Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

As Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, it falls especially to me, along with the Minister for Defence, to safeguard the security of the State and prevent the subversion of our democracy. While I am honoured to hold that position, it is one which is both challenging and demanding, constantly requiring the exercise of good authority in a firm and robust manner. Each of us, as a citizen of Ireland, has rights and duties. Article 9 of the Constitution states that every citizen owes a "fundamental political duty" of "loyalty to the State". It is in the context of this duty of loyalty that we all can rightly claim to exercise our constitutional rights and freedoms.

Under our law, the Provisional IRA is an unlawful organisation because it is a treasonable group which claims that the powers of Government of the Irish people are vested in it and not in the institutions established under our Constitution. Moreover, the IRA has over the years consistently engaged in massive criminality, much of which has been motivated by a desire to build up a vast multi-million euro fund to assist the provisional movement in its quest to obtain political power and a role in the Government of this State.

Apart from major criminal activity, which has been documented in the reports of the Independent Monitoring Commission, the provisional movement has in recent years carried out two spectacular fund-raising criminal acts, namely, the €40 million raid on the Northern Bank carried out days after the breakdown of discussions on the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement last December, and the sale of know-how to the FARC guerrillas in Colombia which was designed to net the provisional movement tens of millions of euro to assist in the provisionals' bid for political power in Ireland, North and South.

As Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, it is my clear duty to prevent and counter this subversive strategy of the provisionals. The fate of Irish democracy in large measure depends upon the capacity of the Government to frustrate the plans of the provisionals to subvert Irish democracy by these unlawful means.

The Constitution provides in Article 40.6.1 that: "The education of public opinion being, however, a matter of such grave import to the common good, the State shall endeavour to ensure that organs of public opinion, such as the radio, the press, the cinema, while preserving their rightful liberty of expression, including criticism of Government policy, shall not be used to undermine public order or morality or the authority of the State". Undoubtedly, the Centre for Public Inquiry, as a body which sought and obtained multi-million euro charitable funds given with the best of motives to be expended for the public good, aspires to be an organ of public opinion, but equally it is one which, in subversive hands, has the capacity to gravely undermine the authority of the State.

I regard it as my clear and unequivocal duty to bring into the public domain the central role played in that body by a person whom the Garda is satisfied participated in an important way in the series of visits to Colombia designed to exchange know-how in terrorism and explosives for massive amounts of cash, apparently to be spent on distorting our democratic process. I reject out of hand the pernicious and absurd argument that, as Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, I should apply to myself some self-denying ordinance in respect of disclosing in public adverse information about individuals whose actions threaten to subvert our democracy and Constitution, unless such information can be established beyond reasonable doubt by admissible evidence as part of the criminal justice process. I heard with disbelief this argument being advanced today by someone whom I would have expected to understand fully the constitutional role and duty of the Government to use every lawful means to safeguard our democracy and prevent our constitutional order being subverted.

I have been authoritatively advised that it is my legal right and constitutional duty to make public information which is given to me in my role as Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform by the Garda Síochána acting as one of the intelligence services of the State when, in my judgment, the public interest so requires. My legal authority for disclosing information in such circumstances is clearly set out in section 4 of the Official Secrets Act 1963. It is not qualified or abridged in any way by the terms of the Garda Síochána Act recently enacted by the Oireachtas — it is expressly preserved by that Statute — nor do the provisions of the Data Protection Act in any way affect data kept for the purpose of safeguarding the security of the State. Nor is there any basis for claiming that the information I gave this House or the document I caused to be published was in any sense confidential or that its release prejudiced any Garda investigation. The passport application form in question was a forgery of a State document originally kept in the possession of the Department of Foreign Affairs. Its disclosure does not breach the confidence or privacy of any private citizen.

I categorically reject any suggestion that my actions in this matter have infringed the very clear and supportive terms of the law of our land. I have acted with good authority in conformity with the law and in fulfilment of my duties as a member of the Executive branch of Government, charged with upholding and defending the Constitution.

The Irish people and this House would have just cause for complaint if I had remained silent and swept these issues under the carpet or left them in ignorance of the major threat to our democratic values, which would have arisen by doing nothing. I would remind the Members of this House of Edmund Burke's observation that "The only thing needed for evil to prosper is for good men to do nothing".

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