US: President Mary McAleese has dismissed as "a complete invention" a report that she and her husband, Martin McAleese, plan to reduce their contacts with loyalist groups amid fears of a new round of feuding.
Speaking in South Bend, Indiana, where she gave the commencement address at Notre Dame University yesterday, Mrs McAleese said the Government fully supported their outreach work with loyalists, which would continue.
"There is not the remotest truth in it. The story is a complete invention. We have been on a mission since the day I was elected. We're about the business of decommissioning sectarianism . . .
"Our outreach to all communities in Northern Ireland is as strong as ever and getting stronger by the moment because the context, of course, is getting better all the time," she said.
Mrs McAleese declined to comment directly on reports that UDA figures misappropriated money Dr McAleese helped to raise for a community project in a loyalist area.
The President said she had received no information about the allegations, which she said were a matter for the PSNI and might be sub judice.
"We've always known that with this work if we were to allow ourselves to be paralysed by every setback, then we'd simply get nowhere. So the work continues," she said.
Welcoming the peaceful end to the protest by Afghan refugees in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, Mrs McAleese acknowledged that many immigrants who are not allowed to remain in Ireland feel aggrieved.
"Many of them, I'm sure, if they were given the opportunity anywhere in the world would make good citizens. Unfortunately, we operate within a legal framework and that legal framework has simply got to be applied and applied fairly," she said.
In her prepared remarks at Notre Dame, however, Mrs McAleese expressed the hope that Irish illegal immigrants in the United States would be allowed to remain in the country and become citizens.
"The Irish continue to arrive in America. Unlike earlier generations, they come by choice not necessity but, like the earlier generations, they are ready to work hard and to make a contribution. For some, their immigration status is undocumented.
"We in Ireland hope that a path may be found to enable these people to legalise their status so that they may follow in the footsteps of earlier generations."
Mrs McAleese received an honorary doctorate of law from the university. Jazz pianist Dave Brubeck and Harper Lee, the reclusive author of To Kill a Mockingbird, also received honorary degrees.
The President and Dr McAleese attended a private Mass at Notre Dame's Log Chapel before lunching with the university's president, Fr John Jenkins, the other recipients of honorary degrees and faculty members.