February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Andrew Bushe
DUBLIN — The Northern Ireland parties have been urged to make a "supreme effort" to overcome the outstanding obstacles in peace process by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.
"Immense damage will be done, if those opposed not just to the Good Friday Agreement but to implementing the overwhelming will of the people, North and South, were to succeed in frustrating democracy," Ahern said.
He told a Fianna Fail Wolfe Tone commemoration in County Kildare that there was no advantage to be gained from prolonged political stagnation and the rise in community tensions that would follow.
The taoiseach said the North stood tantalizingly on the brink of a major transformation with responsibility sharing across the religious and political divide.
If the peace process is implemented "in one leap Northern Ireland will move, from being a place where democracy has not functioned, to having one of the most innovative and inclusive democratic systems in the world.
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