Stormont: An obstacle to Irish freedom and unity

international | miscellaneous | press release Tuesday May 08, 2007 16:56 by Seán Ó Murchú - Sinn Féin (Poblachtach) - Cork

Statement by Republican Sinn Féin Vice President Des Dalton

The recalling of the Stormont assembly today (May 8 ) serves to block the possibility of a just and lasting settlement of the conflict in Ireland. The Stormont assembly is an obstacle to Irish freedom and unity, it is one of the pillars of the failed partitionist set-up imposed on the Irish people by the Treaty of surrender in 1921.

Since 1921 there have been five agreements, the 1921 Treaty, 1925 Boundary Agreement, the 1938 Anglo-Irish Trade Agreement, the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement and the 1998 Stormont agreement followed by the proposals agreed at St Andrew's in October 2006. All of these were agreements but none of them constituted a settlement, for the simple reason that all of them are based on the 1920 British Government of Ireland Act which partitioned Ireland. They all failed to deliver a settlement because each of these agreements ignored the essential truth which is that there can be no final settlement short of British government disengagement from Ireland.

Last year the head of the 26-County administration Bertie Ahern declared that the "constitutional question" had been settled, such a claim is a nonsense as long as Irish national independence and the essential unity of the Irish nation are denied. Today also marks the final absorption of the Provisionals into the apparatus of British rule in Ireland. Today they become instruments of British policy, administering and policing British rule in the Six-Counties. For them the continued existence of the Six-County state is no longer in question by but rather how it will be governed under the British crown.

Today also marks the 20th anniversary of the deaths of the eight Loughall martyrs as well as civilian Anthony Hughes at the hands of British crown forces in a shoot-to-kill operation at Loughall RUC barracks in Co Tyrone. These eight men died not die for a new Stormont or the reform of British rule, they died for a New Ireland and an end to British occupation. Republican Sinn Féin salutes their memory.

The only basis for a just and lasting peace is a public British declaration of intent to withdraw from Ireland allowing all of the Irish people to negotiate a settlement, exercising true All-Ireland democracy.

Republican Sinn Féin believe that the proposals contained in EIRE NUA provide the basis for such a settlement, providing for a federation of Ireland's four provinces, with maximum decentralisation of power based on local majorities. This is the only coherent and credible means of breaking the cycle of conflict caused by continued British rule in Ireland.