DECOMMISSIONING of arms and other divisive issues should not be made obstacles to all party talks, given that the prize would be to take the gun forever out of Irish politics, Cardinal Daly said in Coventry at the weekend.
That prize, on the conclusion of the talks, would be the decommissioning of all weapons, Cardinal Daly said in his address to the Irish community. The Catholic Primate was celebrating Mass for the feast of St Patrick in the Anglican cathedral in Coventry.
"The ceasefire can be reinstated, it must be reinstated", Dr Daly said. The commitment of both the Irish and British governments to hold substantive all party talks contained no preconditions other than that reinstatement. "And that is not a precondition, it is a presupposition of democratic dialogue."
Recalling the Birmingham pub bombings and the bombs which had claimed lives in Warrington, Cardinal Daly asked forgiveness for the wrongs which had been inflicted on the many innocent people who had no involvement with Ireland or with the Irish troubles.
I ask forgiveness for the relatives, still scarred by the grief of those events; I ask forgiveness from the British people, who felt such rightful indignation at those atrocities", Dr Daly said.
He added: "It is surely time that we closed forever the chapter of Irish British hostility and conflict. It is surely time to open a new chapter of peace, mutual respect and friendly co operation. It is time to replace recrimination by reconciliation."
Rarely had the opportunities for permanent peace been greater than at present, he said. The IRA and Sinn Fein spoke of unionist and British intransigence, yet republicans should also ask themselves whether their rhetoric represented intransigence, evoking equal and opposite intransigence from unionists and the British government.
To speak of 25 more years of war was not easily seen as an invitation to inclusive dialogue, and such words struck a cold dread and revulsion in the hearts of both nationalists and unionists. If the IRA were - may God forbid - to resort again to full scale use of bombs and guns, they would not be bombing Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom, but bombing themselves out of the united Irish nationalist community."