Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)

——that common sense ultimately prevailed and that the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, however reluctantly, is here.

It is also shameful that this important business has such a restricted time allocation because in the broader context this motion has both national and international significance. Indeed, for many years, we were all acutely aware of the threat of terrorism to human life and the very security of the State. Throughout the painful decades of the Troubles, parts of this island endured an abnormal, fearful existence. Thanks to the selfless and pioneering efforts of many individuals from North and South, as well as from Britain, America and beyond, we now live in a country where one can turn on the news without hearing about the latest atrocity in the North — as was the case for far too long. These days we turn on the news and hear about cross-party efforts to attract investment to Northern Ireland and secure EU funding and we rejoice in the normality of it all.

However, every now and again, we are reminded that those who have no respect for our laws, and seek to operate outside them, in their own words, have not gone away. This was starkly and brutally evidenced in the vicious murder of the late Paul Quinn. Last October, the 21-year-old was lured to a farm in Oram, County Monaghan, where he was beaten to death by up to 15 masked men using iron bars and nail-studded cudgels. Mr. Quinn's family say the attack was carried out by members of the IRA because of a personal feud between Mr. Quinn and certain south Armagh republicans. Sinn Féin has been alone among nationalist parties in maintaining that it stemmed from a row over diesel smuggling and that it was criminal in nature. The murder of Paul Quinn certainly bore all the hallmarks of a paramilitary-style killing.

The people of Cullyhanna believe that the IRA murdered Paul Quinn and as they have spent all of their lives in an area known to be strongly republican, we can safely assume that they know what they are talking about. Unfortunately, their claims were immediately dismissed by the Irish Government as if they were not entitled to say anything that might antagonise those who have belatedly chosen to abandon the armalite in favour of the ballot box. This attitude on the part of the Government is wholly unacceptable. I agree we must do all we can to protect and nurture the peace process, but we cannot sacrifice justice for people such as Paul Quinn in the process.

Paul Quinn's murder and its aftermath illustrated two facts starkly, the first being that certain parts of Ireland have not yet broken free from the Mafia-style rule of the IRA and, second, that people do not want to live that way. The vast numbers of people who attended meetings organised by the Quinn family were protesting not just at Paul's death, but at the fact that they had enough of republican bullying and intimidation and did not want to live that way. The State and the Minister must protect these people and vindicate their rights. Treating republican thugs with kid gloves is not the way to do this. I wonder if the Minister's absence this morning has anything to do with his own constituency and his role as organiser for Fianna Fáil in Northern Ireland.

There is much evidence to suggest that paramilitary organisations continue to thrive in this State thanks to criminality. In this context, the Government has some difficult questions to answer. Paul Quinn lost his life in a shed used by fuel smugglers. These people smuggle fuel across the Border and authorities on both sides of the Border appear to be doing little to stop them. I welcome yesterday's announcement by the Northern Ireland authorities that belated efforts will be made to combat cross-Border smuggling. Some 43% of diesel sales in Northern Ireland are of smuggled produce. What will the Minister do about this? Deputies McHugh and Crawford and others have consistently made representations for extra Garda resources, particularly in Border areas because of the activities of criminal gangs.

The activity of criminal gangs is not confined to Northern Ireland. In the South, there are individuals and gangs who believe they are above and outside the law. The Government's failure to end gang culture and put a stop to their activities fuels this belief. Even when members of criminal gangs are apprehended and jailed they continue to run their empires from within their prison cells through the use of mobile phone technology, and we still do not have mobile phone signal blocking technology in all our prisons.

Meanwhile, the Government's half-hearted attempts to stem the flow of drugs into the country is met with derision. While our lone X-ray scanner moves from port to port, gangs simply change plans to fit in with the scanner's movements, thereby avoiding detection for the most part. The Government ignores the gaping loophole in security at private airports, checking now and then and citing value for money as a justification for the pathetic security measures at smaller private airports. In the meantime Customs owns one single boat — nothing more than an empty gesture, given the length of this island's coastline.

