Post by Wasp on Apr 26, 2010 9:11:04 GMT
United Ireland 'not on horizon'
THE Good Friday Agreement is not a journey to a United Ireland, Taoiseach Brian Cowen has said.
In comments which reinforce the perception that the Republic is at best ambivalent about removing the border, the Irish Premier said that his government was much more focussed on steadying the faltering Irish economy than achieving a united Ireland.
In an interview with The Journal of Cross Border Studies, the Fianna Fail leader said that the “genius” of the 1998 Agreement and 2006 St Andrews Agreement was that “we are all on a common journey together where we have not decided on the destination”.
However, Mr Cowen did give his support to efforts at further lowering impediments to cross-border cooperation.
When asked, Mr Cowen said he agreed with Minister of State Martin Mansergh’s argument that with barriers to North-South cooperation lower than they have ever been, the government should concentrate on continuing to lower these rather than pressing claims for Irish unity at a time when its overriding priority is to get the Irish economy out of its present crisis.
“The problem with our ideologies in the past was that we had this idea about where we were going but we had no idea how anyone was going to come with us on the journey,” he said.
“We have now decided: let’s go on a journey and forget about the destination – the destination isn’t really important in that respect. We can all work for what it is we would like ideally to see, but this is not something that can be forced or imposed on people on either side of the island.”
Mr Cowen also committed to continue Dublin’s economic input into Northern Ireland, despite its precarious financial position.
“It wasn’t a question of saying ‘We’ll do certain things in good times but we won’t do those things in bad times’,” he said.
Meanwhile, Irish President Mary McAleese yesterday visited the majority unionist Newtownabbey Borough Council to view its Mossley Mill headquarters on a visit to Northern Ireland.
The president said that the creation of shared political institutions driven by consensus would help to remove mistrust and mutual ignorance in Northern Ireland.
In the Chancellor’s lecture at the University of Ulster, Ms McAleese stated the polemic of the past had given way to a new collegial language between the communities in the north, Britain and Ireland, and the north and Republic.
But she warned the island was only at the opening stages of peace and that too many people still lived in “the false comfort of sectarian ghettos.”
THE Good Friday Agreement is not a journey to a United Ireland, Taoiseach Brian Cowen has said.
In comments which reinforce the perception that the Republic is at best ambivalent about removing the border, the Irish Premier said that his government was much more focussed on steadying the faltering Irish economy than achieving a united Ireland.
In an interview with The Journal of Cross Border Studies, the Fianna Fail leader said that the “genius” of the 1998 Agreement and 2006 St Andrews Agreement was that “we are all on a common journey together where we have not decided on the destination”.
However, Mr Cowen did give his support to efforts at further lowering impediments to cross-border cooperation.
When asked, Mr Cowen said he agreed with Minister of State Martin Mansergh’s argument that with barriers to North-South cooperation lower than they have ever been, the government should concentrate on continuing to lower these rather than pressing claims for Irish unity at a time when its overriding priority is to get the Irish economy out of its present crisis.
“The problem with our ideologies in the past was that we had this idea about where we were going but we had no idea how anyone was going to come with us on the journey,” he said.
“We have now decided: let’s go on a journey and forget about the destination – the destination isn’t really important in that respect. We can all work for what it is we would like ideally to see, but this is not something that can be forced or imposed on people on either side of the island.”
Mr Cowen also committed to continue Dublin’s economic input into Northern Ireland, despite its precarious financial position.
“It wasn’t a question of saying ‘We’ll do certain things in good times but we won’t do those things in bad times’,” he said.
Meanwhile, Irish President Mary McAleese yesterday visited the majority unionist Newtownabbey Borough Council to view its Mossley Mill headquarters on a visit to Northern Ireland.
The president said that the creation of shared political institutions driven by consensus would help to remove mistrust and mutual ignorance in Northern Ireland.
In the Chancellor’s lecture at the University of Ulster, Ms McAleese stated the polemic of the past had given way to a new collegial language between the communities in the north, Britain and Ireland, and the north and Republic.
But she warned the island was only at the opening stages of peace and that too many people still lived in “the false comfort of sectarian ghettos.”
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