Haass failure dents confidence – Archbishop

Archbishop Eamon Martin has warned the inability of politicians to agree a deal during the recent Haass process has dented confidence in the political process

The inability of politicians to agree a deal during the recent Haass process has dented confidence in the political process Archbishop Eamon Martin has warned.

“The failure to broker agreement has not been cost-free. Confidence in the ability of politics to resolve difficult problems has been undermined. Trust between the parties and even between whole communities is again being put under strain,” the archbishop said.

Speaking at the Ballymena Borough Church Members’ Forum in Co. Antrim, Dr Martin said “it will take courageous and creative leadership to move things forward, a leadership that has enough self-belief and commitment to the greater good to look beyond the next election or purely party-political interests”.

He expressed the concern that the search for peace and reconciliation “tends to be left almost exclusively to politicians”. Archbishop Martin said that voluntary organisations, schools and Churches have “a responsibility to inject new momentum and creativity by modelling positive relationships and challenging sectarianism”.

He also called for a rejection of the claim that all citizens of the North are equally to blame. “We should not be afraid to question the creeping narrative that ‘we are all equally to blame’ [for what happened in the past] and to challenge any attempts to ‘revise’ or ‘control’ the narrative about the past.

“The vast majority of citizens across this island and on all sides of the community rejected paramilitary violence,” the archbishop said.