Paisley Jnr hits out at Ahern's comments

North Antrim DUP MLA, Ian Paisley Jnr has today accused the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern of being “out of touch with reality”.

Mr Paisley was reacting to comments made by the Irish prime minister during a television interview on the BBC on Sunday.

Speaking on the BBC's Breakfast with Frost programme Mr Ahern said he was willing to work with all the parties to restore the power-sharing executive and the fulfilment of the Good Friday Agreement.

Mr Ahern said he believed the Agreement could still survive despite the suspension of the Northern Ireland Executive in October 2002 amid allegations of IRA intelligence-gathering in the Stormont government.

"If you were to have that kind of frustrated period and rejectionist period that I hope we do not see, then the future would be bleak and you would inevitably get back into some kind of conflict, let us hope it would not be violence," he said.

However, Mr Paisley said the Good Friday Agreement was now dead: “Bertie Ahern’s comments show that he is out of touch with reality. The Assembly election result showed clearly that a majority of unionists, almost two thirds in fact, do not support the Belfast Agreement.

"By the Belfast Agreement’s own rules, that it must have the support of a majority of the majority community as well as a majority of the minority community, the old Agreement is dead. Mr Ahern needs to awaken from this bout of denial.

"The people have spoken and they want a new agreement not the old, failed Agreement," he concluded.

(MB)