Announcing his resignation last night, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Andrews, said that the recent establishment of the institutions of the Belfast Agreement had opened a new era for all Irish people. Mr Andrews said that it was now for the young, of all traditions, to seize the opportunity and to move it on.
A similar message goes out to the IRA and other paramilitary organisations today that the time has come for them to honour their obligations under the agreement. The findings of the latest Irish Times/ MRBI poll show that an overwhelming majority of 86 per cent of voters believe that the paramilitary groups should now decommission their weapons - and this view is strongly held by supporters of all parties across the State.
The poll demonstrates the remarkable and sustained support by the people of this State for the Belfast Agreement in all of its component parts. The agreement was supported by almost 95 per cent of voters in the referendum in May, 1998. Some 86 per cent of the electorate still accept that the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons is one of the provisions of the agreement yet to be completed and they believe the IRA and other paramilitary groups should decommission now.
With nine days to go to the end of January, the message in today's poll is timely. The overwhelming majority of the voters in this State are demanding of Sinn Fein and the IRA that their commitments be honoured now. The leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, Mr Trimble, has met his obligations under the agreement and, at a great political risk to himself, has accepted Sinn Fein Ministers into the Northern Ireland Executive with the IRA's arsenal intact. The Northern Secretary, Mr Mandelson, has adopted the principal recommendations contained in the Patten Report on reforming the RUC and will proceed to implement them in due course.
The chairman of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning, General de Chastelain, is due to make a report to the British and Irish Governments by the end of this month. The moves must be made to enable him to report progress within the next nine days or the advances made in Northern Ireland will "fall apart" as the Taoiseach said recently in South Africa. It is now over to Mr Adams.
The clear majority of 52 per cent of voters who oppose the Government's move to consider changing the electoral system for the Dail is another interesting finding of today's poll. Only one-quarter of voters, 24 per cent, support the campaign by the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, to introduce single-seat constituencies and a list system for the election of half of the members of the Dail. Some 14 per cent say that they don't know enough about the proposed changes to make a decision and a further 10 per cent have no opinion.
This finding suggests that the Government could fail in its attempt to convince voters to set aside the current electoral system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote. The poll indicates that a referendum to change the system, such as was rejected in 1959 and in 1968, would fail again. The importance of an electoral system to democracy makes it imperative that the hearings of the All-Party Committee on the Constitution - which will consider any changes - should be held in public. The carrot to voters that there would be fewer TDs in a new system, should be seen in its broader context.