A chara, - Fine Gael's continued near hysterical reaction to Bertie Ahern's Arbour Hill speech is not only quite shocking, but is actually quite dangerous and so far, has gone by largely unanswered.
Has no one realised that it is mirroring exactly the sort of rhetoric which the Blueshirts blustered from the opposition benches while Albert Reynolds was negotiating with Sinn Fein and the SDLP? This supposedly disgraceful and treacherous behaviour, in breaking with the tradition kept by numerous previous administrations, was what actually led to the IRA ceasefire, the breakdown of which this Government has presided over. The much condemned "pan nationalist front", the formation of close links with the republican movement, the espousal of staunch support (practical, not just rhetorical) for Northern nationalists were all, we were told, to do with Fianna Fail "living in the past" and trying to "wrap the green flag around themselves". Yet these gestures gave republicans an assurance that the Irish Government would finally actually stand up for Northern nationalists, that they would negotiate and argue and harangue and harass the British government until a fair deal was struck for the minority in the Six Counties, in short, that the IRA did not need to use guns and bombs to make their point of view heard.
The no nonsense manner in which Albert Reynolds conducted Anglo Irish negotiations, leading to the Downing Street Declaration (and later, the Framework Document) obviously was enough to convince the IRA to call a ceasefire. Reynolds's courageous approach had actually worked, and he got a standing ovation in the Dail. I recall Opposition leader, John Bruton, clapping. Yet the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, on assuming office decided to drop this policy let Sinn Fein dangle along, let the British prevaricate, decided to concentrate on appeasing unionists (who were going to ignore him anyway) instead of implementing the proposals of the declaration and the document (which the nationalists had begun to count on the Irish Government to do), with the end result that instead of consolidating the ceasefire, the Republicans began to feel isolated again, and the ceasefire broke down.
I believe Mr Ahern's speech was clearly an attempt to reach out to republicans again, to reassure them and to plead for a reinstatement of the ceasefire. If for some historical reason or otherwise, Fine Gael feels in some way inhibited from applauding or endorsing this approach (proven in 1994 abandoned in 1995), then they should have at the very least shut up and waited for a reaction from the republicans. Instead, their complete rejection of it has given the IRA a further assurance that this Government is more concerned with Trimble and Paisley than with Hume and Adams - a return to the bad old days. What sort of encouragement is that?
It is Fine Gael, in fact, who are warping back to their failed 1994 Northern policy (if not their failed 1921 Northern policy - the root of all the problems), a move so obviously disastrous that one wonders whether it is a time warp or a stupidity warp that they are caught in. The current precarious situation puts them in no position to lecture anyone or to call anyone else's efforts "misjudged" or "foolish". Perhaps a bit more humility and openness to other approaches, and a bit less of an attachment to their own pro-unionist and pro-partition past would serve them better, and yield some real results - Is mise, le meas,
Bridge Street,
Boyle,
Co Roscommon.