Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

Deputy Rabbitte is correct on the McCartney issue. Anything that involves people using heavy-handed action is wrong. I want to remain consistent with my statements. The PSNI refused to comment on the basis that the investigation is ongoing. The only two statements the Chief Constable has made on this, or that have been passed because they were in the public domain and were not in any way confidential, are that it was not a crime by some political group in furtherance of its objectives but it did involve people who belong to an illegal organisation. Regardless of whether they belonged to an illegal organisation, a crime like that, where a person is stabbed to death and another — Brendan Devine — badly injured, is horrific. I agree with Deputy Rabbitte's comment. The Chief Constable also said there had been intimidation of people who might be able to help the police. He said "might be able" and was not very firm on that. Police who carried out searches in the area were attacked by stone throwing youths. There were widespread reports in Belfast that senior members of the IRA were involved and the crime was cleaned up afterwards. As I said to Deputy Kenny, the PSNI has not given detailed reports to us on these matters.

I agree with the point made by Deputy Rabbitte and others on Northern Ireland, that in many ways some of these issues are more serious from the perspective of the Nationalist community than a bank raid. A bank raid does not affect people as much, other than the two families affected by the robbery, but this kind of behaviour does. That is the reason we need an end to criminality. I agree with that. I do not wish to wind these things up again but the point we have been making is that it is not just a question of money or petrol. A person has been stabbed to death and that is much worse. That is not to say the other acts are not bad, but it is much worse that somebody is dead. That is the reason and motivation for wanting to see an end to all these for everybody's sake, not least the people in Nationalist communities who are being affected in this particular instance.

On the McCabe issue, those responsible have release dates and will be released when those dates are reached. That is the position. Some of those dates are soon and some of them are not, "soon" meaning in a few years' time.

I have given no more thought to the question of Oireachtas representation. Naturally it would be a good development were we to achieve a comprehensive agreement, and we should still be able to do that although it would be in the context of a comprehensive agreement. It was only ever considered when the parties looked at this in the context of the Agreement back in 2001 and early 2002. It was on the basis of us having normality, and I hope we will return to that situation. I do not see a difficulty in that regard.

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