Senator Martin Mansergh today said the onus was on the Republican movement to control street aggression and to exercise restraint in the face of provocation.
The Taoiseach’s former advisor also said that he did not know where anti-Agreement unionists drew sustenance for the belief that the Belfast Agreement could be negotiated and that hostility to nationalist communities is not a good way of persuading them of the virtues of a constitutional status quo.
Senator Mansergh was speaking at the Parnell Summer School at Avondale, Rathdrum, Co Wicklow.
"The Good Friday Agreement potentially gives Northern Ireland a new lease of life within a broader political dispensation. Trying to alter or change that basis, and to substitute exclusion for inclusion, is not going to work, and neither Government will be a party to that strategy," said Senator Mansergh.
"There is the further consideration that continued political instability weakens the competitive position of the Northern Ireland economy and its attraction as a destination or location for investment," he added.
The Senator said it was important that the republican movement kept "a visible momentum in moving away from the past and from free- lance activity of various kinds at home and abroad incompatible with the spirit of democracy, respect of human rights, and the duties of good citizenship".
"There is no gain to anyone, if politically speaking the two communities return to their trenches," he said.