Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

To return to the issue of Minister Margaret Ritchie and the suggestion that there was some pressure from her, I cannot account for every conversation that took place with officials, but it did create some heated debates within the Assembly. Minister Robinson responded to the effect that the decision was in breach of the ministerial code and that Minister Ritchie did not have the legal authority to carry it out. Deputy Quinn is aware the Executive met on Thursday, 18 October and there were disputes and misunderstandings about what had been agreed at the earlier Executive meeting. Minister Ritchie was supported by UUP Ministers and opposed by the others.

It has been reported Minister Ritchie came under pressure to change her stance from the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Whatever discussions he had with her and others, in the heat of it the Minister, Deputy Dermot Ahern, defended and praised her. When I spoke to her I commended her for her actions. We have always taken a view on loyalists. Certainly for the past ten years we have helped them. We have even given funds to some of the organisations to help them to rehabilitate themselves and to move forward. The stance the Minister took was in line with the stance I have taken on these issues for a decade or more. That has been our position. It did create a fair bit of rumblings and difficulties within the Executive and obviously that is a matter for it.

I do not have much to add to what I previously said about Paul Quinn. We have received a number of reports from the Garda and secondhand from the PSNI, and both of them match at this stage, that this action was due to criminality. I accept issues arise about where these people came from in the past, what they did previously and the fact that the format of the killing had a resemblance to what happened in the past. That has been in every newspaper in Northern Ireland in recent weeks. Our intelligence and information is that this was not the work of the provisional republican movement and that it was not sanctioned or condoned by it or by the Sinn Féin leadership.

The Garda is making an intense effort on this matter in terms of questioning and it is going beyond what it would normally do in how it is operating on this particular event. That is known by the community in Northern Ireland as well as in southern Ireland along the Border. It is important because if these things are not resolved they continue to grow legs. I appreciate that point and that people can believe it is something else. It is in the interests of everybody that these people are brought to justice. Names have been mentioned about groups and what business and aspects of criminality they are into, but quite frankly I can only work on the basis of the information I have, all of which is in the public domain. The Garda is aware of that information and what others have said in other legislatures and it is doing its best to bring this case to a successful prosecution.

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