Fianna Fáil in Government will defend prosperity and deliver the country through any economic downturn, Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern said yesterday.
He said defending prosperity will be one of three key elements of Fianna Fáil's republican programme for the coming years, along with strengthening communities and securing peace and an end to sectarianism.
Speaking at the Seán Moylan Commemoration at Kiskeam in Co Cork, Mr Ahern said the only credible republican programme is one based on sound finances, which can be practically implemented in "our real and living republic".
"What Irish workers have built up Fianna Fáil will defend to the end," Mr Ahern said.
He added: "Prosperity is an absolute prerequisite for all our ambitions - in health, enterprise, welfare and education. To that end Fianna Fáil in Government will defend prosperity with unequal determination."
Mr Moylan, who died in 1957, was a War of Independence leader in north Cork, who went on to become a Dáil deputy and a minister in different Fianna Fáil governments. Mr Ahern said the Fianna Fáil message is clear. "What we have we hold for the benefit of all. Republicanism aspirations are nothing without a prosperous economy to fund our reforms and policies."
Prosperity, he said, must be a social and civic as well as an economic goal, and Fianna Fáil would work to build strong communities to deliver social cohesion to ensure less crime, less isolation, better mental health and better places to live.
The Government must devise policies for active citizenship and fund volunteer and community groups and provide support for playgrounds, creches, GP co-ops and community centres, he said.
Mr Ahern added that the third plank of the republican programme is to secure peace and end sectarianism and he called on republicans to oppose all acts which polarise and bolster division between the two communities.
In place of division we need a joint attack on issues of poverty, exclusion, inequality and sectarianism, he added.
Mr Ahern said a victory for Irish republicanism was the decommissioning of Provisional IRA weapons which opened the way to a lasting accommodation in the North supported by the vast majority of people of the island.