Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)

This provision is about notifying the Minister of offences committed. At the time it is of course possible to notify the Minister that the persons involved are covered by the Good Friday Agreement. That does not require legislative provision. The Minister is obliged to take any representations into account. Somebody can notify the Minister that he or she has a conviction for manslaughter, for example, but also say that he or she was released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. The Minister would then have to take that into account. That provision is already there.

What the Deputies opposite are saying is that now is the time to draw a line in the sand and say what is in the past is in the past. To do that one must come to terms with the past and one's own history. Deputy Ferris raised the issue of Ballyseedy, for example, and I have been there. I can say, in clear conscience and without any doubt in my mind, that the events Ballyseedy constituted an atrocity. I can also say that people who were murdered, or executed, without trial by the Cumann na nGaedheal Government were murdered. It was an atrocity and those people killed without a trial by the first Government were murdered. That is my view.

What the Members opposite need to be able to say was that Mrs. McConville was murdered and that the bombing at Enniskillen was an atrocity. If they can say it in this House this afternoon, I will accept their amendment.

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