Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has revealed the one thing he would have done differently during the Good Friday Agreement negotiations if he could turn back the clock.
Speaking exclusively to The Irish Mirror, the former Fianna Fáil TD said that he hopes unionist parties will “make an effort” over the summer to stand back up the Northern Irish Institutions following the signing of the Windsor Framework.
Mr Ahern (71), was one of the signatories of the Good Friday Agreement, which turns 25 years old on Monday.
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The agreement came following years of violence, segregation and instability in Northern Ireland. Discussions between politicians for Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States lasted for months and their fraught nature suggested at times that agreement, and peace, would not come.
A quarter of a century on, Mr Ahern told us that the agreement has “worked” and transformed Northern Ireland.
He said: “You’d like to see that all the outstanding bits moved on and finished but, unfortunately, the Institutions aren’t up.
“The North is a peaceful place. I spend a lot of time up there and, thank God, there is very little trouble.
“There is small bits now and again, but very little.
“The Agreement has worked very well insofar as there is peace, there is no big problems and the economy is going well. Tourism is going well.
“Young people are having a ball. It is a good place.
“But it is a pity that the Assembly and the Executive aren’t working, but hopefully we’ll get to that eventually.”
Mr Ahern said that “in hindsight” he wishes those negotiating the Good Friday Agreement had addressed legacy issues and issues facing families who had lost loved ones during the Troubles.
The UK Government is currently debating a Bill that proposes amnesty for those accused of killings and other Troubles-related crimes.
The former Taoiseach said that he would have preferred if legacy issues were sorted sooner but also understands why it was not tackled.
He said: “There are [things I would do differently]. There were some things that worked swimmingly well and then others things were dragged out, like the decommissioning of arms.
“The one thing that we didn’t touch on at the time was legacy. I spent a good bit of time recently meeting a lot of the groups that are involved in the legacy issue, mainly relatives of people who were killed and also people who were badly injured.
“I met Wave recently, which is an organisation run by Alan McBride whose wife was killed in the Shankill bombing [in October 1993]. They are an inclusive group of people — Catholic, Protestant and all sides. A lot of them were really badly injured.
“I met another group with Reverend [Gary] Mason. They are still waiting around to get finality.
“That is something we didn’t deal with at the time because it was too raw just after the ceasefire, but it is still outstanding 25 years later.
“If I had my way again, I would have set up something that would have tried to move that on,
“I do feel sorry… You meet cases that really, really touch you. There was one woman, her father was an RUC man and the IRA blew up her father, but they killed her mother as well. She was only 17.
“10 years later when she was married and had her own kids, she got caught up in a bomb where the IRA killed six British soldiers. She lost her legs in the bomb.
“Jesus, what do you say? You really feel sorry [for them].”
He continued: “I’d like to see more reconciliation. I think there probably needs to be, for the next number of years, more focus on reconciliation to bring both sides together.
“There are great things happening in some communities. But in other areas, there’s not.”
Mr Ahern said that he does not believe that the institutions in Northern Ireland will be back up and running until after the local elections which will be held in May.
“I hope they make an effort after that and try and make progress,” he added.
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