MP pushes the case for equality

A packed Irish unity conference at the TUC headquarters Congress House heard Sinn Fein abstentionist MP for Tyrone Pat Doherty lay out the case for Irish reunification and equality with unionists in which he stressed that the agreement clearly recognised that all the people of Ireland north and south should determine their future and exercise self-determination.

The conference was one of many events involving the Irish diaspora globally on the issue of a united Ireland, he said.

"The international support which the diaspora helped generate was and remains very important. In any effort to advance a united Ireland the diaspora will play a crucial role," he added.

Seeking to reassure unionist concerns over how they would be treated in a future united Ireland, Mr Doherty (pictured) said that although the republican goal was an end to partition and the union with Britain, it was also about "the construction of a new national democracy, a new republic on the island of Ireland and reconciliation between Orange and Green."

At its heart was the right to jobs, homes, decent education, health care, equality in the Irish language and full participation in the democratic process, he stressed.

Irish historian Margaret Ward emphasised the need for a united Ireland to enshrine reproductive rights for women and promote more equal political representation between the sexes.

Reminding conference that the DUP in Northern Ireland had threatened to bring down the peace process in the past if the abortion law was amended, she said that in the last 30 years, 90,000 women had travelled abroad from Ireland to have an abortion.

In a wide-ranging conference, controversy emerged when SDLP assembly member Conall McDevitt claimed the war engaged in by republicans had been "dirty and futile."

But in response Ronnie Kasrils - the former head of intelligence for the ANC's armed wing MK - said: "The necessity to take up arms, your courage, inspired the anti-colonial struggles throughout the decades."