Sir, - On Monday night I was fortunate enough to attend the annual Trocaire lecture given by Fergal Keane, BBC special correspondent, at Maynooth. The title of the talk was "Rights, Reconciliation and Responsibility". Mr Keane's lecture could be described as powerful, upsetting, depressing and uplifting, dealing mostly with the awful past and the treacherous present of the African continent. Rights and reconciliation are words we are familiar with and are the stuff of political rhetoric. Responsibility, however is the bitter seed, the nettle that nobody wants to grasp.
Picking up the newspaper yesterday to read of the terrible death of the Northern Ireland solicitor Rosemary Nelson, it seemed once again a case of responsibility being shirked.
The Irish Times reported Mary Robinson as having said she was "shocked and saddened by the death of such a courageous human rights lawyer". It is obvious what is thought of human rights in Northern Ireland, Mrs Nelson having allegedly been threatened both by the RUC and loyalist paramilitaries.
Reconciliation, well, that is as far off now as it was in the darkest days before the cease-fires. A real, meaningful and expeditious investigation into her murder and the allegations of security forces collusion in it is an absolute necessity for any attempt at reconciliation.
Responsibility for this murder must lie with those who have put obstacle after obstacle in the way of progress in Northern Ireland. We should have an executive in Northern Ireland at this stage, we should be moving towards genuine democracy with a representative police force. Instead we have stagnation. The First Minister Designate must live up to his responsibilities under the Good Friday agreement. The former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds said at the weekend that the decommissioning issue was a red herring; the IRA guns are silent and an executive should be set up. Until we have responsibility in Northern Ireland, it is hard to see how we can have rights and reconciliation. - Is mise, Dr James O. McInerney,
National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Co Kildare.