Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Senators for their contributions, which were very thoughtful. I single out Senator Keaveney for her remarks on Constable Heffron of the PSNI. It is important that he and his family be kept in our minds, particularly because he was the embodiment of the new PSNI, as Senator Keaveney suggested. He was targeted, unfortunately, because he was a member of the PSNI and from the Nationalist tradition. This was also the case with Constable Carroll. These two incidents, in particular, show the insidious way in which so-called republicans operate.

It is often asked where one was when President Kennedy was assassinated. In Ireland, it is often asked where one was when the Omagh bombing occurred. When the bombing occurred, I was in a campsite in Carnac in France with my family. Having recently become a member of the Cabinet, I flew home from abroad, as did some of my colleagues. We broke off our holidays. It was very poignant in that my town was regarded as one of the areas whence the culprits came. Substantial numbers of people marched on the street of my home town to raise their voice against those from the area who may have been implicated.

In all my adult life, I have been acutely conscious of the threat posed by paramilitaries, not just by the dissidents who operate today but also by the former Provisional IRA operatives who were using the area south of the Border as a gateway into Northern Ireland in order to carry out atrocities. Senator Keaveney would have good knowledge of this. The one fantastic change made over recent years involves the enhanced co-operation between the PSNI and the Garda, and particularly the lack of suspicion on the part of both police services. Unfortunately, it must be said there was suspicion on both sides of the Border during the Troubles as to the operations of the respective police forces. I am thankful that is no longer the case.

It has become clear to me during my term as Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform that it is absolutely necessary to renew the legislative provisions. While much of what I said publicly is obviously on the record, I am briefed hourly or daily on the continuing threat of paramilitary activity on this island. In a perfect world, none of us would like this legislation or want it to be renewed year on year. The people it targets say they are trying to liberate our country, yet they are at the same time forcing the democratically elected representatives of the people to bring this type of legislation before the House.

I regard myself as a republican and it defies my logic that these people continue to operate on our island in a way that goes completely against the wishes of the vast majority of the Irish people. Potentially their activities are distancing us increasingly from their aspiration and from any aspiration to have a republic constituting a united Ireland. Their operations are entirely counterproductive in respect of the principle of unity on this island. To echo the views of Mr. John Hume and others, it is not so much a question of uniting the territory but of uniting the people on the territory. Without uniting the people, there will be no possibility of ever having a united Ireland.

I am thankful that one need only consider the incidents in Derry in recent days, and particularly the quite incredible acknowledgment by the Conservative British Government of the facts laid out in the Saville report, to see progress. I am thankful for the reaction of the Unionist community, or the vast majority thereof in that there was one exception among public representatives. The Unionist community accepted the report and said the events into which it inquired were wrong. Of all the incidents and hurdles since the Good Friday Agreement, this is an extremely significant one. Those of us who were alive at the time of Bloody Sunday will note it represented a cancer that had to be lanced.

After many years of prevarication and lies, we now have circumstances in which it is accepted by all that what happened on Bloody Sunday was entirely wrong, and that what happened in the years thereafter was not right and should not have been condoned. I congratulate all those who have campaigned in this respect over the years.

The continuation of the operations of the dissidents on our island is a cancer that we must get rid of. It is an insidious cancer. These unfortunate operations are being carried out by a relatively small number of people who have virtually no support in the community yet, as famously said of their predecessors, the Provisional IRA, it only takes a handful of them to wreak havoc on a society. When one considers the long litany of major incidents over the past year, one notes that a very serious attack on a PSNI officer in County Fermanagh was frustrated by a joint Garda-PSNI operation. A major roadside device was discovered in Forkhill. The detonation of a booby-trap bomb under a car injured the girlfriend of a PSNI officer and subsequently there was the horrific injury of Constable Heffron, which we mentioned earlier. There were car bomb attacks at the headquarters of the PSNI board and at Newry courthouse.

With regard to the points made by Senator Harris about directing, obviously it is not my role as Minister to direct the Garda Síochána to undertake prosecutions under particular sections. However, the offence of membership has been the most successful and is probably the most easily proved in court. The issue of directing is a little more difficult. The implementation of the Criminal Justice (Surveillance) Act which was passed in July last year has given the Garda Síochána a shot in the arm, as it were, with regard to the type of evidence it can bring forward. That legislation is being used actively not just for gangland crime but also for terrorist activity. I suspect it will be used in the context of trying to prove the directing of terrorist organisations.

As regards the issue of the caution which was raised by Senator Bacik, I am not aware that it has been changed. It is something I will examine and, if necessary, amendments can be made in that regard.

I thank the Senators for their approval of the motion. It is not easy for any democracy to introduce legislation such as this. If it was a perfect world, we would not introduce it. However, with the office I hold I believe it is absolutely vital to have this legislation on the Statute Book. I look forward to the day when it is not necessary.