8/9 May 1999
Address on Political Report - Good Friday Agreement section
by Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin TD
9 May, 1999
Ba mhaith liom tacú leis an chuid sin den Tuairisc Pholaitiúil ar Chomhaontú Aoine an Chéasta. Mar a deireann an rún tá gach dualgas ar Shinn Fein faoin gComhaontú seo comhlíonta againn. Bhí orainn ár mBunreacht a athrú, agus polasaíthe bunúsacha a bhí againn le blianta fada, a chur ar leataobh chun tacú leis an Chomaontú. Rinneamar sin mar bhí dóchas againn - mar a bhí ag muintir na hÉireann - go mbeadh dul chun cinn ann, go mbeadh an Comhaontú seo i bhfeidhm go luath agus go mbeadh deis againn uile polataíocht nua a chruthú ar an oileán seo. Bliain ina dhiaidh sin táimid fós ag fanacht. Tá toil mhuintir na hÉireann á shéanadh ag na hAontachtóirí agus tá an dá rialtas ag cuidiú leo.
In supporting the section of the Political Report on the Good Friday Agreement I want to remind delegates of what we did when we gathered here last year. For many of us it is a very painful memory. We amended key sections of our party's Constitution to allow our elected representatives to participate in a Six County Assembly. We never wanted such an Assembly; it was not a demand of nationalist Ireland; it was certainly never a demand of republican Ireland. We also urged a `Yes' vote in the referendum which made fundamental changes to Articles Two and Three of the 1937 Constitution. They were issues on which we had campaigned for many years. For many republicans in the 26 Counties, both inside and outside our party, the amendment of those Articles was repugnant to their beliefs. But we gathered here as democratic organisation. We took a collective decision, we abided by it and implemented it.
We did all those things in good faith. We did them because we believed that the Good Friday Agreement was the route to political progress on our island. It is an Agreement that falls far short of what republicans desire, even in the short term. But it is nevertheless an historic accommodation which we reached in good faith with our political opponents. We had every right to expect when we gathered here a year ago and took those momentous decisions that the Good Friday Agreement would be implemented in good faith. The stark reality as we gather here again is that it has not happened.
The primary responsibility for the failure to implement the Agreement rests with the Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble and the British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Mr. Tirmble simply put the compromises made by republicans into his pocket and then tried to rewrite the Agreement. Mr. Blair has totally failed thus far to confront Mr. Trimble with his responsibilities.
That said, it must be pointed out that a great part of the responsibility for the failure to implement this Agreement rests with the Dublin government. Again and again I have put it to the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern in Leinster House that he must unequivocally rule out any decommissioning precondition being rewritten into the Agreement. While he repeatedly stated that there was no such precondition there was always what I have called the ``ah but''. ``Ah but David Trimble needs help''. ``Ah but, we must recognise political realities''.
Bertie Ahern has often been accused of not having a political bottom line. That may be so but he was given a political bottom line by the Irish people last year when they voted in overwhelming numbers for the Good Friday Agreement. Bertie Ahern departed from that mandate when he and Tony Blair indulged the Unionists in their stalling and blocking of the Agreement. The Hillsborough Declaration was ill-conceived and ill-judged and no Dublin government leader should have put his name to it.
On another occasion Bertie Ahern told me in the Dáil that he was trying to be ``an honest broker'' in all this. That is not his role. His role and responsibility is as a leader of nationalist opinion who negotiated this Agreement with republicans, unionists and the British government. His role is to put in place all the institutions for which the people voted. And his role, as leader of a party which still claims to be republican, is to reflect the national aspirations of the Irish people he represents.
Our message from this Ard Fheis to Bertie Ahern, Tony Blair and David Trimble is that we will not be taken for granted as a party. We will not see the compromises we made in good faith pocketed or binned and the Agreement we reached in good faith turned on its head. WE have been down that road as a nation too many times before. There is no going back to the politics of broken promises. We demand that the Good Friday Agreement be implemented and implemented now.