In this sense, the State is complicit in the progress of criminality in this country. It is guilty of sitting on its hands and being utterly half-hearted in its efforts to remove from circulation the drugs that keep criminal gangs in business. Thanks to our exposed and vulnerable coastline and our poorly monitored smaller airports, drugs can come into this country with little or no difficulty. They then serve as means by which gangs accrue money, power and influence. They help to pay for the guns that gang members use to assassinate one another if their business interests are threatened. In the ten years following Fianna Fáil's return to Government in 1997 there were 150 gangland murders, resulting in a paltry 24 convictions.

It is little wonder the Minister chose to attend a press conference rather than deal with these important issues. It is little wonder that assassination attempts are so often successful when there is plenty of evidence of gang members travelling overseas to avail of training in sophisticated weaponry and then returning to Ireland to use their new-found skills to deadly effect. As we have seen in tragic cases such as the murder of Donna Cleary, sooner of later innocent people get caught up in the gangland bloodbath.

Limerick is a city beleaguered by the activities of criminal gangs. It is estimated that up to 25% of illegal discharges of firearms in the State occur in Limerick city. In 2007 gardaí located 75 guns during raids. A long-running feud was linked to heroin sales running to millions of euro. Limerick has seen its name and reputation dragged through the mire because of drugs and criminal gangs, yet the Government fails to address the root cause of this problem by not dedicating the necessary resources into policing ports and airports, particularly private airports.

In Dublin in recent times there has been a spate of pipe bomb attacks. According to gardaí those responsible are members of the INLA and other paramilitary groups. Already in 2008, the Army has been called out to deal with 20 hoax bomb attacks as well as ten viable bombs. Both the hoax devices and the real bombs are used by rival criminal gangs to threaten particular individuals on an ongoing basis. One of yesterday's papers reported that gardaí were extremely concerned about an ongoing sinister feud between senior INLA figures and well known drug traffickers in central Dublin. Meanwhile, just days ago a dissident republican group attempted to murder members of the PSNI by placing a landmine under a bridge near the Border in County Fermanagh. Two policemen were injured by the device. Therefore, we must sadly conclude that paramilitaries are still thriving on both sides of the border more than ten years after the Good Friday Agreement.

Fine Gael supports the motion before the House. We agree with the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform that there remains a significant terrorist threat to the State from, inter alia, dissident groups, which warrants the continuance of relevant sections of the 1998 Act.

Dissident groups are now more multifaceted than ever and have a substantial foothold in the drugs empire. However, republican terrorism remains a threat to this State. Last February the Real IRA announced that it was poised to launch a renewed campaign of violence across the North. It claimed that it had streamlined its operations during a three year reorganisation and was ready to attack Britain and representatives of the Stormont power-sharing Executive. These claims were met with silence from this Government. The Government cannot turn a blind eye to the continued threat of dissident republican groups. This year, a report by Europol stated: "Based on capability and intent, the threat from the Continuity Irish Republican Army, CIRA, and Real Irish Republican Army, RIRA, is estimated to moderate to substantial."

The report went on to detail the threat of terrorism in a wider European context, stating that there were 583 attempted or successful terrorist attacks in the EU in 2007, with the vast majority on mainland Europe. Those incidents overwhelmingly related to disputes involving the Basques in Spain and Corsican separatists in France, with only four incidents related to Islamic terrorism in 2007.

It is clear, therefore, that where terrorism is concerned we live in challenging times in both an Irish and a European context. Our membership of the European Union is a great asset to us in countering the threat posed by international terrorism. The Union has also been far more proactive about tackling drug trafficking than our Government, agreeing the establishment of a maritime analysis and operations centre to counteract drug trafficking.

It is time that the Minister took his responsibilities more seriously. It is time to tackle fuel smugglers in the Border areas and INLA drug smugglers in Dublin. It is time to address the threat posed by the Real IRA and to stem the tide of drugs flowing into this country via an exposed coastline and unmonitored private airports.

Renewing this motion once a year is not enough. I appeal to the Minister, Deputy Dermot Ahern, to take the threat of terrorism seriously and to meet it with a coherent policy framework and the resources necessary to end organised criminality in this State.

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