Sir, - Contrary to what the Irish people are being told, the proposed Stormont Agreement cannot and indeed will not deliver a just and lasting peace because it fails to address the fundamental causes of the conflict in Ireland. In fact, far from addressing the causes of conflict, it reinforces them. Two hundred years ago, Theobald Wolfe Tone declared to the world, "From my earliest youth I have regarded the connection between Ireland and Great Britain as the curse of the Irish nation, and felt convinced that whilst it lasted, this country could never be free nor happy". The Stormont Agreement serves to strengthen that connection, not break it. In fact, containing as it does provisions for a Council of the British Isles, it would see the entire island of Ireland re-absorbed into an enlarged United Kingdom.
As we approach the new millennium, it is time for the Irish people, Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter, to leave behind the failed British-imposed colonial structures which this Agreement reinforces, and together build a New Ireland. - Is mise, Des Dalton,
Athy, Co. Kildare.