McAleese apologises calling sectarianism a 'shared problem'

Irish President Mary McAleese has said she is "deeply sorry" after she claimed some Northern Ireland children were taught to hate Catholics in the same way Nazis despised Jews.

The remark, made during an interview on RTÉ's Morning Ireland programme shortly before the President attended ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the Auschwitz liberation last week, attracted condemnation from unionist politicians in Northern Ireland.

The DUP’s Ian Paisley Jnr said Mrs McAleese had “deliberately vilified an entire community” and that the timing was “quite sick”.

Senior Ulster Unionist Michael McGimpsey also criticised the comments describing them as “outrageous”.

But, speaking at the weekend Mrs McAleese said she was "personally absolutely devastated" by the furore surrounding the comments. "I said that people in Northern Ireland who taught their children for example, to hate for example Catholics, and I should have gone on to say, and Protestants, because the truth of the matter is that, of course, sectarianism is a shared problem,” she said.

"I was trying to make a point and I made it very clumsily indeed. I am the first to put my hands up and say I made it very clumsily indeed."

For some, however, Mrs McAleese’s comments have come too late.

West Tyrone Ulster Unionist Assembly Member Derek Hussey called for the Irish President to resign.

"Unlike my colleague, Michael McGimpsey, I do not accept the Irish President's apology nor that this matter should now be over,” Mr Hussey said. “Mrs McAleese has, irrevocably insulted the Protestant people of all of Ireland, caused untold damage to ongoing peace efforts in Northern Ireland and tainted the integrity of her position as Head of State of the Republic.”

Mrs McAleese, who was born in Belfast, joined with concentration camp survivors and over 40 heads of state for memorial ceremonies in southern Poland on Thursday.

(MB/SP)