Sir, – It is welcome that the contributions of numerous central participants of the Belfast Agreement such as John Hume, David Trimble, Bill Clinton, George Mitchell, Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair, et al, on the occasion of its 25th anniversary have been duly acknowledged in recent weeks.
It is also right that the contribution towards the peace process in the years 1994 to 1997, immediately preceding the formulation of the agreement, by former taoiseach John Bruton (together with the minister for foreign affairs in his government, Dick Spring) be given more credit and attention. There have been minimal references in recent reportage to this valuable contribution.
Building upon the Downing Street Declaration signed between Albert Reynolds and British prime minister John Major in 1993, Mr Bruton’s overseeing of the Joint Framework Document (again with Mr Major) in 1995 represented a pivotal precursor to the Belfast Agreement. In this document, commitments by the Irish government to support proposals for constitutional change to fully reflect the principle of consent in Northern Ireland and to remove the overt territorial claim of right to jurisdiction over Northern Ireland contrary to the will of a majority of its people then implied in Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution were provided. Amendment of these said articles in 1998 later proved to be absolutely essential to the Belfast Agreement.
The Joint Framework Document also forecast the need for new institutions in Northern Ireland, one of which later emerged as the Northern Ireland Assembly as outlined within the Belfast Agreement.
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In a keynote conversation with councillors at the Association of Irish Local Government (AILG) Annual Conference in Kilkenny on April 20th, Bertie Ahern comprehensively outlined his participation as the then taoiseach in 1998 in relation to the Belfast Agreement. In the questions and answers session following this, I asked Mr Ahern as regards when he felt that Fianna Fáil’s formerly steadfast opposition to altering Articles 2 and 3 (identified historically with the party’s founder Eamon de Valera), which was expressed by his predecessor Charles Haughey in the context of opposition to the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 (arguably most potently in a speech given in Bodenstown in 1986) began to fade. I indicated three possible phases of such an attitude change emerging internally within the party: a) in 1987 upon Fianna Fáil’s return to government, b) throughout the leadership of Albert Reynolds or c) throughout the leadership of Mr Ahern. In response, Mr Ahern indicated that 1987 was the year where a mindset change began to develop, although it would appear that the entire Fianna Fáil party only became fully supportive in public of such required constitutional change immediately preceding the Belfast Agreement after a key meeting in the Slieve Russell Hotel in March 1998 (as referred to in an article in the Anglo Celt on April 7th “The secret FF meeting that changed everything”) where Mr Ahern sought to persuade his party colleagues to endorse the change.
The earlier, more definitive pledge of support for required constitutional change committed by Fine Gael in government under the leadership of Mr Bruton and by Labour under the leadership of Mr Spring as part of the Joint Framework Document was an important reassurance which built trust which their later successors were able to draw upon as part of the ultimate agreement reached in 1998. – Yours, etc,
Cllr JOHN KENNEDY,
(Fine Gael)
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council Offices,
Dún Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.