Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I move:

That Dáil Éireann:

—recognises the primacy of the Good Friday Agreement and the importance of both Governments continuing to protect and develop its achievements;

—welcomes the progress made to date towards the full implementation of a broad range of commitments made in the Good Friday Agreement;

—welcomes the continuation of cross-party support in the House for the peace process;

—reaffirms its view that this Agreement must form the basis of a lasting settlement in Northern Ireland;

—welcomes the progress represented by the proposals of the British and Irish Governments, published in December 2004, towards achieving a complete resolution of the key issues identified by the Taoiseach and Prime Minister Blair at Lancaster House in June 2004;

—regrets that there was no agreement at that time in relation to two key issues, namely, an end to all forms of paramilitary and criminal activity and decommissioning;

—notes that all parties to the Agreement undertook to pursue their political objectives by exclusively peaceful and democratic means, and that the Agreement envisaged full decommissioning of all paramilitary arms within two years;

—notes the damage which has been done to the peace process by ongoing criminality, including the recent robbery of the Northern Bank in Belfast and the assessment of the Irish and British authorities that the Provisional IRA was responsible for these crimes;

—notes that a report by the International Monitoring Commission regarding ongoing paramilitary and criminal activity will shortly be published;

—emphasises that there can be no room in a genuine peace process after ten years of engagement for threats of whatever kind;

—rejects recent comments by Sinn Féin spokespersons as to what constitutes criminality;

—underlines the need for a responsible and calm debate of the current difficulties in the peace process;

—notes the clearly expressed views of the Irish people that all paramilitary activity and criminality be permanently brought to an end;

—believes that with a resolution of current difficulties the restoration of the devolved institutions and the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement is achievable;

—welcomes the continuing and valued support of the President of the United States;

—notes the determination of the two Governments to maintain dialogue with all the Northern Ireland political parties;

—welcomes the Taoiseach's recent statement that his offer regarding the early release of the murderers of Detective Garda Jerry McCabe has been withdrawn; and

—expresses its full support for the ongoing efforts of the two Governments to bring to completion full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement.

I wish to share time with Deputies Coveney, Crawford and Timmins.

When the original Fine Gael motion for tonight's debate was tabled on Friday last, I made it clear that our objective was to achieve a consensus among the democratic parties in this House on what is required to see the will of the Irish people delivered through the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. The significance of the popular mandate given to the Agreement should not be forgotten or underestimated.

In May 1998, voting on an all-island, all-Ireland basis, the people overwhelmingly endorsed this Agreement with all the new rights and new responsibilities this entailed. They did so on the clear understanding that each party to the Agreement was committing itself to using exclusively peaceful and democratic means to achieve its objective. They also voted on the clear understanding that the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons would be completed within two years.

On Friday last, I forwarded a copy of the original Fine Gael motion to each leader of the political parties represented in this House. This morning I received a number of suggestions and additions to the motion from the Government. In the spirit of bipartisanship, Fine Gael decided to accept virtually all these suggestions and incorporated them into the Fine Gael motion. Following intensive dialogue with the Government, I am pleased to announce that we have reached agreement on the one outstanding issue: the release of the murderers of Detective Garda Jerry McCabe. I welcome the Taoiseach's latest statement in the House this afternoon in which he confirmed that this matter is off the table and that he does not envisage it being put back on the table.

Of all the acts of appeasement perpetrated by this Government, surely the most reprehensible — to borrow a favourite phrase from the Minister for Foreign Affairs — was the Taoiseach's secret deal with the IRA to release the common criminals who murdered Jerry McCabe when he was on duty for his country in Adare in 1996. The capitulation of the sovereign Government in the face of IRA intimidation represents the worst in a long list of concessions which have corrupted the peace process. A blind eye has been turned to the ongoing criminal activity of the IRA for too long, so long that they thought they could do as they pleased without anyone shouting stop. Tonight, the Fine Gael party is shouting stop and I hope the other parties in the House will join us in doing so.

In recent weeks I have had occasion to remind the Government that the Fine Gael position in respect of the peace process, unlike some others, has been consistent throughout. In government and in opposition, in public and in private, we have never played politics with the process. Since 1969, the Fine Gael approach to Northern Ireland has been based on three core principles, first, that there is no justification for the use of violence to achieve political objectives, second, we wish to see the coming together of all the people in Northern Ireland in agreed institutions and, third, there can be no change in the status of Northern Ireland without the consent of the majority of the people living there.

In government, these were the principles that guided Liam Cosgrave in 1973 to achieve the Sunningdale arrangements. These are the same principles that underpinned the Anglo-Irish Agreement signed by Garret FitzGerald in 1985 and the joint framework document launched by John Bruton and John Major in 1995. In opposition, these are the principles which enabled Fine Gael to support the Downing Street declaration in 1994 and the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. These principles have served Ireland well and they will continue to provide the basis for Fine Gael's approach.

