Dublin sees basis for lasting peace in Northern Ireland

DUBLIN (Reuters) -- The Irish government said Wednesday it believed that lasting peace was within reach in Northern Ireland after 30 years of bloody sectarian strife.

"Slowly the mutual confidence of both communities is being built up and the foundations are being laid for a lasting peace," Prime Minister Bertie Ahern and his deputy Mary Harney wrote in an annual government report.

"Many serious challenges remain but we believe that the momentum gathered will allow us to meet them successfully," they added in the report as they reviewed three years in government at the head of a center-right coalition.

Roman Catholics, who want to see a united Ireland, and pro-British Protestants are now sharing power in a Northern Ireland executive in Belfast following a breakthrough agreement brokered by Dublin and London in 1998.

The main guerrilla groups, including the Irish Republican Army, are observing cease-fires, although dissident republicans are seen as a growing threat to the peace process.

The Irish government also pledged to restore public confidence in domestic politics after a string of sleaze allegations arising from public inquiries into payments to politicians.

"We are determined to find the truth whatever it is. We are determined to deal with all the issues that arise from all the inquiries however many and complex they are," Ahern and Harney wrote.

The pair head a minority coalition between Ahern's Fianna Fail and the small Progressive Democrat party, led by Harney.

The government repeated its pledge to serve a full five-year term and not call a general election until 2002. However, some political commentators believe the coalition could unravel before the end of the year, especially if the drip-feed of sleaze allegations further weakens Fianna Fail.

On Wednesday, former Irish Prime Minister and ex-Fianna Fail leader Charles Haughey spent a fourth day in the witness box at the Moriarty Tribunal in Dublin as tribunal lawyers grilled him on allegations he received secret payments of 8.5 million Irish pounds ($10 million) during his long political career.

Haughey, 74, retired from active politics in 1992, but his legal problems appear to be undermining support for his former party, according to recent opinion polls.

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