and injured, and to all the relatives, friends and communities of all those affected by this evil act.
"Tomorrow, with President McAleese, I will be in Omagh for the local service being held there, as part of the acts of prayerful reflection being organised throughout the country at the request of the church leaders, which the Government have urged all our people to attend.
"It is important, and as we all know from personal experience, it is always a great help to the bereaved, to show that, nationwide, we mourn and grieve with them for the victims of Omagh. But as a responsible democratic Government, my colleagues and I have had to respond to the security and political challenge represented by the Omagh outrage. We have done so decisively.
"There is one Government of the Republic duly elected by the people. Further, we now have a democratic system in Northern Ireland that has been endorsed by the people, including the overwhelming majority from the nationalist and republican tradition, both North and South. Arguments about legitimacy, which have given rise to so much conflict since 1921, are over. Republicanism in its origins was a democratic philosophy. It was so understood by Pearse and most of those who fought for our independence. Never again must we allow a gap or conflict to open up between republicanism and democracy. "As far as this State and the entire nationalist tradition are concerned, they must once again become one and indivisible.
"The Government have been resolute this week in defence of democracy. The decisions we announced on Wednesday last as to security and legislative measures can leave no doubt that we are determined to crush violence and to suppress those who perpetrate it. We shall not hesitate to use the powers vested in us in all their plenitude to defend peace and democracy on this island against any who may persist in defying the will of the people of Ireland.
"The United Irish movement aimed to demolish a political system rooted in sectarian privilege and to replace it with a secular politics, founded on the universal republican ideals of equality, justice and a representative democracy. But they faced powerful opposition from many quarters. That opposition and unfavourable fortunes defeated them.
"With the blockage of the project to create a republican model of government, on inclusive and pluralist lines, the split in Irish politics developed into two fragments, nationalism and unionism, which still dominate the political landscape today.
"Like the United Irishmen, we face the task of putting in place an agreed political structure, capable of representing all Irish people in all their inherited complexities. Happily, we have taken a major step along that road with the Good Friday Agreement. There is a peculiar aptness in the fact that the votes in the referendums, in which the people, North and South, overwhelmingly endorsed the Agreement, were counted 200 years to the very day the rebellion broke out."
Mr Ahern said that the United Irish project of an inclusive, democratic and non-sectarian Ireland remained to be completed. Building trust and co-operation between the two traditions, long-hardened moulds had to be broken. The Belfast Agreement provided a unique opportunity to do this.
"All of us must reach out to our unionist neighbours, as the Belfast Presbyterians of the 1790s reached out to their Catholic fellow-countrymen and women. It must be put beyond doubt that, so far as democratic nationalist and republican traditions are concerned, violence is over and done with; that never again will they engage or acquiesce in acts of violence of any kind. Peace must now be definitively restored and consolidated, so that people can have confidence in its durability.
"Croppies will never lie down again, nor should they. But difficult as it may be for some in the light of their experiences, nationalists have to display a magnanimity that was rarely shown to them. In that regard, I applaud the recent accommodation in Derry in regard to the Apprentice Boys Parade.
"In implementing the Good Friday Agreement, it is essential to avoid introducing new, formal preconditions that are not in the Agreement. Equally, all of what is in the Agreement must be implemented and in the spirit as well as in the letter. The provisions on de-escalation of security measures have to be implemented, so also must those on co-operation with the Independent Commission on Decommissioning. And so must those on punishment attacks, beatings and shootings which occasionally end in punishment killings, the continuation of which is incompatible with the spirit that animates the Agreement. The barbarity involved is utterly abhorrent and totally at odds with the vindication of human rights pursued in other contexts.
"The implementation of the Agreement poses challenges to practices and attitudes that had become deeply entrenched over 30 years of violent conflict and suspicion. And, of course, these difficulties are by no means confined to the nationalist side.
"It is true that all of us who are nationalist, in addition to carrying out our own commitments, need generously to acknowledge how far the Ulster unionist leadership has been prepared to come to make a settlement. But, as we face up now to such issues as the formation of the Shadow Executive, the guideline again has to be faithful implementation of the Agreement. On all sides, there has to be a commitment to this and an acceptance of responsibility to engage in inclusive dialogue, face to face, to build mutual confidence with courage and to work together. It is also necessary that the unionist community face up to the full implications of equality within Northern Ireland between the two traditions. We need parallel, mutually reinforcing action on all the commitments in the Agreement, inspired by a bold and generous spirit.
"Republicanism is therefore always about opening rather than slamming the door on the future. It is about moving on, neither handcuffed to our history, nor heedlessly fugitive from it. Republicanism is always about how to create a human society fit for our children to live in. It understands that tradition is not a prison in the past, but rather a dynamic force which uses the past to shape the future, to create a mature, modern nation, of economic prosperity, social harmony and cultural creativity - of liberty, equality and fraternity."