Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I said earlier that the bank robbery in Northern Ireland brought into sharp relief the need to address and resolve the key issues if trust is to be restored. That applies to assaults on people or other aspects which damage the process. I think everybody agrees with that.

I do not want the forum to meet if there is no great purpose in doing so. If people believe that forum meetings with an agreed agenda can help towards the goal of full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, let us hold them. Otherwise I am not sure there is a purpose in doing so. If the convenors want to discuss holding meetings which would be worthwhile, I have an open mind on that.

I apologise for not replying fully to Deputy Rabbitte's question regarding the SDLP, which Deputy Sargent also touched on. I do not feel that people are excluded from discussing any issue. In terms of the process in Northern Ireland, if one does not meet people on almost the same day as one meets someone else, people feel excluded. That is the nature of how things happen, with somebody or some small parties feeling excluded. It is not possible to meet everyone together. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform and I do our best and have done over the years to keep closely in touch with the parties. In the period up to the end of 2003, the parties felt excluded because they thought we gave all our time to working with the two parties which were then in the key positions, the UUP and the SDLP. That situation changed last year to include the DUP and Sinn Féin so naturally we gave a lot of time to them. We did not do so, however, to the exclusion of the other parties.

I take the point and I assure the House that we do our best to keep all the parties involved all the time. The difficulty is that round table discussions, which would make my life much easier, do not work because for obvious reasons one cannot get people around the table. Over the years some parties, by and large not the Nationalist parties, have contributed more than others to that problem, but I will not get into that. That is a difficulty. Mr. Blair and I have tried on many occasions to organise round table discussions, but someone fails to turn up and the story then revolves around that, which does not help the process.

Deputy Rabbitte is right that the SDLP has played a huge positive and constructive role in the peace process at all levels over the years and we have never deliberately left it out of the process. We treat the smaller Unionist parties and the Alliance Party similarly because we take an even-handed approach to dealing with the situation.

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