Taoiseach backs call for UN shake-up

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern yesterday backed a call from the Pope for the institutions of the UN to be renewed to enable it respond better to an adapting world.

Responding to Pope Benedict’s World Day of Peace message yesterday, Mr Ahern also said he shared the Pope’s concern about terrorism.

“As we know from our own experience on the island of Ireland, no cause can ever justify terrorism and there are no circumstances in which it can be tolerated. In working against terrorism, we must also endeavour to address the conditions in which it flourishes,” he said.

But Mr Ahern said he was now hopeful that, in Ireland at least, “the use of violence for political ends has been consigned forever to history” after last year’s IRA decommissioning.

In the international sphere, Mr Ahern pledged Ireland would continue to work towards the advancement of fundamental human rights alongside the UN.

“We cannot hope to realise the benefits of peace where the integral development of the person and the protection of his or her fundamental rights are hindered or denied, or where people are forced to endure intolerable injustices and inequalities.

“The connection between the promotion of fundamental rights and the promotion of peace is one that Ireland would equally stress. We have worked consistently to achieve this connection, particularly through our membership of the United Nations over the last 50 years,” he said.

Mr Ahern also pledged to continue to work towards ending the proliferation of nuclear weapons and recommitted Ireland to achieving the UN’s Millennium Goals.

“Ireland is firmly committed to these objectives, as it is to all the Millennium Development Goals, and has provided increased financial support both for combating preventable diseases and for the relief of the debt of the poorest countries,” he said.

Meanwhile Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin John Neill used his New Year message to call for an amnesty for immigrants who have been in Ireland for more than five years.

“Many of these people, here for several years, who certainly now see this as their home, face into the new year with a deep sense of fear in relation to possible deportation.

“Among these are a small number of unaccompanied minors, most with little or nothing to which to return.

“Our thoughts go out to these teenagers who may have been here for three or four years assimilating to Irish society, gaining from our educational system, and now, on reaching 18, facing into yet another upheaval, being forced to return to something from which they once fled,” he said.

In a Mass for world peace in Dublin yesterday, attended by President Mary McAleese, members of the Government and diplomatic corps, the congregation was told it was the desire of every Irish person to leave political violence behind forever.

Father Enda Lloyd, Episcopal Vicar of the Dublin Diocese said: it was “heartening to see people here in Ireland and on the world stage dedicated to peace, despite setbacks and hardships.”

In his New Year address Church of Ireland primate of all Ireland Robin Eames said the forthcoming year was one of hope for the whole community.