Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

A detailed response in respect of any particular aspect of the IMC report would be best directed to the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Dermot Ahern, who has the front line political role in respect of the security matters and criminal issues arising. Those people have shown a degree of moral bankruptcy that is breathtaking, not only in respect of their subversive activities through misguided political thinking, but also the fact that many of them are associated with or involved in simple criminality. I am not giving any hierarchy of respectability to those groups in terms of calling them "dissident republican" groups. I do not regard them as anything other than criminal elements who are trying to engage in mayhem and murder at any opportunity to try to destabilise the democratic structures that have been painstakingly built and constructed in the context of the divided society that is Northern Ireland and in the interests of trying to promote peace and reconciliation on the island of Ireland.

On the question of a North-South body similar to the Criminal Assets Bureau, CAB, which has been a strong and effective mechanism in seeking to hurt those people where it matters, namely, in terms of the ill-gained assets and wealth they have built up in respect of their nefarious activities, there is a similar type of body in Northern Ireland that draws from that experience. I understand there is good co-operation between both agencies and there is no reason to be unhappy with the level of co-operation that exists.

In terms of providing sufficient resources and powers to the Garda to deal with this serious threat to the stability of our society in the immediate term, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform has indicated his intention to bring forward legislation that will seek in judicial terms to give an opportunity for people to be tried under a legal framework similar to that with which subversives had to contend in terms of the Special Criminal Court and non-jury courts, given that we have seen not only the intimidation of witnesses but jurors as a result of the efforts by criminals to undermine the basic democratic structures of the State, including the independence of the Judiciary and the effectiveness and effective working of the criminal justice system. Additional legislative proposals are to be brought forward to assist the Garda further in that respect. Continuing expertise is available within the intelligence services regarding so-called subversive activities, and within the Garda Síochána there is the serious crime squad and the people who are monitoring and committed to bringing to justice those involved in gangland activity, both those who are associated with subversive groups and those who are not. The same determined effort is being made and will continue to be made because we are all agreed on the serious threat posed by those people.

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