The Ulster Unionist leader has defended comments he made at the weekend in a speech at a meeting of the party's ruling Council. David Trimble said that the Republic was a pathetic, sectarian, and mono-cultural state.
Speaking to reporters at Stormont this morning, he said it was something he had said many times before. He claimed Nationalists and others had been overreacting and taking the comments out of context.
He repeated that the contrast was between what he said was a liberal, multinational State, such as the United Kingdom, and a mono-cultural State, which as not as liberal as the UK.
The SDLP's Bríd Rodgers has asked Mr Trimble to withdraw the remarks and her party leader Mark Durkan said they were gratuitously offensive and unbecoming of a party leader.
The Sinn Féin chairman, Mitchel McLaughlin, called on Mr Trimble to apologise. The Deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, Peter Robinson, said the comments were unfair to a society.
Dr Walton Empey, the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, said he would have expected more temperate language from a Nobel Prize winner.
Rev Thomas Kingston, District Superintendent of the Methodist Church in Dublin said that he believes Mr Trimble's statement "is both unfair and untrue".
Also at the AGM, during which Mr Trimble was unanimously re-elected leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, Mr Trimble called for a poll to be held next year on whether the North wanted to become part of a united Ireland. The Taoiseach's special adviser, Martin Mansergh, said that his suggestion of a "border poll" was "quite premature".
But a Downing Street spokesman has told RTÉ News that Tony Blair is prepared to discuss with David Trimble the First Minister's proposal. Mr. Trimble had called for a referendum next year in the North on a united Ireland.
Downing Street said this morning that the idea had not been discussed with the British government in advance but that the British Prime Minister would be happy to discuss with Mr Trimble any proposals he may have.
Mr Trimble is travelling to the United States today ahead of a meeting with US President, George W Bush, at the White House on Wednesday. The Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, will also be attending the meeting.
