The following is an edited version of the statement to the Dail yesterday by the leader of the Progressive Democrats, Ms Mary Harney
THE two governments should call talks involving all parties rejecting violence, the PD leader, Ms Mary Harney, said. They could be of a round table type or proximity variety, she added.
She said Sinn Fein had isolated and marginalised themselves they had not been isolated by anybody else. But it was important that links be maintained with the party and those who could influence the IRA.
Ms Harney said it was important for the Government not to change its strategy on elections in the North because of the bomb attack. There were obvious problems in relation to elections they tended to make people more inflexible and less open to the views of others and had a polarising tendency. "Elections are concerned about making choices between political parties and not building bridges between them," she added.
On Mr John Hume's proposal for referendums North and South, Ms Harney said they had a duty to consider everything. She believed other options could be put to voters in a referendum. The people could decide the fundamental rules under which talks should take place and give a direction to their political representatives.
She thought it important to understand the consent principle, and the recent refusal of Sinn Fein to endorse it in the report of the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation was worrying. But, equally, it was important nationalists knew there would be no internal settlement.
Ms Harney said no party that varied its tactics at will between murder and argument should have open access to government. It would be wrong for the Government and everybody else not to differentiate between those who fully rejected violence and those who could not. "Violence cannot be coupled with politics," she added.
She said it needed to be repeated in the House, over and over again, that killing and maiming were profoundly evil. "Peace is not the gift of the gunman. Peace is the birthright of us all."