THE PEACE process was “an opportunity that must not only be cherished but must be worked at”, Taoiseach Brian Cowen said last night in Dublin.
He was speaking in the Royal College of Physicians at the launch of the autobiography of one of his predecessors, Albert Reynolds, which is published by Transworld Ireland.
The Taoiseach said Mr Reynolds and others, “gave us a possibility to make our own history”, but the Irish people must now continue in the quest for peace and prosperity.
Paying tribute to Mr Reynolds’s “all-consuming” pursuit of peace in the early 1990s, he said the former taoiseach “understood that, if he could succeed, this would be the greatest contribution he could make to public life”.
Mr Cowen also paid tribute to the work of John and Pat Hume, who were in attendance, and to “others who can’t be here”, including Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams of Sinn Féin.
He said Mr Reynolds’s approach was “very individualistic” and was characterised by his “preparedness to go the extra mile” and his capacity for “thinking outside the box”.
Praising Mr Reynolds’s skill in negotiations, Mr Cowen said this was “learnt in many a card game late at night: holding the ace card till last was always a Reynolds trick”.
The former taoiseach was accompanied by his wife, Kathleen, and their family.