Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

While this is a technical Bill, it gives us the opportunity briefly to reflect on the state of the peace process. We in Sinn Féin are making every effort to ensure that the inclusive Executive, with a DUP First Minister and a Sinn Féin Deputy First Minister is established, along with the restoration of the Assembly, the All-Ireland Ministerial Council and the full working of the All-Ireland implementation bodies.

We are also committed to addressing the issue of policing and in recent days Gerry Adams has set out his willingness to call an Ard-Fheis when the threshold has been crossed to real civic policing in the Six Counties, free of the sectarian and repressive legacy of the past. Last week's Oireachtas report on the Barron investigation, which exposed once again the involvement of British forces in collusion, sets out very clearly the need to ensure that there is no role for MI5 in civic policing. We are continuing to negotiate on this issue with the British Government. Powers in the areas of justice and policing must also be transferred to the Assembly and the Executive, and it is up to the DUP to accept that principle. It is just as important as the principle of power sharing. All of this is work in progress and we will spare no effort to ensure that the Good Friday Agreement is restored in full measure.

The Bill before us is a technical measure to clarify the mandate of the Special EU Programmes Body, one of the All-Ireland bodies established under the Good Friday Agreement. The other five implementation bodies are InterTrade Ireland, Foras na Gaeilge, the Foyle, Carlingford and Irish Lights Commission, the Food Safety Promotion Board and Waterways Ireland. As a result of the repeated and prolonged suspension of the Good Friday Agreement institutions, these bodies have not achieved their full potential.

There is frustration in the Border region that the promised peace dividend has not been delivered as expected. Projects, which are very deliverable and very necessary, have been delayed and blocked. I welcome signals from the British direct rule Minister with responsibility for Education, Maria Eagle MP, that the All-Ireland Centre of Excellence for Autism at Middletown, County Armagh, is to go ahead. This project, first initiated under former Education Minister, Martin McGuinness, has been subject to repeated delay by the British. Similarly, the development of the Ulster Canal has been talked about endlessly with little real action so far from either of the two Governments.

The Special EU Programmes Body has done much good work in managing and disbursing EU funding in the Six Counties and the Border region. However, the All-Ireland Ministerial Council should be taking decisions on policies and actions to be implemented by the body. A principal aim of the SEUPB is to promote cross-Border co-operation through the administration of the cross-Border element of the PEACE programme and the monitoring and promotion of the common chapter in the national development plan and the Northern Ireland Structural Funds plan. There has been a high commitment of investment funds through the different programmes that come within the remit of the SEUPB to administer. Taking into account the percentage of these programme funds which have not been drawn down or taken up by projects, there is little doubt that the SEUPB All-Ireland body has failed in important respects.

The major opportunities for cross-community and cross-Border development have not been fully availed of. Communities have common difficulties in mastering complex application procedures. There has been a tendency for INTERREG funds, in particular, to be used for infrastructural development, often of a most localised nature — I refer, for example, to their use in respect of the provision of street lights, roads or bridges and to supplement or even replace local authority and Government funding. These are projects that should be quite at variance with the objectives relating to the allocation of these funds. The funds to which I refer should always be in addition to and over and above funding from local and central government sources in respect of this region.

Sinn Féin has proposed an increase in the resources available to the SEUPB in order to employ more development and advisory staff who are skilled in bringing forward practical, innovative ideas for developments with economic benefits and community gain and who are well trained in the nature of social economy agencies. We are not prepared to stand still. Not only do we want the outstanding aspects of the Good Friday Agreement implemented, we want to see them expanded as the Agreement provides.

In November 2003, as part of the review of the Good Friday Agreement, Sinn Féin called for the expansion of the remit of all the current bodies and areas of co-operation, as well as calling for more to be formed. I hope Deputy O'Sullivan will note that and the fact that I and my Sinn Féin colleagues have made that call repeatedly. The Agreement says there could be "at least" six of each, so there is no bar on the establishment of further such bodies. The All-Ireland Ministerial Council is allowed to meet to consider this issue, but it only did so on one occasion.

We asked for extra areas of ministerial co-operation in community development, arts and heritage, public investment and economic co-operation. In addition, we called for nine further All-Ireland implementation bodies to be formed in respect of energy, the social economy, pollution control, mental health, policing, justice, rural development, further and higher education and telecommunications. In this peace process, we will not lower our expectations and we will continue to work tirelessly for lasting peace and, as Irish republicans, for reunification.

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