Taoiseach calls for peaceful marching season

The Taoiseach has called on community leaders in the North to do everything in their power to ensure there was a peaceful marching season this year.

Following disturbances at the weekend after an Orange Order march in north Belfast, Mr Ahern said: “The vast majority of parades may pass off peacefully, but a small number may prove to be contentious.

“I would ask that whatever the different perspectives on the rights and wrongs of such parades, those with influence on both sides use it for the good of their communities by easing tensions, by avoiding conflicts.”

The Taoiseach paid tribute to those who in recent years had through good intentions avoided conflict over marches and said he hoped that would continue.

Speaking at the Irish Congress of Trade Unions conference in Belfast this morning, he said the Irish and British governments must stick with efforts to achieve power sharing between unionists and nationalists in the North under the Belfast Agreement.

Mr Ahern told the conference that there had to be a clear and decisive end to criminal and paramilitary activity by all groups.

“I do not wish to speculate on what might be said or done in the next few weeks,” he told the conference. “All I will say is that the policy of the Irish Government and the British Government is clear.

“We need to see an end to all paramilitary and criminal activity and the completion of (weapons) decommissioning. It has to be clear. It has to be decisive," he said. “If that happens, we will expect unionists to participate in genuine partnership politics.”

Mr Ahern acknowledged the trust between parties in Northern Ireland had been damaged in recent years.

However, following Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain's signal on Tuesday that any IRA move to wind down its operations must be tested over a period of time, the Taoiseach added: “It will take time to rebuild (trust), as it always does.

“However we must not deviate from the agreed destination and that destination is the full operation of partnership politics in the Good Friday agreement," he said.