Oireachtas

Ahern says `blame game' is stalling talks on North

There was no point in having round-table meetings to restore the Belfast Agreement where those involved only restated their positions…

By MICHAEL O'REGAN and MARIE O'HALLORAN
Thu Mar 02 2000 - 00:00

There was no point in having round-table meetings to restore the Belfast Agreement where those involved only restated their positions, the Taoiseach said.

Mr Ahern was replying, on the Order of Business, to Opposition requests that the Irish and British governments convene talks among the parties. "I do not wish to be too blunt about this, but in two separate weeks last year I spent about 100 hours each time having round-table meetings, which just kept going around the table.

"When I deem it useful to have a constructive meeting that is not full of recriminations, and the blame game, I will be prepared to have it."

Earlier, the Labour leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, asked if the Irish and British governments had any plans, nearly three weeks after the suspension of the Northern institutions, to convene a meeting of all the parties to the agreement, as requested by the SDLP and the Alliance Party, to name two.

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"We are now facing, the week after next, the St Patrick's Day celebrations across the world, during which the issue of Northern Ireland will be discussed. It is absolutely essential that the sense of drift is halted, and that some initiative of a concrete nature is taken by the two governments," he said.

Mr Ahern said the issue was serious. Several meetings were being held. The British Prime Minister would see some of the party leaders later in the day, while the Minister for Foreign Affairs would also meet some of the parties.

The Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, said recrimination was likely to continue as long as there was a perception among the parties that the two governments, while willing to undertake many activities and full of goodwill, did not have an agreed plan on how to move forward.

The governments should agree on a strategy and pursue it. "The absence of an agreed strategy between the two governments is creating the vacuum that is making space for the blame game."

Mr Ahern said the governments had a strategy. "The difficulty is that the parties at this stage, as is evident from our bilateral discussions with them, are not in a position to make a substantive move." Kevin Rafter adds: The Irish and British governments will, over the next three weeks, attempt to end the stalemate in the peace process since the suspension of the Northern Executive and Assembly last month.

The strategy will begin in the next few days when the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, and the Northern Secretary, Mr Peter Mandelson, consult the parties supporting the Belfast Agreement with a view to holding a series of meeting, probably in Belfast, next week.

The meetings next week will be followed by the St Patrick's Day celebrations in Washington at which most of the Northern party leaders will attend along with the Taoiseach and Mr Cowen. The Taoiseach and the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, will review the situation when they meet at the EU Summit in Lisbon on March 20th.

Mr Ahern said last night that while Sinn Fein is linked to the IRA there is no question of Fianna Fail being involved in a coalition arrangement with it.

"In a democracy you can do business and work with parties that are committed to democratic principles and are not aligned to paramilitaries in any form or any way. I think Sinn Fein are doing their utmost to state their bona fides on that issue but there are still concerns in Dail Eireann which have to be cleared up," he said.