Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

The Deputy has raised a number of issues. On the question of a planned debate, it would be useful if it took the form of a motion. It might take place in the second half of February or early March when there tends to be a focus on Irish issues in the broader world. It would be a idea to have it then.

On the broad issue of closure, I have said previously to the Deputy that I am a supporter of the prospect of a truth commission, which the Deputy has raised over a number of years. There is the question of how it can be formed. Many people simply want closure; they do not want any talk about this. It happened a long time ago and they just want to move on. Obviously, they will never stop grieving but they want to do that privately and they do not want to be part of any group. That is a sizeable group. Another sizeable group wants at least a good account taken of what happened. They are happy, if they can be, of the work being done by the Historical Enquiries Team. They are satisfied with that work; they see these cases being properly dealt with and there is proper dealings with the Garda, the PSNI and Nuala O'Loan's office. There is another group which is active on all of these issues and tends to only want to examine one aspect and not all of the other aspects.

From where I sit, it would be good to bring this to an end — I have meet RUC widows groups, RUC families, Nationalist families, republican families and paramilitary groups — by finding some way of bringing them all into some process. I tried to do that by pressing hard for the establishment of a truth and reconciliation commission some years ago. To say I got a collective "No" to that proposal is an understatement. The Deputy and I predicted at that time that as the trouble ended more people would reflect on matters. I have been through these meetings with people, which I am honoured to have been through, but I can see their hurt and I have got vivid accounts of exactly what happened in 1971, 1969 and 1973. I can understand all that, but there must be a process to bring it to an end. We have not quite reached that stage. Some of the issues can be answered and there is much work to be done. The work of the historical inquiries team is very useful and is very well resourced. The Secretary of State, Mr. Hain, has put many people on this team. They are going back through all the records and they will do much good work, which is something I have heard from the victims' commission. The interim victims' commissioner is now in place and important work is being done. There is a remembrance commission, into which we have put a lot of resources.

Much is being done but if I am asked whether these will bring matters to a close, there is no satisfactory answer. The standard thing to do is to set up a public inquiry, but I am in the position where I must tell people the truth about many of these things. I cannot see where we are going to get the co-operation, the details and the facts. We might get that for some cases, but not for many others. We would be giving another answer, but we would not resolve the cases. I have been straight with groups about that and I have been holding my hand in so many dykes when I tell them that I will not grant a Government inquiry because I do not believe it will work.

I have pressed hard on the British Government, as have my Ministers and officials. Without marching out of rooms, the message has been clearly received that the British Government needs to make a far greater effort to get its security system to provide reports. That is why we are getting more information. A genuine effort has been made and almost all of last week's meeting on 5 December with the Prime Minister and his officials concerned this issue. To put it in layman's terms, we had it out with them and we quoted the Oireachtas report extensively, not for the first time. I told the Prime Minister that it was my view and the view of the Government and the Oireachtas that it was not good enough to let this drift indefinitely. The British Government must deal with this issue through some process.

Mr. MacEntee wants to finish the job. He is not interested in taking up the invitations I made in respect of the other committees. At the same time, he feels he is getting somewhere. It is one thing to get information and co-operation, but there are also circumstances surrounding that. I am not privy to what exactly he received — I have a general view of it — but it seems to me that there is a legal nightmare surrounding it in terms of the name game etc. I am not a legally trained person. The circumstances in which MI5 can provide information is legally complex. I detect that even someone as good as Mr. MacEntee is having problems with that. He will see this out and wants to do so. The House has been urging me to put pressure on the British Government to get more information, and we have received more in 2006. The question of how that can be used is for another day.

I was pleased that the Secretary of State, Mr. Hain, yesterday accepted that the Oireachtas committee and the Government were entitled to be raising these issues and that his Government would do everything possible to bring closure to these issues. That was the first time such a statement was made. I was not at the meeting, but that was the view of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and other officials. I believe that statement followed from the meeting we had in No. 10 Downing Street last week. We have had four reports from Mr. Justice Hamilton and Mr. Justice Barron, we have had four Oireachtas reports and we have the MacEntee report. We have a great body of intelligence gathered on all of the cases. We have tried to put the similarities in these reports together and present them in a way that makes our collective view clear to the British.

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