Mr. Gerry Adams:

Sinn Féin has long favoured the notion of a truth and reconciliation commission. It is interesting that when one talks to folk in South Africa, some of them say that it helped the nation to heal but it did not help many of the victims. We should bear that in mind. That might not be true but I think there is a veracity about it. One can understand why that would be the case. The nation of South Africa was able to go ahead. Obviously, there are parallels with South Africa, but it is not the same. One of the main differences is that all that had to be done was for all the people of South Africa to be given the vote. That was all. They were not partitioned. There was no question of allegiance to another state. Whatever about their particular view, they were all South Africans. When all of them were given the vote, the ANC was very strategic in making sure there was power-sharing and keeping the Afrikaners on board and all of that craic. When the majority decided, they were able to take the lead and come to these decisions. There was no other government saying that they could not have a truth and reconciliation process. There was no other government that had to put its part into it.

I still think there is huge merit in what I term a truth recovery process. The reason it did not happen was that the British did not want it in the first instance. We have seen many examples since. When I come back to this all of the time, this is not to do anything other than to face up to the reality. There are two governments. This is not the British Government's Good Friday Agreement. It belongs to the people of Ireland. The people of Ireland voted for it. In my opinion, the Irish Government's equal co-guarantor role is not being exercised as well as it might be. I know Deputy Lawless was not here earlier when I mentioned as an example how the Irish Government was able to use the best of its diplomatic services, etc., to prevent a hard border. The same approach should be used in terms of all of what we are discussing here - how we shape and deal with the future. I reiterate I was advised that in the South African example, it allowed the nation to go on but it did not actually help some of the victims.