Ireland: hope after handshake

30 Nov -0001, 12:00 am   -   Source: AFP
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Protestant leader Ian Paisley shakes the hand of Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, again after their talks, at Farmleigh House in Dublin. (AAP)

Protestant leader Ian Paisley shakes the hand of Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, again after their talks, at Farmleigh House in Dublin. (AAP)

Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern and Northern Ireland's First Minister-in-waiting Dr Ian Paisley shook hands in public for the first time, in Dublin for informal talks.

Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern and Northern Ireland's First Minister-in-waiting Dr Ian Paisley shook hands in public for the first time, in Dublin for informal talks.

Ahern and Paisley both voiced hope for the future as the firebrand Protestant Democratic Unionist party (DUP) leader prepares to head a power-sharing administration in Belfast on May.

"I trust that old barriers and threats will be removed day-by-day," Mr Paisley said.

"We look forward to future meetings and trust that old suspicions and discord may be buried under the prospect of mutual and respectful cooperation."

It was all smiles and banter and another handshake as the two leaders read prepared statements after their 90 minute meeting and both underlined mutual respect and benefits and generous co-operation in the future.

Mr Ahern said it was a time of unprecedented hope for Northern Ireland.

"We have had a very businesslike, a very friendly discussion on a range of matters of mutual interest," Mr Ahern said.

"At this time in our history we must do our best to put behind us the terrible wounds of our past and work together to build as new relationship between our two traditions.

"I fervently believe that we move on from here in a new spirit of friendship. The future for this island has never been brighter."

In an accord last month the DUP and the Catholic Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, agreed to share power.

Long-time arch foes Paisley and leader of Sinn Fein Gerry Adams held their first ever face-to-face meeting to clinch the deal but there was no public handshake.

Paisley had shaken hands with Ahern in private before at negotiations in St Andrews in Scotland last year when the Irish leader presented Paisley and his wife with a bowl carved from a walnut tree from the site of the Battle of the Boyne in the Republic to mark their 50th wedding anniversary.
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