Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

I want to ask the Taoiseach about an alternative take on the Haass talks. Mr. Haass, in his previous life, was a key adviser to George Bush Sr. The Taoiseach might remember they launched the criminal Gulf War. He was also a key adviser to Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was one of the key architects of the criminal invasion of Iraq, and was the one who did a lying dossier about weapons of mass destruction which did not exist. Does the Taoiseach agree that the Irish and British Governments relying on an individual with this track record to bring peace to the North shows complete bankruptcy on their behalf in front of the critical issues affecting people, in particular working class and young people, in the Northern Ireland?

Does the Taoiseach agree that the experience of the past year or two years, with the flags situation and other sectarian tensions, vindicates the view that the structures in the North, the Assembly and the Executive, merely, as we said back in 1997, institutionalise sectarian divisions rather than assist overcoming them? Is it not clear that political parties in the North, which rely on sectarian divisions for their support will not bridge those divisions in any sense?

The programme of austerity and cuts dictated by the British Government, implemented by the Northern Ireland Executive and backed by the Taoiseach's Government, which is carrying out the same policies here, create further sectarian pressure with the type of poverty, joblessness and pressure on services in which they result and create conditions where sectarian divisions and alienation foster which, in turn, gives rise to many of the ugly scene we have witnessed.

The vast majority of ordinary people in the North are opposed to sectarian strife and there is no way they will tolerate going back to the bad old days of paramilitarism and sectarian killings. If there is to be a lasting solution, it is outside the framework the Irish and the British Governments offer and it should be based on Protestant and Catholic working class people crossing the sectarian divide and uniting behind their real interests, namely, a decent future, jobs, homes and a future for young people, rather than the type of short-term approaches evident in the policies of the British and Irish Governments.

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