Peace process central to new attitudes, says FitzGerald

Britain's contribution to the peace process in Northern Ireland has had a major impact on Irish attitudes towards the UK, former taoiseach Dr Garret FitzGerald said yesterday.

Speaking at the publication of a study on public perceptions in the area, he said it was difficult for Irish people to blame Britain for the problems in Northern Ireland because of the work it had done on the North.

"Britain has emerged from the political events in Northern Ireland during the 1990s in a favourable light, as far as Irish people are concerned.

"During the '70s and '80s, there were many problems arising particularly from the actions of the security forces ... Those events helped to keep alive the feeling that Britain was responsible for Northern Ireland remaining separate from us. But the last 10 years have shown Britain has worked very hard to improve the relationship, to deal with the problems in Northern Ireland, and I think most people here believe the problems about Northern Ireland really lie within Northern Ireland itself, particularly with Sinn Féin, IRA and the various unionist parties."

Commenting on the main finding of the survey, Through Irish Eyes, showing 76 per cent of people well-disposed towards the UK, Dr FitzGerald said popular culture had also helped to ease tensions. He said when British people began supporting Ireland after their team got knocked out of the World Cup, "a guilt complex" arose.

The British ambassador to Ireland, Mr Stewart Eldon, said the general belief that the relationship between Dublin and Downing St was good or better, "mirrors the reality". He added, "the cross-fertilisation of talent in academia, professional bodies, culture, entertainment and sport has never been stronger, and the economic dimensions are now staggering".

In one of a series of seminars accompanying the report's publication at the Mansion House, Dublin, Mr David Begg, secretary general of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, warned against Ireland choosing neo-liberalism over social democracy as represented in the "Boston vs Berlin" divide. "We are very much in the Anglo-American camp with all of the benefits and some of the disadvantages that involves," he said. He noted that Ireland was now the second most unequal country in the OECD after the US.

Mr Begg said Ireland was also closer to the US in spending just 33 per cent of its income on social services, compared to an EU average of 47.5 per cent.

Commenting on the fact that 73 per cent of respondents felt Ireland was closer to Boston than Berlin, Mr Eugene Downes, a cultural consultant who has worked with several Government departments, said the result could have been different had an alternative European city been offered.

While he said Ireland might be drawn towards Europe under a "post-Christian paradigm", it was attracted to the US through American comedy dramas such as Friends, whose depiction of "how we would like to be" appealed to the optimistic "successor generation" surveyed for the report.