Taoiseach insists peace agreement stands as is

The Taoiseach strongly reiterated his view that the Belfast Agreement has to be accepted in full by all the participating parties.

"As I have said endlessly, the agreement stands together. It cannot be changed at the edges. It cannot be interpreted in any flexible, vague or ambiguous way, and people have to deal with it on that basis. That applies to everybody."

He was replying to the Labour leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, who had asked Mr Ahern to join with him in welcoming the announcement earlier by the Sinn Fein ardchomhairle that it would recommend a Yes vote to the party's resumed ardfheis next Sunday.

"Would he (the Taoiseach) likewise agree with me it is essential that the delegates, and the supporters of Sinn Fein, North and South, would recognise that the success of the agreement, to which the Taoiseach's negotiating skills were central in its final phases, depends on the integrity and entirety of the agreement being accepted?" Mr Quinn asked. "This is something that cannot be cherry-picked or selectively identified as bits and pieces with which one agrees and other bits and pieces with which one disagrees," he added.

Replying to the leader of Democratic Left, Mr Proinsias De Rossa, the Taoiseach said that some time ago the relatives of the disappeared in the North had met him and during a lengthy discussion he had received much detail about particular cases.

Following that, he had taken those cases, which mainly went back to the 1970s and were very harrowing, and had tried to get as much information as he could. "I am going to continue to raise those particular cases and, hopefully, get some feedback. I know that there is some kind of contact going on in the republican movement about some of these cases, but my information would be sketchy," he added.

The Labour leader, Mr Quinn, asked if the disclosure of specific information on the whereabouts of the disappeared was a condition for the repatriation of prisoners or their early release. Mr Ahern said that as far as he knew that had not happened, but it certainly was a possibility.

Mr Austin Currie (FG, Dublin West) said that confidence-building measures had so far been a one-way process and providing information on the disappeared would be a major contribution by the republican movement.

Mr Currie suggested that it was a human rights issue and the support of friends elsewhere, particularly in the United States, should be enlisted.