Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

The provisional republican movement has finally been confronted with reality of its present position: promises hedged, delayed and broken; a ten year history of claiming ownership of the peace process while never coming to terms with the demands imposed by peace; a history of valuing the process more than the peace; and a still unfolding history of denial, prevarication and deceit.

When the two Governments announced that the only remaining obstacle to a lasting and durable settlement was the ongoing paramilitary and criminal activity of the IRA, it reacted with outraged and injured innocence. By making such an allegation, it stated, the Governments had undermined the whole basis of the peace process. What in God's name could the IRA have meant by that assertion, that the whole basis of the peace process is that the IRA is exempt, that it alone is not obliged to keep the peace or that it could still reign supreme in its fantasy island, Easter Monday, Thirty-two County republic, immune from our laws and the rule of law?

The Governments have had more than enough of this. They have insisted on a fundamental change of direction, a turning point. Peace is not a bargaining chip to be placed on and then taken off the table, with the hint that it might reappear in the next round or in the round after next in return for the fulfilment of yet another set of yet-to-be-finalised demands. This time it is different. Outraged denial no longer works because this time it is not just the Governments that have spoken, or all the other parties on this island, but the voice of the communities the IRA is pledged to support and defend, the people the IRA wants to portray as vulnerable communities within enclaves, encircled by enemies and in need of IRA protection. These people have risen. They have, in the words of Pearse, been harried and held, bullied and bribed by tyrants, hypocrites and liars. They are sick and tired of it. However, their oppressor is not the British but the IRA itself.

What these people want is justice, not the mock justice of a self-styled court martial or the alternative system of community justice of Gerry Kelly and his sinister henchmen, delivered in back alleys and under cover of darkness, or the sort of community justice that, for example, in 2003 had one of Deputy Crowe's election workers abducted in Dublin and taken to south Armagh where he was tortured, tried by the IRA and shot in both ankles for what was described as freelance fundraising. What the McCartney family and the people of the Short Strand want is a police investigation, a Crown prosecution and a trial in a court of law. They want the freedom to give evidence in public against those who have so grievously wronged them. They want normal lives, rules and freedoms, freedom from the demands of swaggering louts and wide boys, and all those other parasites who thrive on abnormality, crisis and fear. They want exactly what the two Governments want, an end to the crimes of paramilitaries who consider themselves to be untouchable, to be beyond the claims of conscience, the reach of the law and the judgment of their neighbours.

The recent statements from the IRA and Sinn Féin demonstrate some belated realisation of the rebellion it is now facing. Those statements came about only because of the huge personal courage of members of the McCartney family and their absolute determination to see Robert McCartney's killers brought to justice. The IRA in its statement has disowned intimidation and threats to any person who wishes to help the family and it urges the men responsible to come forward and to "take responsibility for their actions as the McCartney family have asked" which can only mean or, perhaps I should say, should only mean that they hand themselves over to the PSNI.

Whatever about the outcome of this investigation, in the longer term the real test of the IRA's bona fides will be if they fully and completely release communities in Northern Ireland from the thuggish hold they have exerted for far too long. The IRA must decommission its arms now and cease all its illegal activities. Unless and until it delivers on this, Sinn Féin cannot participate on an equal basis with other political parties because it is the political wing of a movement that retains, maintains support for and is in turn sustained by an organised criminal, paramilitary wing.

The Sinn Féin leadership is in a position that it cannot credibly maintain any longer, let alone into the indefinite future. On the one hand it points to its democratic mandate and insists that it neither has, nor has control of, guns. On the other hand it is more than happy in its internal forums to assert its military credentials. As Sinn Féin's then and current vice president Pat Doherty put it when he described the Sinn Féin leadership to the 1986 Ard Fheis:

They were the people who, along with others, were doing all the things that were required to be done on the ground at local level during the years 1969 to 1975. They were the people who after the disastrous 1975 truce moved into middle leadership and national leadership and started to pick up the pieces and push the movement forward once again. They are the people who moved into the Sinn Féin leadership from 1980 to the present, and have led Sinn Féin to various electoral propaganda successes. What I am saying is that the present leadership did not drop out of the sky in the last few months but have always been in our organisation. There are no long rifles or armchair generals among them. They have always led from the front. Some of them come from the war zone, others come from, and work day and night throughout, the 26 counties.

