The very nature of unionism and nationalism would have to change if the agreement was to lead to a lasting settlement, the Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, told the Dail. The new aspiration, building a structure of co-dependence that makes conflict impossible, must replace the traditional aspirations, he said.

"Now is the time of decision. This is not a time for each-way bets, or taking out a reinsurance policy. Now is the time to say `yes' to this agreement; to say `yes' to peace; to say `yes' to the future," Mr Bruton said.

Congratulating all concerned for the role they played in securing the agreement, he said a united Ireland was not demographically inevitable. The continuance of the Union was not inevitable. Peace was not inevitable. Nor was conflict. Nothing was inevitable in history.

"For the Good Friday agreement to work, we must decide to replace the politics of aspiration with the politics of accommodation," he said.

The parties to the agreement acknowledged "the substantial difference between our continuing and equally legitimate, political aspirations". They went on to say that their object was "reconciliation and rapprochement".

These two differing aspirations - a United Ireland on one side and unqualified membership of the United Kingdom on the other - were, as the agreement said, equally legitimate, but they were opposite and non-reconcilable in terms.

"If the two communities continue to define themselves in ways that cannot be reconciled with one another, there will be difficulties in achieving the rapprochement sought by the agreement between them," Mr Bruton said.

The agreement itself continued a voting procedure that required parties to designate themselves as adherents as one of two opposite aspirations.

As long as the two communities defined their very existence in irreconcilable terms, arguments on almost any topic that appealed to one community would tend to create fear in the other community. There was a difficulty in selling the agreement itself.

While it may be difficult for unionists to restrain themselves from arguing for the agreement on the basis that it has "secured the union", it was equally difficult for nationalists to restrain themselves from arguing for it as a "stepping stone" towards a united Ireland.

These arguments were self-defeating. In this context, "aspirational" arguments that appealed to one community frightened the other. That was why supporters in either community must be moderate in the claims they made for the agreement. The other community would be listening, he said. "It is time to stop talking about `ultimate goals', `aspirations', and the like, and start working for tomorrow, this day week, and next year," Mr Bruton stated. "We must create new aspirations to which both communities can assent."

Peace was, and would continue to be, an aspiration to which both communities could assent. The genius of the originators of the peace process was that they made "peace" itself the issue, and "peace" was something with which no one could really disagree. Peace provided an emotional cement that bound together loyalists and republicans, unionists and nationalists, in a common endeavour.

The difficulty was that any aspiration, once achieved, ceased to provide the same emotional cement it created while still being striven for. Peace was now achieved, in the sense of absence of violence.

"We must create a new common aspiration, binding together unionists and nationalists in their common work," he said. "Without the emotional cement of common aspirations, there is a real risk that new institutions will revert to negative factionalism, fed by the constant reminders that the defining aspirations of the two communities are contradictory. There is a better way."

The power of the European ideal, of building a structure of co-dependence that would make war in Europe impossible, sustained the world's greatest co-operative political achievement of the second half of this century, the creation of the European Union. "People did not cease to be French or German, but they created a new common aspiration that transcended their national aspirations," he said.

Northern Ireland, Ireland as a whole, and Britain, now needed a similar ideal, a similar common aspiration. That aspiration should be to build a structure of co-dependence between unionists and nationalists in Northern Ireland, within Ireland as a whole, and between Britain and Ireland, so that physical conflict between nationalism and unionism became impossible, just as the European Union had made physical conflict between France and Germany impossible.

Mr Bruton said such a concept was difficult for both nationalists and unionists to accept. The ideology of Irish nationalism had long been a separatist one. Separation from Britain had been the nationalist ideal. Close co-operation with Britain now, in order to build a structure of peace between nationalism and unionism, went against the grain of nationalist history.

"But North/South bodies went against the grain of unionist history too. Since partition, the unionist ideology has stressed separation from the south as the touchstone of belief," he said.

"The very nature of unionism and nationalism will have to change if the agreement is to lead to a lasting settlement. The new aspiration, building a structure of co-dependence that makes conflict impossible, must replace the traditional aspirations that made conflict inevitable up to now."

Mr Bruton said the agreement itself, and the institutions it created, must become the focus of a new loyalty. This agreement was not the means to some other end. The agreement must be seen as an end itself.

"Unless that happens, every ordinary proposal from one side will be seen by the other through a prism of suspicion," he warned.

"This game of suspicion would gradually corrode the new institutions. That is why we must make the agreement itself the new focus for allegiance on the island of Ireland. This will not be easy," Mr Bruton said.

Even within the agreement itself there was a requirement that all members of the assembly, once elected, designated themselves as "nationalist", "unionist" or "other", so as to measure cross-community support in assembly votes.

He hoped that it did not entrench division by defining parties on the basis of ultimate aspirations (which conflicted with one another) rather than short-term aspirations (which may coincide with one another). "Let me say that I strongly support the proposal to amend the Articles 2 & 3 of the Constitution. The definition of the `nation' in this draft is much more modern to date than the one that was put into the Constitution in 1937," he said.

"The nation is now defined in terms of its people, rather than its territory. This new definition is in line with the maxim of James Connolly that `a nation without its people is nothing to me'."

Mr Bruton said he welcomed the fact that the Constitution explicitly recognised the diversity of identities that existed. The object of the Constitution in regard to unity now was to "unite all the people in the diversity of their identities".

This recognised the exclusively Irish identity of nationalists but it also recognised the British and Irish identity of unionists. "On that basis I commend it to the people," he said.

He thought it was important that, at this stage, they identified areas of possible difficulty. "If the assembly does not work, the North/South body will not work, and vice-versa," he said.

Turning to Strand 2, the North-South Ministerial Council, he said he would query paragraph 5, where the council was obliged to "use its best endeavours to reach agreement on the adoption of common policies, in areas where there is a mutual cross-border and all-Ireland benefit". He was troubled by the fact that this seemed to require the council only to reach agreement on issues where there was both a cross-border and an all-Ireland benefit.

He said he welcomed Strand 3, which dealt with the establishment of a British/Irish council. It also dealt with the issue of reconciliation and victims of violence. He believed this section was a bit weak.

"Given that there are very strong commitments to the release of prisoners, the commitments to victims are comparatively unspecific, he said. "There is a lot about community initiatives for victims and the like, but no hard commitment to do anything in particular for victims," he said.

There was no proposal for a truth and reconciliation commission. It was not just the victims of Bloody Sunday that wanted the truth; the relatives of all victims of 25 years of violence wanted the truth.

A commission would go a good distance to creating a fully accepting atmosphere for the early release of prisoners, and he accepted that the early release of prisoners must be part of the agreement.

On decommissioning, he said he noted that all the participants reaffirmed their commitment to the total disarmament of all paramilitary organisations. He took it that this applied to all "participants" in the talks.