Royal visit will honour peace process success - Martin

A STATE visit to Ireland by Queen Elizabeth will honour all that has been achieved by the two countries in the peace process, Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin has said.

“I am sure that the vast majority of people on this island support this visit taking place in a spirit of mutual respect and Irish welcome,” he said.

“Such a visit will honour all that we have achieved together in the peace process.”

Mr Martin was speaking at the fifth Reconciliation Networking Forum which brings together groups and organisations working on reconciliation issues.

At the event in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin he announced funding of €465,000 for 37 such groups from the department’s reconciliation and anti-sectarianism funds, which this year has a €3 million budget. The grants vary from €2,500 to €42,500 for youth and sports groups, community relations school groups and inter-community organsiations.

He also denounced republican dissidents and said they had “absolutely no entitlement” to use the term “dissidents” because that was a “badge of honour in the cold war. It meant you stood for democracy and the rule of law against totalitarianism.”

The Minister described reconciliation as a “generational task” and said it had been hugely advanced between Ireland and Britain over recent decades, particularly through the work of successive governments.

“It is right and timely that this transformation of relations between these islands should be reflected in a State visit to Ireland by Queen Elizabeth.”

Hitting out at dissident republican groups Mr Martin said he deplored their activities and called on them to stop.

They were not entitled to use the term dissident “nor are they true republicans - true republicanism is the coming together of the green and the orange in tolerance and mutual understanding.

“If anything these groups are de facto partitionists whose actions serve to further divide and to alienate the people of this island from one another – Catholic from Protestant; nationalist from unionists; Northerner from Southerner. Through the Belfast Agreement the “people of Ireland, North and South, have said clearly that the only viable road to unity on this island lies through peace, tolerance, persuasion and agreement. Those who reject these principles perpetuate the divisions on the island.” He said it was a “great tragedy that young people should become disaffected or that they cannot recognise or experience the great benefits that sustained peace has brought to Northern Ireland.

“We have an obligation to them to provide opportunities to help them find their voice and ensure they do not fall into the hands of criminals, intent on destroying the hard-won peace.”