Pat Doherty went on to endorse "armed struggle in the six counties, in pursuance of British withdrawal, and political struggle throughout the whole 32 counties, in pursuance of the Republic". In other words, Danny Morrisson's message repeated, an armalite in one hand and a ballot box in the other, with the political and military wings united in a common task under a common leadership.

This is the same Pat Doherty who was charged by the Sinn Féin leadership with the task of producing a new party constitution, to be debated and adopted by its Ard Fheis this month. When we are eventually permitted to see it, we will know just how much that party has moved from a position where its delegates renewed their allegiance every year to the IRA Army Council as the sole legitimate government, administering "the civil and military affairs of the Republic in trust for the people" to one of acceptance of the lawfulness and validity of the institutions of this State and its Constitution, of the status of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom and of the institutions of government established under the Good Friday Agreement.

Whether it formally accepts that, unless and until the people decide otherwise, those democratic institutions of government have the sole and exclusive entitlement to the allegiance of the Irish people, as they have whether it finally accepts that the Good Friday Agreement is addressed specifically to Sinn Féin, and imposes particular obligations on that party when it requires all participants to reaffirm their commitment to the total disarmament of all paramilitary organisations, to confirm their intention to continue to work constructively and in good faith with the independent commission and to use any influence they may have to achieve the decommissioning of arms within two years.

Gerry Adams says he will no longer be used as a conduit by the Governments in negotiations with the IRA. This is disingenuous rubbish. Why on earth else does he think the Governments talk to him? More than once, in quiet times as well as moments of crisis, he has hinted that he could not alone deliver on decommissioning but that he and his party, alone of all parties, could make the IRA disappear. It is time for him to make good on his promises.

Meantime, what we want and are entitled to get from this Government is consistency. It is not good enough for the Taoiseach and the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell, to claim that the Government parties are completely at one and that there is no disunity or difference of opinion. At the Waterfront in Belfast the Taoiseach told reporters:

The issue of the photographs has not been agreed. Everything else has been agreed. I believe all the other modalities of decommissioning could be agreed, but this is the outstanding question and it is to do with confidence on the one side and the desire on the other side that they not participate in anything that they regard as humiliating.

At the same time the Tánaiste asserted quite bluntly in this House: "It would be wrong to assume that the only outstanding issue is that of photographic verification." Within the past fortnight the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law reform, Deputy McDowell, has not only named members of the Sinn Féin leadership who also serve on the IRA Army Council but has presented them as a single, coherent and united front. At the same time the Taoiseach has insisted that identifying examples of overlapping membership is essentially irrelevant and that Mr. Adams and Mr. McGuinness are doing their best to persuade a so far unpersuaded IRA.

The issue is all the more serious because there is a direct and proactive role for the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform under the Offences against the State Acts 1937 and 1985. Under those Acts, all the property of the IRA, or property held for its use, benefit or purposes, is automatically forfeit to the Minister and is already vested in him by operation of law. If they are within this jurisdiction, the proceeds of the Northern Bank robbery already belong to the Minister and he is charged with statutory responsibility to "take possession of, recover and get in" that money.

It is also within the Minister's power, and not that of the Garda Commissioner or the CAB, to serve on any financial institution in the State a directive requiring that institution to transfer any specified funds to the High Court. He must then defend any legal proceedings that may be brought, within six months, by anyone claiming to be the true owner of those funds. Uniquely, under section 5 of the 1985 Act, an unsworn document setting out the Minister's opinion, an opinion he is rarely slow to share, is admissible evidence in High Court proceedings as to the purpose for which those funds were held. Any opinion he gives will be subject to cross examination as to its basis and his other opinions on related issues will inevitably become subject to similar scrutiny. Given the far reaching consequences of an unsworn statement of the Minister's opinion in such matters, it is vital, first, that his opinion, when expressed, is measured and authoritative and, second, that it is shared by his colleagues in Government, including the Taoiseach. I hope it is.

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