The following is an extract from a speech by the Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Spring, to the annual dinner of the Tralee Chamber of Commerce in the Mount Brandon Hotel, Tralee, Co Kerry, last night:
I would like to begin by thanking you for your kind invitation to be with you tonight. I had intended to talk to you this evening about the exciting developments in our economy, both local and national developments which have been underscored yet again by this week's ESRI commentary.
Before I do so, however, I must refer to the cloud that hangs over all of us this weekend. The ending of the ceasefire, and the series of IRA bombings that have marked it, have placed all our efforts at peace and reconciliation in grave peril.
It was a tragedy that should not, and need not, have happened. When I heard about the Canary Wharf bomb, I was on my way home from a number of successful meetings in Washington that had brought the prospect of all party talks significantly closer. I hoped to be in a position to report real progress on meeting our goal and instead I came home to share in the grief and anger of our entire community.
In a strange way, the ending of the ceasefire has brought home its value to people, in a deeper outpouring of feeling than any I have witnessed in my years in politics. All over the country, I have met and spoken to people who feel shattered and betrayed by what has happened. The demonstrations for peace that are taking place this weekend, the hundreds of thousands of white ribbons that people are wearing - they all testify to the hope that has been invested in the peace.
We cannot allow that hope to be dashed. We cannot allow another generation of young Irish people to grow up with their lives marked by the shadow of violence. We cannot allow the image of our country to be tarnished once again by indiscriminate terrorism. That image has never been brighter than in the last year or so the image of a country that is maturing, opening, developing, coming to grips with all of its problems and providing real leadership in Europe.
We cannot allow that to slip away. It's all in our hands. Those who had the vision and the courage to opt for political action a year and a half ago, and to set aside the gun in favour of democratic negotiation, must somehow find that vision again and they must do it for the sake of the country they claim to be fighting for. They say that their struggle is for Irish national rights. We say that Irish national rights include the right to peace, the right to economic development, the right to allow our young people to grow up in hope and expectation. If they could bring themselves to share in that wider recognition of rights we could have peace again.
The Irish responsibility for violence lies with the people who perpetrated it. But I have also said, again and again in the last year and a half, that we cannot persuade people to take the political road and then demonstrate to them that there is nothing at the end of that road. It is our responsibility, as governments, to show everyone that equality of esteem and equal treatment is to be found through democratic action. It is our responsibility to demonstrate that our differences can be meaningfully addressed around a negotiating table. In other words, it is our responsibility to prove that politics is about solving problems and not about playing games.
It has never been more important than it is now that games playing should stop. One of the great tragedies of the present situation is that there are some at least who should know better, but who cannot seem to resist the temptation to play games.
For example, I have been trying for many months now to arrange a meeting with the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party. By any objective standard, we have things we need to discuss, problems we need to resolve. Again and again, I have stressed to him in letters that I have no interest in forcing myself on to matters which are properly his area of concern. Again and again, he has chosen to misinterpret my correspondence and to place arbitrary obstacles in the way of a reasonable meeting.
I am willing to meet him with an open mind and an open heart, and I have to say that I find it a matter of profound regret that he seems unable to approach "our common problems and responsibilities in the same spirit.
The truth is that we all know the ingredients that are possible in trying to devise a solution that will hold out the hope of resolving our divisions on a lasting basis.
The next summit meeting between our two governments must point the way forward to all party negotiations, and it must do so in a way that leaves no possible room for misunderstanding about when and how those negotiations will begin. The resumption of violence has complicated that task enormously, but the objective of the governments must remain the same as it was before the ending of the ceasefire.
In getting to all party talks we still have to resolve the whole issue of the ground rules on which they will be conducted and try to develop an agreed agenda for them. We still have to resolve the issue of whether, and how, an elective process can play a part. We still have to reconcile differences between the parties on these issues and the involvement of all the parties under one roof remains the best way to do this. We have to address the question of the role a referendum, as suggested by John Hume, might play. And we have to do all that urgently.
We have put forward ideas to the British government on all these issues, and they have put forward some of "their ideas to us. We have yet to reach agreement, even though agreement grows more urgent by the day. There is, of course, a dilemma here we both recognise that it would be fatal to agree to any set of steps or procedures that would unravel in the face of intransigence. And yet we both know that with out an agreed way forward we are staring into an abyss.
That is why we have insisted that the next time the two governments meet there must be no ambiguity about our intentions. We want to see a process that will lead to the convening of all party talks, fairly and openly, at a time and in a way about which there can be no subsequent equivocation. We want to see honourable steps taken that enable everyone to take part. We have no wish to see anyone excluded from that, process, although we recognise that any process we agree will involve a choice for those who wish to opt in.
We stand ready to sit down with the British government, for as long as it takes to address each and every one of these issues in a detailed, constructive and open minded way. But we say again and again it must happen soon. If we, realise some morning that we have delayed one day too long, the task of" restoring the peace will be even more enormously complicated and difficult.