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Tony Blair: gave symbolic apology in 1997 PA

British concerned Ireland could 'exaggerate' 1997 Famine apology to draw parallel with Bloody Sunday

Tony Blair received a ‘warm’ welcome for the apology made in Cork in 1997.

FORMER BRITISH PRIME Minister Tony Blair’s symbolic apology for the Great Famine in 1997 received a “warm” reaction in Irish official circles, official British archives show.

However, a British official also expressed concern that the Irish government might play up the apology to “exaggerate” a parallel with Bloody Sunday.

Blair said the people of Ireland were failed by the Government in London at their hour of need during the disaster, which reached its worst year in 1847.

British Government archives from 1997 were released by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI).

A restricted letter from Donald Lamont, an official in the British Government’s Republic of Ireland affairs section, dated 2 June 1997, discussed the Prime Minister’s statement that month on the famine.

It said: “I do not think I could have wished for a better response to the Prime Minister’s statement than that of the Taoiseach reported in your telegram number 178.

“The Irish Embassy have also been warm in their reaction.

“And if (Ulster Unionist) John Taylor is no more than ‘dismissive’ then no harm may have been done in that quarter.”

The humanitarian disaster, which lasted from 1845 to 1850, was prompted by a potato blight that turned Ireland’s staple crop into a mass of rotting and inedible material.

It caused an estimated one million deaths and forced two million starving and destitute Irish people to emigrate abroad, including to the US and Canada.

Blair had acknowledged the fact that “one million people should have died in what was then part of the richest, most powerful nation in the world is something that still causes pain”.

His statement was read out at a Famine commemoration in Co Cork.

Lamont wrote afterwards: “The most obvious downside would be attempts by the Irish to exaggerate the potential parallel with Bloody Sunday.

“The situations seem to me so different that that ought not to be too difficult to handle.”

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    Mute Paula T Nolan
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    May 17th 2021, 3:12 PM

    Lingering resentment due to lingering cost – still paying the Universal Social Charge. Also, it gave employers a new license to shrimp on salaries. I now take home the same after tax pay as in 2008. Resentment? Bloody furious. Especially as most of the boyos who facilitated crash are lining the hulls of their yachts with a greasy coat of paint for summer.

    258
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    Mute Chris Long
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    May 17th 2021, 2:45 PM

    Well if the banks employees says so…. its not like they’re on the payroll or anything!

    148
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    Mute Eoin Jackson
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    May 17th 2021, 3:24 PM

    @Chris Long: you should hear what a lot of people who work in the finance sector have to say about their employers – they are also on the payroll… Being on the payroll doesn’t make anyone give praise to their employers. Not saying the banks are great or anything but the point you are implying is heavily flawed.

    48
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    Mute Adrian™
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    May 17th 2021, 3:03 PM

    Why would anyone say you have trust in a bank? Unless the mean they trust the bank to treat you like dirt and charge you handsomely for the pleasure…

    181
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    Mute Michael Healy
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    May 17th 2021, 3:20 PM

    Banks had to be forced to put in a payment break for loans and mortgages in the first lockdown and wouldn’t even entertain it cone the second one, and yet wonder why people have low trust in banks. Some people think we have the bank debt paid off when in reality we are just adding the covid borrowing to the bank debt and we can forget things like the USC ever going away, meanwhile banks can put out these false mortgage and loan ads where they look great and friendly without realising when u fall on hard times, they turn into pack wolves and can cause people serious health issues trying to repay things back

    133
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    Mute Jack Cass
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    May 17th 2021, 2:31 PM

    Ah! the innocence of youth.

    124
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    Mute Karen Delaney
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    May 17th 2021, 3:47 PM

    They’ve given us no reason to trust them. While the rest of the population scrimped out a living on much reduced pay, bankers continued with high salaries and bonuses.

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    Mute Quiet Goer
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    May 17th 2021, 2:30 PM

    Pheic the cashless society

    42
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    Mute Corkonian In Dublin
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    May 17th 2021, 7:28 PM

    Asking bank staff about bank culture is like asking Landlords to vote for rent increases. If you want to know the true state of the Irish banking sector look at Ulster Bank and KBC. They are both pulling out. Leaving the country with AIB, BOI and PTSB. All of whom took state bailouts (your and mine pension money) and have yet to repay all of it (nor will they). I would like the EU to insist on the government to all Irish Citizens to open bank accounts in any bank on mainland Europe away from the so called “Pillar Banks”

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    Mute Niall Donnelly
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    May 17th 2021, 5:17 PM

    Shower of Bankers!!!

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    Mute Deirdre O'Byrne
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    May 17th 2021, 7:06 PM

    @Niall Donnelly: wunch of bankers.

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    Mute whitewater
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    May 17th 2021, 6:35 PM

    You can always trust the banks to screw you over. The future of banking is the likes of Revolut and N26. Revolut did what the major banks have resisted for years.

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    Mute Mark
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    May 17th 2021, 7:37 PM

    @whitewater: Revolut is not a Bank and your money is NOT covered under the deposit guarantee scheme

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    Mute thesaltyurchin
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    May 17th 2021, 6:48 PM

    If they could just do their job properly. These days anyone who can make a decision is surrounded by a jungle of in_ept monkeys, making them nearly impossible to contact, 4 years waiting for BOI to let us draw down the last of our mortgage! Don’t build a house people, not with a bank at least.

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    Mute Bill Spill
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    May 17th 2021, 9:19 PM

    @thesaltyurchin: 4 years waiting on the last drawdown?!?!? There HAS to be more to that story! Genuinely interested if you want to share

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    Mute Dsds
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    May 17th 2021, 7:14 PM

    I would have more trust in a politician than I would in a banker…..

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    Mute Rory J Leonard
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    May 17th 2021, 7:36 PM

    Irish Banking Culture Board!

    Was tried and tested First-World Corporate Governance procedures set down for Plc’s, including for Banks, not sufficient to establish an acceptable culture here, Boss?

    Is Ireland the only country on the planet with such a quaintly named organisation that’s established to assure the public that adherence to procedures manuals, first written hundreds of years ago on proper behaviour in day-to-day banking, is no longer optional for the senior management?

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