The Minister for Justice has called for republicans of all kinds to "reach out" to unionists following three nights of loyalist rioting in the North.
Speaking before a Progressive Democrats meeting in Dublin this morning Mr McDowell said the riots could become deeply damaging to the prospects for reconciliation between the two communities in Northern Ireland.
"As an Irish republican who believes in Irish unity I believe the first challenge for republicans of all kinds on this island is to take the orange panel in the tri-colour seriously, to develop a sense of Irishness which includes those people who are Ulster-scots and Anglo-Irish and which reaches out to those people", he told reporters.
Mr McDowell warned the two communities are drifting further apart, and he said it was "wrong for Ireland and its wrong for the children of both communities".
Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte said whatever sense of alienation may exist within sections of the loyalist community in the North, there was "no justification for the brutish thuggery, rioting and violence seen in recent days."
He called for a new effort to re-establish the institutions established under the Belfast Agreement as an appropriate response from all sides.
Police today called for an end to the trouble. Assistant Chief Constable Duncan McCausland warned that his officers would continue to deal robustly with further outbreaks of disturbances.
"People causing the disturbances are hurting their own communities," he said.
The leader of the North's Alliance Party rebuked Northern Secretary Peter Hain for his failure to take action against the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).
Mr David Ford said that for months the UVF had been threatening, attacking and killing people in the North, yet the British government had done nothing and still formally recognised its ceasefire.
Mr Ford said Mr Hain has admitted he had not even read a report on the UVF produced by the International Monitoring Commission (IMC) three days after it had been delivered to him.
"When Alliance proposed the setting-up of the IMC, we did expect that ministers would at least read its reports," he said.
Following the violence in Belfast on Saturday, Mr Hain still did nothing against the UVF, he said.
"For months we have seen the government trying to cling to a pathetic pretence of a ceasefire. They have only been concerned at attacks on the state and its forces.
"Surely Peter Hain can recognise that when live bullets are fired at the police and army, that constitutes a breach of even his definition of a ceasefire," Mr Ford said.
It appeared the British government was no better than the Orange Order and unionist politicians in its unwillingness to take a firm stance against the paramilitaries, said Mr Ford.
Additional reporting PA