THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND UNDERSTANDING OF POLICIES BEDEVILLED BY FALLACIES

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32777, 30 November 1971, Page 14

THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND UNDERSTANDING OF POLICIES BEDEVILLED BY FALLACIES

T. E. UTLEY,

(By

', writing to the "Daily Telegraph," London, from Dublin)

(Reprinted by arrangement)

Inevitably the politics of the Irish Republic are seen in Britain as one aspect of the crisis in Northern Ireland. This standpoint, however, generates most of the fallacies which bedevil British policy towards the South and have an equally adverse affect on British policy in Ulster. The chief of them is that there are certain actions which Britain could take or encourage in Ulster which would have the effect of inducing the Government of the Republic to clamp down on I.R.A. activities in the South, thereby producing a decisive improvement on the security situation in the North.

This view usually rests on the assumption that Mr Lynch and his colleagues are a Government of moderates who, with considerable and growing difficulty, are restraining a passionate and universal demand in the Republic for positive action in support of “oppressed Northern Catholics.” It presupposes the view that at least a large section of the Southern Irish regards the I.R.A. as a band of freedom fighters engaged in the overthrow of a ruthless colonial tyranny, and is desperately anxious to get the South fully and irrevocably committed to this noble cause. The inference drawn from this false analysis is that the survival of Mr Lynch is as essential to the success of British policy as is the survival of Mr Faulkner.

Grievous exaggeration

To say that this inter--1 pretation represented even 1 half the truth about the Republic of Ireland would be a grievous exaggeration. To i begin with, the crisis in the North has to compete with ; several other issues for the . Irish Government’s attention. . There is the question of fish- • tag rights when the Republic enters the Common Market; there is the even more emotive question (by which Dublin today is rent) about whether medical students should be instructed in i contraception. Some of the current misi understanding about Irish i opinion arises from the i degree of attention naturally ; given in Britain to the Dublin . press and radio. The Irish I are great newspaper readers; ■ they sustain, in reasonably , flourishing conditions, about 300 local papers, but this local press, which probably ’ reflects the preoccupation of its readers rather more accurately than does the ' Dublin press, is markedly ' non-political save in the i border areas. Even those in the Republic ; who think nationally see the Northern Irish crisis in a ; context set by several other major domestic problems with a close bearing on it. ' There is the problem created by rapidly accelerating inflation, and by what is widely regarded as the ineptitude of Mr Lynch’s Government (contrasting markedly with the skill of his predecessor, Mr Lemass) in the handling of economic affairs. There is above all the vast and acute problem of public order in the South. Ambiguous status There is much to be said for the view that in the long run the forces operating against constitutional government and civil order in the Republic are far more formidable than their counterparts in the North. British opinion is already well aware of some of the overt activities of the I.R.A. in the South. The ambiguous status of that organisation in Irish society, however is not fully understood. As military organisations both the official and the provisional wings of the I.R.A. are illegal but the political bodies which control those organisations, (the two branches of the Sinn Fein party) are not illegal. This paradoxical state of affairs provides a constant pretext for tolerating public subversive activity, and this pretext is so absurd as to make it easy to drop even when the authorities find it convenient to turn a blind eye. Public collections for guns and ammunition for the North are common. So is the training of I.R.A. volunteers in which it is patently obvious that in the past at any rate the national Army of the Republic has cooperated. What is not generally realised in Britain, however, is the extent to which the legal institutions of the Republic have been weakened and corrupted in order to facilitate these illegal activities. In the past four and a half years there have been 19 raids on banks, post offices and airline offices in the South, leading to a loss of over £lOO,OOO. None of the perpetrators of these crimes appears to have been convicted, and only five cases have got as far as prosecution. , . The criminals are believed to belong to an organisation called Saor Eireann (Free Ireland) which is believed to pass the money on to the I.R.A. in the North. Law and politics Since all but petty prosecutions in the South are made by the Attorney-General, the decision whether or not. to prosecute becomes a political act. Where I.R.A. or associated activities are concerned, the decision is often sifflply not taken. According to some lawyers, when prosecutions of a controversial kind are brought, good care is taken to ensure that they are conducted too inefficiently to succeed. If all the intervening hurdles are passed, there remains the almost insuperable difficulty of securing a verdict of guilty in such cases from a jury. If this is secured there is always the possibility of a

ridiculously lenient sentence. Two recent examples of the judicial process will suffice: a recent sentence of a fortnight’s imprisonment (already served on remand) was all that a court in Dundalk could find it in its heart to award to gunmen from across the border captured with their arms in the Republic; an attempt to secure the extradition of an accused murderer was recently frustrated by a plea of inadequate identification although the evidence of identity in the possession of the Ulster police is said on this occasion to have been unusually strong. The Southern police omitted to tell the Royal Ulster Constabulary when the case was coming on. Yet the Irish press and Irish politicians almost unanimously condemn violence. The actions of the I.R.A. in the North are dutifully reported and frequently condemned, though seldom without qualifying clauses about the ultimate responsibility of Britain and Stormont, and seldom with as much emphasis and vigour as are the alleged atrocities of United Kingdom troops. Why twist the law? Both wings of the I.R.A. are professedly dedicated not merely to the reunification of Ireland but also to the overthrow of the constitution in the South. That fact arouses real apprehension among the great majority of Irishmen. Why, then, is Mr Lynch’s Government (and indeed a substantial section of opinion in the Republic) willing to twist the law in order to protect the 1.R.A.?

The answer is that Mr Lynch’s Fianna Fail party (which has been in uninterrupted power for 14 years) represents a revolutionary tradition which prescribes an overt and formal support for the patriotic cause in all circumstances and at all costs. That attitude reflects accurately a wide-spread state of mind in the Republic, though in the case of Mr Cosgrave’s Fine Gael party and of a very I

large number of ordinary rustic Irishmen the ritual need to subscribe to Irish unity is more than balanced by a growing fear of the I.R.A. in the South.

Irishmen of all parties, in their sober moments (a severe qualifiication), will tell you that the abolition of the border tomorrow would threaten their State with total disruption. They will even sometimes confess that they do not know precisely what they mean in practical terms by demands for more fundamental reforms in the North. Remote from reality What threatens the survival of the Republic today (and daily costs lives in the North) is not militant public enthusiasm for Irish unity or passionate concern for “oppressed Catholic brethren” but a lethargic refusal to get to grips with reality and to modify even slightly any of the formal political postures decreed by history. The Fine Gael and Labour parties, if they could succeed in overthrowing Mr Lynch, would at least import a degree of realism into the politics of the Republic.

But one factor which operates perpetually against such realism is the complacent assumption of all politicians in the South that the Republic will continue to enjoy all the practical material advantages of close partnership with Britain, whatever Dublin does or fails to do about the I.R.A.

A stronger attitude in Whitehall, whatever else it brought about, would not bring Mr Haughey or the I.R.A. to power. It could help to dash the illusions by which Irish politicians live and which, unchecked, will one day produce a far worse disorder in Dublin than now afflicts Belfast.

By contrast, the blandishments offered by Mr Heath to Mr Lynch have had only two effects—they have gravely weakened Mr Lynch’s position vis-a-vis his own extremists and made his policies towards Britain still I more rigidly unco-operative