Donaldson rules out hasty re-run of rally

North reaction: There will be no rush to decide on the holding of another rally in Dublin, DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson said last…

North reaction: There will be no rush to decide on the holding of another rally in Dublin, DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson said last night.

"It will be some time in truth before such a decision is arrived at," he told The Irish Times.

Although not involved in the organisation of Saturday's event in Dublin by Families Acting for Innocent Relatives (Fair), Mr Donaldson said it was important that calm be restored before plans for another rally were considered.

He said no announcement would be made without close consultation with the Garda, as there had been before Saturday.

READ MORE

Mr Donaldson said of William Frazer and other Fair organisers: "They will talk to the Garda - just as they had done all along. But there will be no immediate decision on another [ event in Dublin]".

He said there was "no doubt" many relatives of victims would want to return to Dublin. However, he accepted there were many who had never been to the Republic before due to fear, and would not be back.

The Lagan Valley MP said he had been "inundated" by phonecalls and e-mails from many people throughout Ireland condemning the violence.

"I have never seen anything like it," he said. "Without exception people have been telling me they are shocked and appalled."

Northern Secretary Peter Hain said he hoped the weekend violence "would prove to be a bad, one-off throwback to the past rather than some kind of pattern for the future".

He said the trouble would not deflect the two governments from their drive to have the Stormont institutions restored and devolution returned to the local parties.

"I do not intend to be deflected from successfully concluding the political negotiations by thuggery or violence. If they think they will intimidate us into stopping what we're doing and making progress together then they couldn't be more wrong."

Mr Hain told RTÉ he could not be sure which republican groups were on the streets in Dublin, but he added: "It all seems to point to dissident republicans. I welcome Gerry Adams's condemnation of the violence joining everybody from the Taoiseach to myself and others in saying 'this sort of thing is intolerable and cannot be allowed in the future'."