Madam, - It is a pity that Dick Keane's suggestion of a return to a two-state solution to our problems (September 29th) seems so appealing to subsequent correspondents to your paper.
I do not think that now is the time for people in the Republic to lose faith with the Good Friday Agreement. Apart from anything else, the overwhelming endorsement of this agreement by all of nationalist and republican Ireland and the more than 50 per cent vote by unionists indicate that this is the will of the people of this island. The ignoring of a democratic mandate in the past has not led to peace.
The agreement has seen DUP, UUP, SDLP and Sinn Féin all working together, however fitfully. Recent days have seen a DUP delegation in Dublin in talks with the Irish Government. Reasonable people cannot be unaware of the significance of the recent steps taken by the IRA. The Good Friday Agreement does not rule out a unitary state. In fact its emergence, as a result of a referendum, is specified.
The North-South co-operation for which Strand Two provides indicates the immediate and intermediate future which the majority of both communities have endorsed by referendum.
A successful, prosperous and stable State has emerged in the South. Stern measures were taken to create and maintain this State and its founders honoured their international obligations under the terms of the Treaty with the British. What has emerged in the North is anything but stable and prosperous. The economy is a mess. A full 60 per cent of the economy depends on direct public sector spending.
There is a £6 billion deficit between money raised from taxes etc in the area and government money spent. Already the language used by the British Secretary of State indicates that draconian measures will be taken to close this gap. The efforts to increase the revenues from all forms of taxation in the North will impact painfully on a population which cannot pay its way as things stand at the moment.
A simple lesson to be taken from this is that the Irish are better able to manage their own affairs than any outsiders. Already business interests anticipate and take advantage of the benefits of an all-Ireland economy. While this is happening Peter Hain threatens us with poverty if we want to remain British.
The lesson is clear: colonialism doesn't work here. It hasn't worked anywhere.
If someone in Killiney or Dublin 3 wants a permanent British mini-state in Ireland, I would be interested to know just where this state is to be located. The poverty, misery and violence that such a non-solution has meant for the people of South Armagh and South Down, the counties of Fermanagh and Tyrone, Derry city, West Belfast and North Antrim mean that we say "not in our back yard".
Perhaps some part of Killiney or indeed Dublin 3 could be "forever British"? - Yours, etc,
NIALL VALLELY, Dublin Road, Newry, Co Down.