Taoiseach Bertie Ahern is to consult the Fianna Fáil rank-and-file about the party's initiative to set up branches in the North.
Addressing the annual Fianna Fáil commemoration in Bodenstown, Mr Ahern said yesterday that he had written to each of the party's 3,000 cumainn throughout the State setting out details of a consultation process. They were asked to hold a special meeting between now and Easter.
All submissions would be reviewed by a strategy committee, chaired by Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern, he added. "This committee will later engage in a series of regional party meetings and will seek the input of interested groups and individuals, North and South. And, based on these contributions, it will inform our thinking on the way forward on this issue. This committee's recommendations will come before the ard comhairle and, ultimately, an ardfheis for debate and decision."
Mr Ahern said that the people of the North had "copper-fastened the democratic will of the people of Ireland, North and South, as expressed in the overwhelming support for the Good Friday agreement nearly 10 years ago".
Mr Ahern recalled welcoming the Rev Ian Paisley to Farmleigh and to the site of the battle of the Boyne. "In July, we held meetings of the North-South Ministerial Council in Armagh, and of the British-Irish Council in Belfast, meetings ably co-chaired by First and Deputy First Ministers, Dr Ian Paisley and Mr Martin McGuinness. Those meetings are of great symbolic significance. They represent the practical expression of the agreed approach for addressing the relationships on this island and between these islands. They involve the leaders of all backgrounds and traditions, working together for the good of all of the people we represent. They also unlocked the massive potential that the agreement in 1998 always held." Mr Ahern pledged that Fianna Fáil would "never deviate from the responsible and positive role we have played in developing the Irish peace process".
The party would never succumb to the "sectarian narrative" of Catholic versus Protestant, or a narrow nationalism that failed to take account of unionism.
"The only future we envisage for our people is a future based on respect and equality and partnership with unionism."
Mr Ahern said Fianna Fáil would hold fast to Wolfe Tone's aim to rid the island of the evil of sectarianism and "to substitute the common name of Irishman in place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter".
He said the best way to honour the heroes of the past was to ensure every single person on the island, irrespective of class, colour or creed, was given the opportunity to live the dream of freedom and prosperity, which the generations before, at home and abroad, sacrificed so much to make possible.
