Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

Does the Taoiseach acknowledge that the great majority of residents of the Short Strand area in Belfast are horrified to have criminal butchers in their midst, hiding under the political banner of provisional republicanism, and that revulsion at the bestial murder of Robert McCartney, and the heroic quest for justice by his family, are challenging in an unprecedented way the insidious control of the IRA in many Catholic areas in Northern Ireland? Does the Taoiseach agree that we must categorise as vacuous doublespeak the words about Robert McCartney's murder by the leaders of republicanism such as Messrs. Kelly, Adams and McGuinness? The reality behind the seemingly sincere words of republican leaders is the screaming silence of the 50 witnesses who are terrified to speak out to bring the murderers to justice because of the intimidation coming from the very associates of those leaders who say they want justice for the family of Robert McCartney.

Every week members of the IRA in Belfast visit medieval barbarities on dysfunctional youths. They claim to know what is going on. It would be extraordinary if the republican leaders did not know exactly who butchered a man in front of 70 people, all the more so since a unit of the IRA was responsible.

Mr. Adams said this morning he has a problem going to the police. Does he have a problem in going to the Short Strand unit of the provisional IRA — call it the local SS unit for short — and demanding that it present itself to justice? According to the McCartney family this morning, Mr. Gerry Kelly refused to call a public meeting in the Short Strand to give the community confidence.

I urge the community, in conjunction with the McCartney family, to convene its own independent mass meeting, give mass protection to the witnesses to this bestial murder, and mobilise community power to break the grip of intimidation and remove the killers from its midst by securing their trial and conviction. Those for whom the Sinn Féin leaders in Northern Ireland claim to speak should themselves speak with their own voices in mass action because it is very clear that they repudiate absolutely this type of barbarity in their communities.

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