The implementation of the Belfast Agreement will require a change of attitude in the Republic and "an abandonment of the partitionist mentality some people here have", the leader of the Labour Party warned yesterday.
Introducing his party's campaign for a Yes vote in the referendum, Mr Ruairi Quinn said the agreement required the Republic to cede some of its sovereignty in areas like agriculture, education, the environment and tourism. "It's important for people in the South to realise that this is not an internal agreement affecting Northern Ireland alone."
Mr Quinn said the agreement was the best that could have been achieved and was "a very honourable compromise" between the competing aspirations of nationalism and unionism. But he warned that the institutions to be established under it would be unrecognisable to "normal" politicians.
"In Dublin and London and almost every other democratic state, it is the function of a parliament to produce both a government and a government-in-waiting. Adversarial politics is the norm.
"But if the Northern Ireland assembly is to function effectively, it must adopt different methods. The clear-cut distinction between executive and legislature will be blurred, since one will be entirely representative of the other. "There will be no question of having one section of the assembly as players on the field, while another adopts the role of hurler on the ditch."
But if the system worked, as he was confident it would, "then a great creative potential will have been tapped for the betterment of all those represented in the assembly". The Northern Irish system could even become a model for students of political science, he predicted.
The chairman of the SDLP, Mr Mark Durkan, said the agreement was the result of a truly national dialogue. The negotiations had not been confined to Castle Buildings, but had occurred in many places over many years, including the New Ireland Forum in 1984.
Mr Durkan, who was a guest at the campaign launch, said people should not forget that the DUP and the UK Unionist parties had been involved in the talks for a long time. "It's important to remember this, because people should realise that there is no alternative to this agreement." A strong Yes vote was necessary "because we don't want anybody second-guessing the agreement," he added. The vote in the Republic was important both to reassure nationalists in the North, but also to reassure unionists. It would tell them they were no longer dependent on a British guarantee: "what they now have is a consensus-based Irish guarantee."
Labour's campaign director, Mr Derek McDowell, said a poster campaign would begin soon and party workers would be distributing a quarter of a million leaflets. TDs, senators and councillors had been encouraged to hold meetings involving as many voters as possible, he added, and there would be door-to-door canvassing in some constituencies.
The Taoiseach will conduct a question-and-answer session on the Internet next Tuesday as part of Fianna Fail's referendums campaign. The session, which begins at 5.45 p.m., will be on the party's website: www.fiannafail.ie. Questions can be sent to Mr Ahern by email to info@fiannafail.ie
