People would decide in the future if the Northern Ireland Agreement was to be "a transition to a united Ireland or the basis for a continuation of the Union", the Taoiseach said yesterday on the day Civil War politics died in Dail Eireann.
The new position, he stated, was more in keeping with our dignity as a people "and if the people of Northern Ireland have the freedom to choose, a majority may indeed some time in the future decide to become part of a united Ireland".
Capturing the united sense of history in the making in the Dail, Mr Ahern said the agreement not only superseded previous initiatives, but replaced both the legislation and the settlement of 1920 and 1921.
Their immediate task, the Taoiseach said, was to have the agreement approved on both sides of the Border. "This will represent a concurrent act of self-determination by the people of Ireland as a whole for the first time since 1918. Such a vote will remove any false vestige of democratic selfjustification for further acts of violence from any quarter, republican or loyalist. All remaining paramilitary groups should cease armed activity forthwith." Calling for strong public support for the agreement, Mr Ahern said they could not afford one response in the North and another in the South. "I expect and am calling for a united and not a partitionist approach," he added.
He ended his contribution to a warm standing ovation from all sides of the Chamber. In a move without parallel in the history of the House, a similar honour was accorded to each Opposition party leader in turn.
Only two dissenting voices were raised in the Dail during the course of the nine-hour debate, which saw speaker, after speaker queueing up to speak.
The Sinn Fein TD, Mr Caoimhghin O Caolain, asked for his abstention to be recorded on the Agreement. His party was still assessing the positive and the negative aspects of it, he said.
Mr Joe Higgins, the Independent Socialist TD, said the Agreement would be found to be fatally flawed.
The Independent TD, Mr Harry Blaney, had a short meeting with Mr Ahern last night. He said afterwards he had not decided yet what he was going to do.
The Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, suggested history was what we made for ourselves. There was no inevitable march of history in any direction. A united Ireland was not demographically inevitable. The continuance of the Union was not inevitable.
In a thoughtful contribution, he said the very nature of unionism and nationalism would have to change if the Agreement was to lead to a lasting settlement. The new aspiration - building a structure of co-dependence that made conflict impossible - should replace the traditional aspirations that made conflict inevitable up to now.
The Labour leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, suggested the Agreement asked us all to engage in a historic compromise. It demanded that all of us postpone, rephrase or restate certain fundamental aspirations and declarations "about who and what we are. This is not an easy thing to do".
The leader of Democratic Left, Mr Proinsias De Rossa, said the Agreement had to be sold to the people for what it was, and not for what some people would like it to be. It was not an automatic escalator to a united Ireland and neither did it copperfasten the Union for all time. It neither ruled in nor ruled out either option.
The Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, said persons who might be convicted in connection with the murder of Det Garda Gerry McCabe "will not come within the ambit of the Agreement".
Winding up the Second Stage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution Bill, which will set the referendum process in train for May 22nd, the Tanaiste, Ms Harney, said the Agreement was a victory of parliamentarianism over paramilitarism, a victory of talk over terror and, hopefully, the final victory of the ballot box over the gun and the bomb.
The 19th Amendment to the Constitution Bill, paving the way for the referendum on the Northern Ireland Agreement, passed its second stage in the Dail last night without a division. No deputy opposed the Bill at the end the second stage debate at 11.30 p.m. The Dail will today take the remaining stages of the Bill and it will then go to the Seanad. Mr Caoimhghin O Caolain (SF, Cavan-Monaghan) has said that if there is a vote before the Bill passes all stages he will abstain.