Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I acknowledge what Deputy Ó Caoláin has said about the murder of Mr. McCartney, reiterating what the president of Sinn Féin, Gerry Adams, has said. That is helpful. On Connolly House, I recall raising the issue on the day in September at Leeds Castle when the device was handed over by the Deputy and his colleagues. We raised the matter then and made it clear that the idea of using bugging devices anywhere was totally unhelpful. As the Deputy will recall, it was not admitted at the time, when the British professed to have no knowledge of it. I will have to check with the Secretariat to follow that up, but we conveyed our abhorrence at the use of such tactics by MI5 or MI6 on the day.

I read the interview with Hugh Orde last week. He is not a politician, and he made his professional assessment very clear when he met the British Prime Minister and me in the presence of the Garda Commissioner, Noel Conroy, and some of my colleagues. Of course, the difficulty for me is that the only way that I can get intelligence — the reason that I refused to make it up earlier today — is when it is presented to me with a categoric assurance. Then one must either say nothing about it, which is what I did many times last year, or one must express it, which is what I did in this instance this year. That is the position, and I cannot change that unless either one or both individuals does so. The more I say about it, the worse I make it, so I will say no more.

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