
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, November 20, 1994                   TAG: 9411220050
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A19   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: DUBLIN, IRELAND                                 LENGTH: Short

NEW PARTY LEADER IN IRELAND

Finance Minister Bertie Ahern was picked Saturday by Ireland's largest party to try to form a new government, and he immediately put peace in Northern Ireland at the top of his agenda.

``Peace is still the most important issue and priority for us,'' said Ahern, who could become prime minister if he can build a coalition for his Fianna Fail party.

Ahern must lure back the Labor Party, which brought down the government of former Fianna Fail leader Albert Reynolds this week when it left the coalition over the appointment of a religious conservative to Ireland's High Court.

Known as one of the strongest negotiators in Reynolds' coalition, the 43-year-old Ahern said he would ``like to bring any talent I have for conciliation to bridge the political divisions in the north.''

He must heal the rift with the Labor Party by Tuesday, when Parliament is scheduled to vote on forming a new government.

Reynolds, 60, resigned as prime minister and party chief Thursday after Labor pulled out of his coalition government over the appointment of his attorney general to the High Court.

Labor said Harry Whelehan was unfit for promotion because as attorney general he had failed to extradite to Northern Ireland a priest facing child molestation charges there. Whelehan also resigned Thursday.

Reynolds argued that allowing his government to fall would jeopardize a chance for peace in Northern Ireland, where the Irish Republican Army has declared a cease-fire in its 25-year-old campaign against British rule.

by CNB