Dublin South West TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, who was involved in the discussions that led to the historic Good Friday Agreement, has expressed his deep disappointment at the failure to reach an agreement and the deferment until September of the negotiations in the North.<\/p>\n
Crowe, who was addressing Sinn F\u00e9in activists in Dublin South West, said that Sinn F\u00e9in believe that an agreement to deliver for all the citizens of the North can be reached if outstanding issues already agreed in the past are addressed.<\/p>\n
Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said<\/p>\n
“I am deeply disappointed that a deal has not been done to get the Assembly up and running in the North.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo hear a senior DUP figure saying on Morning Ireland recently that the Irish Government should keep their nose out of the talks highlights the gulf between reality and the make believe world that some DUP members believe exists in 21st Century Ireland.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is clear that the DUP have a lot thinking to do over the summer holidays but Sinn F\u00e9in is available at any time to resume discussions. Our objective is to restore the political institutions as quickly as possible. However, any agreement must deliver for all the citizens of the North. The institutions can only work if it is on the basis of respect, integrity and equality.<\/p>\n
\u201cAgreement around identity, equality and respect are clearly at the heart of any meaningful way forward. The issues that need to be resolved are not Sinn F\u00e9in issues. They are right-based issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cI personally can\u2019t understand why anyone would oppose a human rights approach to building a new society, or why someone would be frightened or upset at the prospect of two people who love each other expressing that love in a lifelong commitment of marriage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy would anyone who calls themselves a democrat oppose or refuse the opening of relevant files that could expose the dirty dealings and the extent of the collusion between a Government\u2019s security forces and sectarian death squads?<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite the fact that more than 15,000 republican men and women have collectively served more than 100,000 years in jail the British Government and Unionist parties now claim that there is an unfair focus on prosecuting murders carried out by the British State and its agents.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy would anyone block the genuine attempts of families to find answers though the courts of the circumstances around the death of their loved ones?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Deputy Crowe continued:<\/p>\n
“We know that 19 years after the Good Friday Agreement and 10 years on from St Andrew\u2019s the DUP have blocked an Acht na Gaeilge, a Bill of Rights, Marriage Equality, anti-secretarian measures and progress on the vexed problem of outstanding legacy issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to be talking about building an inclusive society not scoring points or looking for a counter balance to appease or calm down naysayers.<\/p>\n
\u201cSurely we can and should be learning from past mistakes and creating structures and rights based approaches that should be available to all citizens in a modern democratic society.<\/p>\n
“It is clear that a restored Assembly is only tenable if it is based on fairness, equality and mutual respect.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe that an agreement can be delivered if outstanding agreed issues are addressed in a meaningful fair and equitable way.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dublin South West TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, who was involved in the discussions that led to the historic Good Friday Agreement, has expressed his deep disappointment at the failure to reach an agreement and the deferment until September of the negotiations in the North. Crowe, who was addressing Sinn F\u00e9in activists in Dublin South West, said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186,277,272,35,50,278,299,279,197],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-british-government","category-dup","category-equality","category-good-friday-agreement","category-human-rights","category-irish-language-act","category-north","category-st-andrews-agreement","category-stormont-house-agreement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3177"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3178,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3177\/revisions\/3178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}