TRADE unions and community, women's and voluntary groups should all be involved in all party talks in Northern Ireland, according to the vice president of the Belfast Council of Trade Unions, Ms Brenda Callaghan.
Speaking in Sligo yesterday at the Labour Party's annual 1916 commemoration, Ms Callaghan said that many lessons for the future could be taken from women's experiences in the North. For 25 years women had been successful in working across the religious and political divides. "Women who took risks but now reap the benefits have set an example for us all," she said.
Also at the commemoration, the chairman of the Sligo Leitrim constituency council of the Labour Party, Mr John McCarrick, described the ending of the IRA ceasefire as a betrayal. By ending the ceasefire and bombing civilians in London the IRA in effect undermined the nationalist consensus, very much damaged the political standing of people like John Hume and Gerry Adams, and in fact strengthened the position of John Major and vindicated the intransigence of the unionists".
Mr McCarrick paid tribute to the local Labour TD, Mr Declan Bree, to the Tanaiste, Mr Spring, and other Labour TDs and senators for their efforts in seeking the transfer of republican prisoners from Britain and Northern Ireland to the Republic.