Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Good Friday Agreement is one of the most important achievements of 20th century Ireland. It was achieved thanks to the hard work of many dedicated people, including quite a few in the House, and we must honour that achievement with our own dedication to implementing the Agreement and what flowed from it.

I wish to address an issue that affects a large number of people and their families on both sides of this community, but especially the Nationalist side on this part of the island. I am a member of that group, as are some members of other parties who have been elected to the Oireachtas. I speak of former political prisoners and their rights. Many speak abstractly about former combatants and those imprisoned as a result of the conflict. They speak of them as if they have never met one, as if we are unfit to be members of society or are not active members of our communities - fathers, mothers, husbands, wives and providers. This must surely be the case, as in many instances we are not given any consideration in policy formation. I hesitate to use the word "criminal" because it is so insidious in this context, yet that is how we are treated. I am not a criminal, I never was a criminal and I will never allow anyone to treat me as such. I am not alone in this feeling, but many still face criminalisation years or decades out of prison.

The Good Friday Agreement is clear in opposing the erection of barriers to former prisoners finding employment. The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Varadkar, and the Minister of State, Deputy Kelly, have twice deliberately worked against this principle. In 2011, the Minister introduced a Bill that discriminated against former political prisoners from operating as hauliers. This complaint fell on deaf ears. He had time to make some supposedly witty quips and statements in poor taste, but he had none to consider his Bill's repercussions for the hard-working people whose livelihoods were under threat or the damage done to the Government's credibility in advancing the peace process.

Tomorrow, the Dáil will debate the Taxi Regulation Bill, which will make it possible to suspend or disqualify former political prisoners from operating taxis. The Minister of State has tried to fob the issue off on the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter. This is rubbish. Many former political prisoners are taxi drivers. They will need to appeal to hold on to licences that they have operated without problem for many years.

The Minister might not believe that there is a difference between someone like me and a common criminal, but the people showed they believe differently. The Agreement certainly differs. In the Mr. Daniel McComb case in the North, the courts ruled that it was wrong to discriminate in this exact context. What exactly about the term "equivalency of rights" does the Irish Government not understand? Problems also persist for those who seek employment in the security industry, but it is a difficulty in many more fields. Will any Deputy tell me that neither I nor Deputy Martin Ferris is fit to drive a taxi, or that Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness, is good enough to sit at the Executive table but not anywhere else?

The Government must work to provide a legislative basis to ban discrimination in employment against former political prisoners covered by the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. This issue must be a consideration in every Bill it introduces. Treating international agreements to which it signed up as àla carte menus is not good enough. The Government also has a role in holding its partner in the Agreement to account and in pushing for equality and justice in the North. The Government has done little to push this agenda forward or to progress the Agreement's implementation. It has cynically used the North as a stick with which to beat Sinn Féin, usually displaying a shocking lack of knowledge of the North, the history of the conflict and the issues facing the people today. We need the Government to be a strong campaigner for the Agreement, but how can we expect that when it shows such little respect for it in the Twenty-six Counties?

It is only right that the Government should speak of a shared future through the peace process. It is what we seek to build. Ex-prisoners have been to the fore in pushing the process onwards and in working across communities to build a shared future. The Government would do well to join them in their work instead of devising new ways of barring them from employment or treating them as pariahs. Let us not roll back the clock. It is time to move forward.

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