The President-elect, Mrs Mary McAleese, has yet to decide if she will wear a poppy at her inauguration. Meanwhile, a second Government Minister has said he believes she should not wear the Remembrance Day symbol. The inauguration takes place next Tuesday, November 11th, Armistice Day. Asked shortly after her election if she would wear the poppy, Mrs McAleese said that she would "certainly give that very, very deep consideration", describing it as "a very interesting suggestion".
Yesterday the Minister for Defence, Mr Smith, said he felt Mrs McAleese should not wear a poppy during her inauguration. Speaking after the Stormont talks, he said it was a private matter for Mrs McAleese, but he believed that wearing the emblem could create problems ahead.
On Monday the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, said he believed Mrs McAleese should not wear the poppy. Nationalists in Northern Ireland would regard it as "a similar symbol to the sash that the Orangemen wear", he said, adding that, if she did wear a poppy, she "could legitimately be asked, at a later stage, next Easter, to wear the Easter lily".
The administrator of the Royal British Legion in Ireland, Maj Hume Grogan, has said that the ex-service community would "appreciate the gesture" if Mrs McAleese wore a poppy.
Mr Smith said it was part of Mrs McAleese's and the Government's presidential election campaign that she should "not be pigeonholed into a particular classification". He added: "In the first instance, it is a private matter for her. But my view would be that she should not wear poppies, or indeed tend to represent any particular group, when she has to take the broader picture into account."
Replying to a question yesterday, the Northern Ireland Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, said that the issue was a matter for Mrs McAleese. "It's a statement of how you express your private views for the people who lost their lives in the wars, both from the Republic and the North, and both sides of the divide.
"I think what is important is that it does not become a political football, but an issue where people can express their grief and their sorrow for what has happened in the past without it becoming another symbolic event that gets blown out of all proportion."
The Northern Secretary said later that she would "very much like to attend" the inauguration of Mrs McAleese. However, a planned visit to the United States next week could prevent her from attending the ceremony. "If I receive an invitation, and if I am available, I would very much like to go", she said.
A controversy over the wearing of poppies in a Derry clothing factory worsened yesterday when a number of suspended employees placed a picket outside the workplace. The dispute began last week when four employees at the Coats Viyella factory at Trench Road in the Waterside were suspended when they contravened company rules by wearing poppies earlier than permitted.
The UUP leader, Mr David Trimble, described the Coats Viyella action as "outrageous".