Republican News · Thursday 28 November 2002

Dublin must shape up

On Tuesday, a bill was brought before the Dáil that should never have seen the light of day. The Dublin government was forced to introduce the British-Irish Agreement (Amendment) Bill, following the unilateral decision of the British government to collapse the Good Friday Agreement institutions.

Speaking in the Dáil debate on Tuesday, Sinn Féin TD Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin pointed out that the legislation showed the British government had unilaterally suspended the institutions on the basis of Westminster legislation, which was outside the Good Friday Agreement.

The bill, which was passed, allows the two governments to operate the all-Ireland implementation bodies in place of the All-Ireland Ministerial Council.

Ó Caoláin spoke in support of the legislation, to allow the work of the all-Ireland bodies to continue, but he did so under strong protest.

He reminded the government that the legislation had been necessitated by the unilateral suspension of the All-Ireland Ministerial Council, the inclusive Executive and the Assembly by the British government. That government gave itself powers under suspension legislation passed at Westminster, powers that form no part of the Good Friday Agreement but have been used now yet again to dismantle the political structures that the people of Ireland supported in a referendum in 1998.

The Dublin government accepted the unilateral suspension meekly and with only token dissent. But it is its responsibility to represent the national interest.

The suspension is against Irish interests.

Behind the diplomatic language of the exchange of letters reproduced in the Bill is something with which we are all too familiar - bad faith on the part of the British government. Unfortunately, we are equally familiar with weary acceptance of that bad faith on the part of the Irish government.

It is time we saw a much more robust approach.

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Next week:

Joanne Corcoran begins a series of articles examining the importance of the all-Ireland bodies set up under the Good Friday Agreement and the role played by Sinn Féin in making these institutions a success