Ireland of Equals Sinn Féin -- Building an Ireland of Equals

Reamhra/Introduction

Sinn Fein - Advancing the agenda for an Ireland of Equals

by

Barry McElduff MLA West Tyrone.

I'd to take this opportunity to outline Sinn Fein's All-Ireland Agenda programme of work, to touch on the projects which make it up, and how it advances our vision of an Ireland of Equals - the vision of the 1916 Proclamation.

In February 2004, Sinn Fein published its proposals for "Expansion of All-Ireland Institutions and Areas of Work" after presenting them to the two governments as part of the review of the Good Friday Agreement. The paper contained detailed proposals for -

  • expanding the remits of the existing All-Ireland Implementation Bodies and Areas of Cooperation,
  • identification of new areas of cooperation and further implementation bodies,
  • the establishment of the all-Ireland institutions of the GFA - the All Ireland Parliamentary Forum and All Ireland Consultative Civic Forum, and
  • the initiation of a process to produce an All Ireland Human Rights Charter to underpin All Ireland governance, asserting comprehensive social, economic, cultural and political rights.

With our 32 county wide representation, Sinn Fein are also using these proposals in a campaigning way, with our MLA's and TD's involved in meetings with groups and NGO's in each and every sector, outlining our ideas for All Ireland expansion, and working to create the demand for increased and structured cooperation.

This is only one of the elements of our All-Ireland Agenda project.

In February 2005 Gerry Adams launched our discussion document, "A Green Paper for Irish Unity", to open up a campaign to urge the Irish Government to table a green paper in Leinster House, to begin the practical planning and preparation for re-unification.

Sinn Fein's document has been launched publicly in many parts across the 32 counties, from Ballinasloe to Lurgan, Portlaoise to Louth, and distributed locally by our cumann activists. In council chambers north and south, Sinn Fein councillors have tabled motions on this subject. Those councils which passed the motion were therefore mandated to officially write to an Taoiseach, urging him to move on this issue. In November 2005 our TD's in Leinster House sponsored a debate on our proposals, to make the other parties in the chamber tell the people where they stood on the aspiration to reunification, to which they all at least pay lip service.

Sinn Fein councillors in the border corridor region are involved in the Cross Border Corridor Groups [CBCG's], which involve representatives from all the councils in that area coming together, and working - through the EU's Interreg funding partnerships - to promote, encourage and fund local projects which cut across the border. Our councillors come together as the party's AONTU [Unity] group, to coordinate their strategy on the CBCG's. One of our objectives is to promote and lobby for Integrated Area Plans for this region, to work to make the border irrelevant, and invisible, for those who live and work in this multi-deprived and isolated region.

Across the 32 counties, Sinn Fein's councillors are now involved in implementing our Regional Campaigning strategy, where our elected representatives come together on a regional basis, identify the campaigns which are important and relevant to the people in their area, and work to both lead and empower local communities to agitate on these issues - whether in the south-east, in Connacht, in greater Dublin or in the north-west region, of Derry and Donegal and Tyrone.

We are also involved in constant lobbying around the refusal of the Irish Government to move on the issue of the representation of Northern MP's in the Oireachtas, and Ogra Sinn Fein have organised an energetic campaign around "A President For All", to enable all Irish citizens to be allowed to vote in Presidential elections

Sinn Fein are also continuing with an island-wide consultation on our "Rights For All Charter". This discussion paper is intended to open up the debate on the shape and form of the All Ireland Charter of Human Rights, and over the past eighteen months we have engaged with groups and NGO's, to listen to them and their views of what rights such a Charter should contain. We have met with ant-poverty groups, disability groups, women's groups and a wide range of others, including people active in the environmental, cultural and educational fields.

The shape and form of the new Ireland are at the centre of Sinn Fein's activity on our All-Ireland Agenda project. Our vision for the future is for a rights-based society, one which truly does "cherish all of the children of the nation equally", as the Easter Proclamation of 1916 stated, and it is fitting that modern day republican activists are carrying on the struggle for that vision, engaging with the people, right across Ireland, on the detail of the society we aspire to create.

2006 was the 25th anniversary of the 1981 hunger strike in the H Blocks of Long Kesh. At that time, the republican prisoners summed up their struggle in the form of the Five Demands. Now, as we build our political strength, and look towards our vision of the democratic socialist republic, Sinn Fein now lays out our five Demands - for Irish reunification -

  1. The Irish Government should produce a Green Paper on Irish unity.
  2. The work of the All-Ireland Ministerial Council should be expanded and further all-Ireland Implementation bodies created.
  3. Westminister MP's elected in the six counties should be accorded speaking rights in the Dail.
  4. Voting rights in Presidential elections should be extended to citizens in the Six counties.
  5. The Irish Government should actively engage with the British government and unionism to promote and seek support for reunification.