Martin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the delegates for their presentations. I share a good deal in common with them as I am a former political prisoner. I find it very annoying at times when people refer to people's past in terms of they having a criminal record. I do not accept that and I never will. All my actions, and I assume all the actions of people who were involved in and combated the conflict, were politically motivated. People who have been prisoners as a result of the conflict who wish to travel to America, Australia or to leave the country find they are prohibited from doing so and this is a major issue. In the current circumstances that prevail in this country, people who are still relatively young have to remain unemployed because they cannot access work outside the country in many areas as a result of their having been involved in the conflict. That was emphasised legislatively in this House in the recent past and as a result people cannot even get a job as a taxi driver because they have been former prisoners of war, POWs. In the Six Counties special political advisers were discriminated against because they had been prisoners in the conflict. I would strongly argue that in respect of the Good Friday Agreement, all the negotiations on it and the goodwill towards it, a great deal of convincing of people of its value came from the prisoners and former prisoners who worked within their communities to ensure it was acceptable across this island.

I would like to think, and I expect Deputy Frank Feighan or any of the Deputies here would support me on this, that if Sinn Féin was in government down here and if I was part of the Sinn Féin team, either as a political adviser or as an elected representative, that there would be no doubt that my position would be accepted. I find it insulting that people like Mary McArdle and Paul Kavanagh have found themselves outside the pale as a consequence of opportunistic political reasons motivated by one party trying to embarrass another. I would like to get the delegates' views on that. I hope we will make a strong argument in favour of getting rid of the "records", as they are called. I think this committee should make representations to the Government regarding legislation that has come through that effectively categorises former political prisoners in the same category as child abusers, rapists and so forth. I think that is terrible.