THERE was a large contingent of delegates from Northern Ireland at the well attended ardfheis of the Workers' Party in Dublin on Saturday. Mr Tom French, who was unanimously elected president, is chairman of the party's Northern Ireland executive.
Mr Tomas MacGiolla, the former TD and Dublin lord mayor, attended simply as a delegate. He was the only member of the former parliamentary party which was decimated by decision of other members to form Democratic Left in 1992. That event still rankles with delegates, and the outgoing president, Ms Marian Donnelly, referred to it in bitter terms in her address.
Mr French said of the multi party talks in the North that, while progress had been made a lot remained to be done.
Last summer had seen sectarianism more rampant and the community more polarised than ever. The democratic parties should get down to the serious business of constructing "a proper and lasting peace" and establishing political structures acceptable to everyone.
The situation demanded that the parties engage in meaningful political dialogue to secure institutions of government, isolate terrorism and destroy the scourge of sectarianism.
"What Northern Ireland and its citizens need is not bombs in Lisburn, planted by unreconstructed terrorists determined to drag this country back into the past. Nor does it need comic book revolutionaries harking back to halcyon days that did not exist," he said.
It needed democratic reforms built into a bill of rights as a constitutional framework under which any agreed new political structure would operate.
The issues peculiar to the working class did not recognise any sectarian divide. The dole queues proliferated both on the Shankill and the Falls. "That is why we must seek to build workers' unity on the many common problems we face and identify our common enemy, the well heeled exploiters of all creeds," Mr French said.
The ardfheis called for restructuring of the police in Northern Ireland with more regionalisation and local democratic control.
There should be an emphasis on the police "service" rather than the police "force"; an independent body to review complaints; and an abandonment of the "militaristic hierarchical command system with a more modern and effective managerial style".