Ireland seeks peace moves

Press, 29 August 1984, Page 10

Ireland seeks peace moves

NZPA-Reuter

The Irish Gvernment has stepped up pressure on London for a new Anglo-Irish initiative to end 15 years of violent civil strife in Northern Ireland. In separate speeches during the week-end, two Irish Government ministers called for radical action by the British Government aimed at bridging the gulf between the warring Protestant and Catholic communities in the province. In the latest outbreak of violence in Northern Ireland, Irish Republican Army guerrillas shot and seriously wounded a part-time sol-

dier, aged 33, whom they ambushed with his wife and two-week-old baby, yesterday. In a speech in Lahinch, County Clare, the Irish Foreign Minister, Mr Peter Barry, urged the British Government to act on the report of the New Ireland Forum, in which Nationalist politicians called for Irish reunification as the best way of ending the troubles in the north. The Irish Government is still awaiting a formal British reply to the report, published in May. Criticising what he called the lack of real democracy in the north, Mr Barry said

Dublin and London must work together to create conditions in which democracy could grow and flourish. In a speech in Beal Na Mblath, County Cork, the Justice Minister, Mr Michael Noonan, said there were signs that Britain shared Ireland’s sense of urgency over the north, but added, “That common sense of urgency ... can be, and must be, transformed into a major Anglo-Irish initiative.”

He called for an end to “the nightmare of northern nationalists,” whose misery was being exploited by the I.R.A. The calls came as

Britain’s Secretary for Northern Ireland, Mr James Prior, who is expected to quit his post next month, was holding talks with Irish politicians on the prospects of re-establishing some sort of devolved Government in the province, which has been under direct London rule since 1972.

The I.R.A.’s political wing, Sinn Fein, has been excluded from the talks but an opinion poll published during the week-end revealed that half the people in Britain believed any attempts to solve the Northern Ireland problem should involve the I.R.A.