A Protestant clergyman had said that unionists in Northern Ireland feel politically isolated and fear the eventual loss of their constitutional link to Britain.
The Rev Earl Storey, Church of Ireland rector for Glenavy in Co Antrim, was among political and Church representatives addressing the Peace and Reconciliation Forum in Dublin Castle yesterday (Thursday).
Mr Storey said the "most corrosive" element within the unionist psyche was the belief that the political process was being "profoundly corrupted".
"The price of a political peace settlement has come in terms of the early release of terrorist prisoners of all hue. It has also meant sharing the process of government with representatives of political parties that have relationships with various terrorist organisations," he said.
"The verbal semantics employed in recent years to cloud
these relationships are, quite frankly, an insult to the intelligence.
"However, such is the process of making a political settlement, with the hope of longer-term peace and reconciliation."
The clergyman said the unionist community needed to know that "the war is over".
"It is not unreasonable to expect a vigorous political process where none of the parties in power are infected with paramilitary activity in the background," he said.
Dr Sam Hutchinson and the Rev George McCullagh, representing the Presbyterian Church, expressed their concern about ongoing activities of paramilitary groups.
But they insisted that the vision of the Good Friday Agreement – that of creating a stable and equitable society in Northern Ireland within which diverse peoples could feel at peace and at home – remained important.
Referring to former republican prisoners' demands to be part of district policing, the Presbyterian representatives asked whether the Irish government would release Detective Garda Jerry McCabe's killers and "install them in oversight" of the gardai.
The clergymen present, who also included a representative of the Methodist Church, had been invited to address yesterday's forum meeting, entitled 'Political issues in and affecting Northern Ireland – views of Unionists and Protestants', to ensure that it heard from a cross-section of Protestants in Northern Ireland.