The Good Friday Agreement was the culmination of years of work by many people for many parties and I acknowledge the role played by John Hume and Gerry Adams in the early 1990s which helped to create the conditions for all-party negotiations. Central to this dialogue was one crucial point which the republican movement now chooses to forget. The republican movement had, since the foundation of the State, challenged the validity of the institutions of Government on this island. It challenged the Oireachtas, including Dáil Éireann. It challenged the authority of the Garda, the Irish Army, the courts and the Government itself. It challenged the principle of consent. The basis for these challenges, according to the republican movement, was that the people of Ireland, North and South, had not had an all-Ireland, democratic electoral opportunity since 1918. This was the last time when all Ireland went to the polls on the same day.

For the past 30 years, the republican movement had claimed that the 1918 election legitimised its campaigns of violence, its killing of more than 2,000 people, its maiming of more than 20,000 people and its bombings in Ireland, Britain and the European mainland. It had claimed the same 1918 elections as its basis for rejecting Sunningdale and rejecting the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement.

It was against this background that the decision was taken to hold both referenda on the Good Friday Agreement on the same day. These referenda would remove any doubt that might have existed in the minds of the republican movement as to the nature of the Irish democratic mandate. The people of the island of Ireland voted overwhelmingly to accept the arrangements of the Good Friday Agreement and the consequent changes in Bunreacht na hÉireann.

I remind the republican movement, Sinn Féin and the IRA, that in so voting, the people of Ireland voted to reject violence, voted for the principle of consent and voted to mandate their political representatives to implement the Agreement in full. I respect the Sinn Féin electoral mandate but I remind it that I, too, have a mandate on behalf of the Fine Gael party. Sinn Féin has become accustomed to its mandate being disproportionately heard because it comes to us through a megaphone at the end of a gun. That must stop. No democratic party has a mandate for killing, robbery, racketeering, maiming or stalking. My mandate is to stand up for the truth, to defend and strengthen the institutions of this State and to allow democratic politics to build a country of peace and pride. I will not endorse an arrangement in which Sinn Féin is sent to the sin bin for a few months and then return to business as usual.

This debate gives this House an opportunity to send a clear message to the IRA and to its political representatives here in the House that this type of behaviour will no longer be tolerated. The republican movement must end all its illegal activities and complete the process of decommissioning. The urgency of completing this transformation has been highlighted by recent events and statements which have provided an alarming insight into the republican mindset and its conception of what is meant by its commitment to exclusively peaceful and democratic means. Its warped and twisted interpretation of criminality can classify crimes by whether its members were involved rather than by the acts themselves. It is very fond of demanding that due process be followed, for example, in relation to the recent Northern Bank raid. However, what due process was granted to Jean McConville when she was executed by the IRA or to Jerry McCabe when he was gunned down while on his country's service?

I know of no other democratic party in any democratic system which would refuse to describe these crimes as anything else. The ongoing republican illegal fundraising operations must also be brought to an end. Having escaped virtually scot free from its involvement in the Gallaher's and Makro robberies, perhaps the IRA thought it would try a bigger haul in December, the raid on the Northern Bank. Maybe it did not expect such a large haul but any other criminality it engages in is equally wrong.

Fine Gael's attitude to criminal activities engaged in by paramilitary groups has always been crystal clear. As far back as April 2003, when speaking in this House, I made it clear that all republican criminality must be brought to an end and that there should be no ambiguity about it. This is a matter about which the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform has been bleating for the past two months. However, he has failed to explain the reason he has done nothing to tackle criminality for the previous two and a half years when he had the powers and resources to do so. Despite his protestations to the contrary, the Minister had a central part in the October 2003 deal which, but for the intervention of David Trimble, would have seen the killers of Detective Garda Jerry McCabe set free, even though the Government sought no statement from the IRA to end criminality at that time.

What I find disturbing is the republican movement's version of democratic politics which appears to be one in which it holds sovereign Governments to ransom and resorts to threats and intimidation when it does not get everything it wants. It has yet to learn the true nature of its much vaunted electoral mandate. The Sinn Féin electoral mandate is for democratic politics, which requires negotiation and compromise, not threats and intimidation.

The Fine Gael message to Sinn Féin and the IRA is clear. We want the republican movement to join the democratic process, leave behind its criminality and criminal past, end punishment beatings and racketeering and back up its words of embracing democratic politics with actions to demonstrate them, rather than committing breaches of trust to undermine them. Only then will people have full confidence that all parties are pursuing their political objectives by the same means. Only then can we have confidence that our electoral process is not being corrupted by the proceeds of criminal activity.

My party does not want to see Sinn Féin excluded from the democratic process but unless it completes this journey, it will have deluded itself. We must now look to the future and efforts to revive negotiations between the parties. Recall of the Forum on Peace and Reconciliation would be beneficial in allowing parties to come together to explore how best talks could resume. Last Sunday, Sinn Féin president, Gerry Adams, said, "I am for straight talk." That opportunity now presents itself and actions in the cause of true democracy will always be more meaningful than lies, hypocrisy and ambiguity.

See this speech in context