Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)

Coming from a Border county, I wish to relate my personal experiences and those of my family in regard to the Troubles. My family have played some part in bringing about a resolution to the problem in that my brother Niall, in New York, has played his part in the peace process. My children have not physically seen or heard what happened in the North in those years as they are too young. However, what this country does not want and will not accept is a return to violence.

The body of Jean McConville was laid at Cooley in north County Louth after she was murdered by the IRA. The day after the body was found, I, with my wife and friends, prayed for her there. We saw the care and love of her family in the words on the flat stone placed on the spot where she had lain for 32 years. It was a sad and tragic moment in a beautiful place in my county. We never want that to happen again.

There is no more appalling crime than to take a mother of ten children and bury her in an unmarked grave for 32 years. It was a tragic and appalling crime. We also know of the murder in County Louth of Tom Oliver, who was well known in his community in Cooley. He was a wonderful, fine family man who was done so low and desperately by the Provisional IRA.

The people want an end to the hooded and tortured dead bodies on the by-lanes and roads of south Armagh and north Louth. They do not want a return to violence, bank robberies and criminality, they want an end to all that forever. That is what we voted for in the Good Friday Agreement and what Ireland and Britain are working together on. There is no imperialist tyranny in Westminster. Instead, there is a British Prime Minister who wants to bring peace forever to our country, North and South. Successive Governments in the South have wanted the same thing.

An apology was made today to the Conlon family by the British Prime Minister — a touching, deep and sincere apology. Since the Northern Bank robbery, 500 British troops have been withdrawn from the North, barracks have closed and efforts have been made by the Government and others to show to members of Sinn Féin and the IRA that we will listen and that we want peace. We want them to sit honourably at the table but we do not and cannot accept that they would sit there with guns and criminality. There must be an end to that forever. This is a turning point in our history. It is a turning point in the modern Ireland of the 21st century and I urge Sinn Féin to listen to all of us, move forward in peace and democracy, bury forever its guns and end its criminality. That is what the public want. It is what voters, the British people and the American people want, so let us do it.

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