Gerard Murphy (Cork North West, Fine Gael)

The insertion of a built in review clause in all emergency legislation is good legislative practice. Thankfully, in 1998 our legislators were wise enough to include such a clause in the Offences against the State (Amendment) Act. The clause reminds us, on an annual basis, that we are not yet living in a truly democratic society in which civil liberties, human rights and the rule of law are respected in accordance with international standards.

We have introduced a plethora of emergency Bills over the years, all of which were intended at the time to be temporary. Unfortunately, the unwillingness of subversive organisations to recognise the democratic wishes of the overwhelming majority of people on this island has resulted in many laws intended to cater temporarily for an emergency becoming part and parcel of our corpus of legislation. Many emergency laws, including that covered by the resolution, are still necessary.

Most emergency provisions were originally introduced because of the murderous activities of the Provisional IRA over many years. The treacherous, treasonous members of this organisation still claim in their puny minds that the IRA is the real Government of the State. Despite the fact that the whole country, in a referendum, clearly and unequivocally sent it a message to disarm and go away, it persists in holding up the peace process and, like gangsters, holding the nation to ransom.

Although a ceasefire has been in place for seven years, the most recent report of the Independent Monitoring Commission states clearly that the IRA is still involved in criminal activity, controls terrorist-cum-criminal gangs and refuses to decommission its arms. Its political wing, Sinn Féin, continually blames everyone else for not fulfilling their commitments under the peace process, yet an organisation which should not have existed in a democratic society in the first place continues to refuse to disband and decommission its arms.

Before Christmas last year, it appeared Sinn Féin and the IRA had won the jackpot. Every conceivable concession was about to be made to them to try to achieve peace but, again, despite their significant successes at the negotiating table considering the tiny number of people in a largely democratic society who supported them at the ballot box, they could not resist continued involvement in all kinds of criminality, which once again pushed the peace process into crisis.

When this resolution was introduced in the House last year, Sinn Féin Members stated that the purpose of the offences against the State legislation is to dealing with an emergency, of which there was none at that time. I presume the House will hear more of the same today.

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