The Taoiseach called for an endorsement of the Northern Ireland Agreement throughout the island when he opened the debate on the legislation paving the way for next month's referendum.

"The settlement needs strong public support, North and South, to get off to a good start," he said. "We cannot afford one response in the North and another in the South. I expect and am calling for a united and not a partitionist approach. Everyone needs to rise to the occasion if we are all to get the full benefit of the agreement."

Urging everyone to have the courage to embrace a new and peaceful future, he said: "History is in the making. There are benefits for everyone."

Mr Ahern said the immediate task was to have the agreement approved on both sides of the Border. "This will represent a concurrent act of self-determination by the people of Ireland as a whole for the first time since 1918. Such a vote will remove any false vestige of democratic self-justification for further acts of violence from any quarter, republican or loyalist. All remaining paramilitary groups should cease armed activity forthwith.

"The whole basis of the settlement is the recognition that we have to live together on this island, and for that we need peace, stability and reconciliation. Neither tradition has the means to impose its will on the other.

"An accommodation is essential for the well-being and prosperity of all. Inevitably, this will involve for everyone changes in our ways of thinking, greater tolerance and generosity, and a more sympathetic understanding of the needs of others. We have to foster confidence in all sections of the community." Introducing the 19th Amendment to the Constitution Bill, Mr Ahern said the agreement was, first and foremost, a balanced constitutional settlement that provided a peaceful method of resolving fundamental differences in the future while creating a basis for practical partnership and co-operation now.

"Real balance, which we have sought since 1992, has been achieved, with fundamental and important changes in both Britain and Irish constitutional law. We are reformulating Articles 2 and 3, not abolishing them.

"If the Government had declined to enter into discussions on our constitutional position, there would have been no multi-party negotiations, no agreement and, I am afraid, no peace. We took the same view as the Secretary of State, Dr Mo Mowlam, that the status quo is not acceptable and, therefore, some movement was required on all sides, including ourselves. The purpose of the changes is to reinforce the principle that, in Ireland, North and South, it is the people who are sovereign, and who have shared ownership of the territory of Ireland.

"Any British territorial claim of sovereignty, made without reference to consent, going back to the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, the Act of Union or, for that matter, to 1170, will be superseded in the British Act, and becomes irrelevant for the future. The principle of consent is paramount. From now on, everything will hinge on that. This represents a substantial change. Moreover, consent is now, for the first time, formally recognised to be a two-way process. The importance of this cannot be emphasised enough.

"The foundation stone of this State, as well as of the peace process - the right to national self-determination in its full political, social and cultural meaning - remains untouched in Article 1, to which de Valera attached most importance, and would not let go even in the context of a united Ireland.

"The reformulation of Articles 2 and 3 and 29 reflects modern, progressive republican thought that is truly pluralist and keeps faith with the inclusive tradition of Irish nationalism, stemming from Wolfe Tone and the United Irishmen.

"The nation is defined in terms of people, but people related to a specific territory, the island of Ireland. Henceforth, we do not insist on press-ganging those who are determined that they are not a part of the nation. As a consequence of that, we no longer say, or appear to say, that the territory is ours, not theirs, but rather that it is shared by all of us.

"For the first time, we firmly anchor in the Constitution and, very importantly, in international law, the Irish nationalist and citizenship rights of everyone born on the island who wants to avail of them. There is no question of anyone being made an alien in their own country.

"The nation is not territorially disembodied. It is defined in clear terms as a 32-county entity. The State remains as it was interpreted to be in the McGimpsey judgement in 1990, a 26-county one. On a different level, we also recognise for the first time the Irish diaspora, who played their own notable part in the peace process."

Mr Ahern said the consent principle reflected the political reality that had long been accepted for practical purposes. As far back as August 1921, de Valera had declared that "we do not contemplate the use of force" and, in 1957, he had told the Fianna Fail ardfheis that a forced unity would ruin national life for generations.

"What is contained at present in the Irish Constitution was inserted by 1937 as a protest against the boundary agreement of 1925 and as a reassertion of the essential unity of Ireland, in circumstances where Northern nationalists had been entirely abandoned to the mercy of an unsympathetic and often hostile Stormont government.

"In the opinion of many lawyers, it is questionable whether Articles 2 and 3 ever had much standing in international law, given that the 1925 agreement was registered at the League of Nations, but they were certainly a challenge to the legitimacy of Northern Ireland.

"In the present negotiations, it would have been illogical to seek fundamental changes in order to secure a new, fair and equitable political dispensation if we were still determined to deny the result of any democratic legitimacy.

"If we want civilised relations on this island, and the ultimate coming together of the people of Ireland, we do not need, nor is there any benefit from, any claim of right to include the people of Northern Ireland in a united Ireland against the will of a majority there. But, equally, unionists now increasingly accept that the consent of nationalists is needed for stable government in Northern Ireland."

Mr Ahern said the assembly and the executive committee would operate on a fair and cross-community basis. All posts as ministers and the membership and chairmanship of assembly committees would be allocated in proportion to party strengths emerging from the assembly elections planned for June 25th.

This meant, he added, that the parties representing the nationalist tradition could, if they so decided, hold up to 40 per cent of all those positions. In the case of Sinn Fein, participation would call for an amendment of the party's constitution.

"They have been persistent advocates of fundamental change and have demonstrated their ability to effect such change through peaceful, democratic methods. I very much hope that they will make the internal changes necessary to enable them to contribute constructively to effecting the radical change foreshadowed in the Good Friday agreement."

Mr Ahern said he also looked forward, with deep satisfaction and with high hopes and expectations, to seeing the remarkable vision and abilities of John Hume, Seamus Mallon and their SDLP colleagues, who had honourably and very effectively upheld the standard of democratic politics for 30 years, at last applied, in positions of executive authority, to the betterment of the lives of all who lived in Northern Ireland.

"I know that I speak for the whole House when I salute those extraordinary men and women, not least for their negotiating achievement in the early hours of Good Friday, but also for the stamp put on this whole settlement by the concepts and principles they have unflinchingly promoted since their party's foundation."

Mr Ahern said that in the negotiations the unionists and loyalist parties had acknowledged that North-South bodies were needed, not only for their undoubted practical benefits in the economic and social spheres, but also because they presented a vital institutional expression of the Irish identity of Northern nationalists and of their associated identification with Ireland as a whole and with the State. On the East-West arrangements, he said the British-Ireland Intergovernmental Conference with a standing secretariat would replace the conference and secretariat established under the Anglo-Irish Agreement. While they would deal with the totality of relationships, they would have a particular focus on Northern Ireland, specifically the areas that would not be devolved, such as policing, prisons, justice and rights, with a similar role for the Irish Government as at present.