Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

The Offences against the State (Amendment) Act 1998 was introduced in the aftermath of the Omagh bombing, which was an atrocity that shocked and revolted people in all parts of this island and throughout the world. The Socialist Party opposed the campaigns of paramilitary organisations from the beginning of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. It pointed out that it was futile for republicans to believe that their campaign could force a British withdrawal. The Socialist Party indicated that paramilitary campaigns and actions, in general, helped to increase the divisions between the communities in the North, rather than improving the circumstances of working people there. It argued that the critical social and economic problems of Northern Ireland, as well as the national question in general, could be resolved not by the campaigns of self-appointed elites, but by the mobilisation of working-class people in Northern Ireland. My party suggested that working people in the North should unite around their common interests and across boundaries and divisions. Its position on the negative role of individual terror and paramilitary campaigns over 30 or 40 years has been vindicated.

The Socialist Party has always strenuously opposed the introduction of repressive legislation, whether by the British or Irish Governments. Such legislation is typically introduced on the basis of an emergency, supposedly for a short period of time. It is usually kept on the Statute Book indefinitely, to be used as the State wishes in cases which sometimes have nothing to do with the initial reasons for its introduction. The Offences Against the State Act 1939, for example, is a wide-ranging and all-embracing repressive statute. It does not simply deal with paramilitary organisations and issues of that nature. For example, it provides for the criminalisation of community organisations' peaceful political campaigns, such as advocating the non-payment of water charges or the withholding of road tax in protest against potholes, as we saw at times in the past. Similarly, the legislation rushed through in 1998 as a response to the Omagh bomb atrocity introduces criminality into actions that can be quite innocent and provides for a catch-all approach which allows gardaí to obtain convictions. Speaking in this House, the Minister referred to so-called tougher British legislation to portray the 1998 Act in a good light. I remind him that serious miscarriages of justice occurred as a result of British legislation. Have we forgotten the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four and the Maguire family, all innocent people who were framed on foot of repressive legislation?

There is no need to renew this legislation. We welcome the fact the major paramilitary groups have given up their campaigns, hopefully completely, but it was not this legislation which made the various dissident parliamentary groups in Irish society impotent and non-viable; it was the absolute revulsion of ordinary Irish people and the movements of opposition among working class communities against the campaigns being waged and events such as the atrocity in Omagh.

Seo an tairiscint:

Go mbeartaíonn Dáil Éireann go leanfaidh ailt 2 go 12, 14 agus 17 den Acht um Chiontaí in aghaidh an Stáit (Leasú) 1998 (Uimh. 39 de 1998), i ngníomh ar feadh na tréimhse 12 mhí dar tosach an 30ú Meitheamh, 2007.

Cuirim ina aghaidh sin go láidir. Níl aon ghá leis an reachtaíocht seo a athnuachan. Is dainséar do chearta daonna mhuintir na tíre — daoine neamhchiontacha nach bhfuil sáite in aon saghas coiriúlachta — Acht nó reachtaíocht den saghas seo. Dá bhrí sin, táimse ag cur ina aghaidh sin, agus beidh mé ag vótáil ina aghaidh chomh maith.

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