The rainbow government from 1994 to 1997 Good GaelThe Labor and Democratic left have never been properly recognized for the role they played in preparing the Belfast Agreement, former Justice Minister Nora Owen said.

Launching Under The Rainbow, a book by former government press secretary Shane Kenny, Ms Owen said the role played by former Fine Gael taoiseach, among others, John Brutonwho died at the beginning of the year, “was forgotten”.

“We were working solidly well before that. I compared it to setting the table. We set the table. We put the chairs around the table. We even set the cutlery. And we were past the starter.

“And we were waiting for someone to go ahead and put the main course on the table, followed by dessert. That’s what happened in 1998,” she said, reflecting Fine Gael’s irritation at the credit given to the Fianna Fáil party. Bertie Ahern.

Former US senator George Mitchell, who chaired the talks that led to the Belfast agreement, said Mr Ahern and British Prime Minister Tony Blair “had the opportunity to get into the books of history as the men who brought peace to Northern Ireland.

“But he added that they owed this opportunity to their predecessors who started the process and continued it. And I have to say that this is often forgotten, having been part of these discussions myself,” Ms Owen said.

Praising the book, she said it captured the enthusiasm of those years when Fine Gael, Labor and the Democratic Left formed the state’s first three-way coalition.

“It was a great honor for John to become taoiseach,” the former Fine Gael TD said at the book launch at Hodges Figgis in Dublin, attended by Mr Bruton’s widow, Finola, and his brother and fellow cabinet member, Richard.

“He had many years of experience in the Dáil and the Senate and all sorts of policy areas and it would have been a travesty, that’s how I feel, if he had never made it to the taoiseach’s office.” she added.

In pointed remarks, Mr Kenny, a former RTÉ journalist, sharply criticized Mr Ahern – “even though I love him” – for giving the former credit. Fianna Fail the leader had claimed the implementation of the Belfast agreement.

“I think he needs to think about how he can be a little more generous to, like Nora said, the people who set the table and prepare the food and everything else. All that was left was dessert to prepare,” he said.

He wrote 40,000 words of the book in the year after the Rainbow Coalition left, but was prompted to finish it because of the way Mr Bruton’s role had been ignored during celebrations of the 25th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement.

“There was not a single mention of John Bruton. It really inspired me to get out the notes, the pieces of paper, the hotel booklets that I had written things in,” said Mr Kenny, whose book is published by Gill & McMillan.

“George Mitchell said the opportunity for (Ahern and Blair) was created by their predecessors. And that’s absolutely true. And we must recognize it. And what John Bruton achieved must be recognised,” he said.

Bruton and Blair laid the foundations for the second IRA ceasefire in July 1997 and Sinn Féin’s entry into talks six weeks later.

Bertie Ahern “tried to give the impression” that he had “done a lot to make the IRA see the light”, Mr Kenny said, but the IRA and Sinn Féin “had already seen him” because of the discussions with Mr Bruton and Mr Blair.

“So, was there a Bertie effect here?” » he asked. Quoting Mr Blair’s press secretary, Alastair Campbell, Mr Kenny said he recorded how Mr Blair “was not at all impressed” by what he had heard during his first meeting with Mr Blair. . Ahern.

“He turned to Alastair Campbell and told him that Bertie Ahern was just walking the Sinn Féin line endlessly. And he told her that he feared that the peace process would take a setback. It’s there in Alastair Campbell’s Irish Diaries.

“You don’t see that much in the Irish press. But that’s the reality. Bertie likes to think, and continues with this mythology, that he wrapped it all up,” Mr Kenny said, adding that the period should be “carefully examined by historians”.

Finola Bruton said the book illustrated “how all-consuming Northern Ireland was in those years” when the Rainbow Coalition was in power. The violence was “completely anathema to him,” she said, adding that her late husband “challenged the cynicism and sentimentalism, not only of people in this country, but of people in the United States ( towards the IRA). He would have made no apology for that.”