P.M. voices regret

Press, 9 March 1984, Page 6

P.M. voices regret

NZPA-’N.Y. Times’ Dublin

The Irish Prime Minister, Dr Garret Fitz Gerald, sharply criticised yesterday Americans who continued to give money or encouragement to the Irish Republican Army. In an interview he said that he regretted that the St Patrick’s Day Parade organising committee in New York had chosen to honour at next week’s celebration, “a convicted enemy of the State of Ireland.” He also alluded to American politicians who hurt the Irish Republic by giving “misguided” moral support to acts of violence in Northern Ireland. Dr Fitz Gerald is scheduled to go to New York next week to meet Irish-American groups and business leaders, and then to Washington, where he will meet President Ronald Reagan and address a joint session of Congress. A prime goal of his visit, he said, was to seek the support of American public opinion on current efforts that he and other nationalist politicians in Ireland were making to develop a dialogue with Britain in an attempt to end the political division of the island.

The group, which calls itself the New Ireland Forum, is made up of the three main political parties in the Irish Republic and the main nationalist party in the British province of Northern j. Ireland, where sectarian/ strife has continued forls years. Unionist Party leaders representing the Protestant majority in

Northern Ireland have refused to take part in the Forum, which last year set as its task a basic restating of the conditions under which both sides on the' island might seek reunion. The forum is due to report next month on its findings. There's a shape to the report but there are still issues to be decided,” Dr Fitz Gerald said; “The difficult decisions are yet to be taken.”

It is widely expected that the report will present an “all options” view said to be favoured-by the Prime Minister in order to achieve a consensus that includes those participants who embrace the traditional republican view that Irish unity was possible only under a unitary State in which all power flowed from Dublin. In the “all options” approach, that view would be presented with different models that include a confederation in which special constitutional safeguards are guaranteed for the North, and another relationship that would be jointly administered by Dublin and London.

In the latter, residents of Northern Ireland could, hold Irish or British passports, while co-existing with two national flags and two national anthems. Responsibility for security would be shared. The police and Army units from the Republic would be used to serve in areas of Northern Intend with large Catholic populations. These recommendations would carry no official

State endorsement. They are expected to be ignored by hardline Unionists, who fear absorption by the larger Catholic State under any circumstances. But many British leaders are reported to be intrigued by the process started by the Irish and appear to be willing to entertain the proposals as a gesture for the beginning of ah unofficial dialogue that could eventually lead to more concrete agreements. Dr Fitz Gerald said that many Americans continued to be confused by the complexity of the position in Northern Ireland and did not fully understand the Irish Republic’s repudiation of the Irish Republican Army and other paramilitary group. ,r Some are deluded to think there’s a colonial war going on in Northern Ireland. They don’t understand that four-fifths of those being killed by the terrorists are Irish people.” He said that he could not understand, why any friends of Ireland would select as an honorary grand marshal for the St Patrick’s Day parade in New York a man who. is a fugitive from justice in the Republic. That man is Michael O’Rourke, who is being held by the American authorities on charges of illegally entering the country. He had fled from Ireland, where he had been convicted on an explosives charge. “No country could feel this is friendly, to honour somebody who is a convicted enemy of our State,” Dr Fitz Gerald said.