THIS generation had a unique opportunity to create "a viable alternative destiny" for the people of Northern Ireland, the Fianna Fail leader, Mr Bertie Ahern, said last night.
Speaking at Boston College at the start of a five-day visit to the US, Mr Ahern said Ireland was impatient with the absence of an IRA ceasefire "and their casual brutality which is holding the whole island back
He also criticised the British government for slowing down the peace process for electoral considerations. "John Major, unfortunately, was more concerned to keep the Ulster Unionist party on side, on whom his government has increasingly come to depend, than to move the peace process forward."
He said the British government's dismissal of the Mitchell report as a possible solution to the peace process impasse on the day of its publication was a tragedy.
"The attitude of some of the parties and one of the governments" was responsible for the lack of progress in the talks.
He praised the US role in the peace process and expressed full support for the US administration's rejection of IRA violence. But there were other obstacles to progress, he said, and he believed a critical focus had to be turned on "those who have been blocking progress in the talks and on those who are quite happy to see a repetition of the disastrous sectarian confrontation last year at Drumcree".
He said Fianna Fail fully supported the US ambassador, Mrs Jean Kennedy Smith. "She has been criticised by those who think that American foreign policy in Ireland should be subservient to British interests."