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

I thank our guests Mr. Michael Culbert, Mr. Tom Roberts and Mr. Robert Campbell for their contributions. I am an ex-prisoner myself and I find a few areas extremely worrying. One area is the issue regarding taxis and another area is that of visas, and there is also the message that this sends out. I was in jail in America and I cannot get into America or Canada, and that is the case now 17 years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. That sends out the wrong message. It is very difficult for anyone on the front line, whether loyalist or republican, to hold the line in terms of their support. As Mr. Tom Roberts said, there is obviously wavering in terms of the Good Friday Agreement in the loyalist community. He is not sure whether it would get the same vote again. That shows the seriousness of situation, that there is a reluctance on behalf of both this Government and the British Government to engage, to see an end to this conflict and to write it into the history books in terms of the rights of individuals who were convicted and jailed in this conflict.

There is also a situation where people are being charged on an ongoing basis over similar things that happened in the past. Rightly or wrongly, we entered into the Good Friday Agreement, and the matter of constantly trying to go back and charge people or otherwise must be left behind. That is only adding to the problems. Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan mentioned that there are people in jail at present. They will be the next ones we will be dealing with down the road. I find it very difficult.

In terms of the Taxi (Regulation) Bill, I am the Sinn Féin spokesperson on transport. When I raised this issue, I tried to get clauses included in that Bill in terms of people under the Good Friday Agreement to the effect that there should no bar to them holding a taxi licence. The political resistance from the Government here, never mind anywhere else, was massive. The Government would not entertain it. The resistance to it from the Opposition among Fianna Fáil was also massive. If we cannot get such provision at that level, we have a serious problem. The attitude of both governments on this has been one of incrementally clawing back on many things that were agreed under the Good Friday Agreement. This is something that needs to be addressed. I take on board the idea that legislation would have been the right way to go. That would have solved the problem in terms of some type of expunging of records or otherwise as a result of the conflict. We entered into an international agreement that was overseen by the Irish Government, the British Government and the Americans and there should be no bars in this respect in terms of people who took part in that conflict. We have had excuse after excuse as to why the British Government, its ambassador or otherwise will not come to meetings and we are constantly getting that. Sometimes one has to call a spade a spade. They do not really want to engage in a lot cases. That is very sad. It is not good and it is not sending out the right message to the communities. It is giving many people who are dissidents, whether republican or loyalist, a platform. We have to shout louder about this.