Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

On the security position — not to go back over it again — I should have said something when replying to Deputy Kenny and will say it in reply to Deputies Kenny and Gilmore now. Deputy Gilmore mentioned the Garda and its activity. As one would expect in these cases, there is always the attempt by dissidents to bring in arms. I want to record my acknowledgment of the good work done by one of the Baltic states — I would rather not say which one — in thwarting a significant consignment of arms to the Real IRA. It did us all a good service and I thank it for its efforts because it would have been part of the old pass game and there would have been difficulties for us. We thank it for its efforts and the Garda, particularly its special units, the heads of those units and the Commissioner, for its vigilance and co-operation.

On the question of the change of leadership and whether this issue will move on peacefully and successfully, I will just have to wait to see how it will operate. While we have held a lot of meetings with all of the DUP Ministers, the Deputy appreciates that during most of our efforts, involvement and activity in the last number of years in developing the position before the second-last election in Northern Ireland, working on what the DUP stated in its manifesto, moving that into the review of the Good Friday Agreement, which was a clause of the Good Friday Agreement, bringing that successfully through St. Andrews and then building on the various agreements of St. Andrews, the person we dealt with almost exclusively in those negotiations was very much Dr. Paisley. To his credit and although it was not easy, Dr. Paisley moved to establish the North-South bodies and east-west bodies. He had a few conditions on how we related those but he put them in a very forward way. It was very courageous and dynamic in that there was an agreement and institutions of that agreement.

I hope this will continue and I will report later. I will say it during Question Time as I know people in Northern Ireland examine our questions on Northern Ireland very closely. They have done so over the years. We will watch very carefully how that evolves as it is very important and significant for us. It is the reason so much has been done over the years and the changes we have made to make North-South bodies work. Dr. Paisley has done that and I hope whoever replaces him will follow that. It will be a crucial issue with us.

I did not raise the matter of Sellafield at the last meeting but there is ongoing dialogue with the British Government. There have been files, reports, debates and arguments with them. They have moved on the issue a lot and it has been with the line Ministers in recent times. They have been very helpful in opening up inspections and giving us reports and data, which they used not do. That has improved substantially. Former Prime Minister Blair achieved this and Prime Minister Gordon Brown is continuing with it.

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