Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)

I thank the Taoiseach for that response. Justice for the Forgotten, to whom I spoke this morning, is unable to get EU funding, unless it shifts its office up to the Border, to north Louth or south Armagh, and that is not feasible. I know people from all sides suffered in the course of the conflict but we must remind ourselves that this Oireachtas sought an inquiry and was critical of the lack of co-operation from the British given that there is a very strong belief that this bombing in the town of Monaghan and here in the city of Dublin was conducted with the collusion, support, assistance and direction of agents of the British Government. That is a huge issue to have been allowed to fester as long as it has festered. I asked the Taoiseach what the Government has done on this issue in terms of the diplomatic services of the Department of Foreign Affairs and so on in trying to get the British to change their mind on their position because otherwise the Taoiseach looks as if he is totally impotent. Effectively, he stands up and says "I disagree, I want this to happen" but it does not happen.

Similarly in terms of funding for Justice for the Forgotten, it shows where the Government's heart is - with such a small amount of money being involved. I welcome what I consider to be a positive statement from the Taoiseach on that.

Again we see where the Government's heart is on another issue. I know the Taoiseach is extremely busy but why should we quibble over location? If these families are prepared to come from Ballymurphy to Dublin, then he should invite them down - let them see that the Government cares. Of course if the Taoiseach is going to be in Belfast before that can happen, that is a different matter. The fact that meeting has not yet taken place is not helpful to the campaign.

At the nub of what I am trying to say in terms of all of this is that we all know the vexed relationship between these two islands and we know we are all in a far better place thanks to the work of many very good people but we need to keep moving it forward. If the Taoiseach were to reflect on what I said earlier, it strikes me that we should not let the British Government set the pace of developing a new relationship. I was in the North at the weekend. This is the fifth year of the Executive. The is the first time since the partition of the island that we have had five years of relative governance; I know it is a unique form of governance and we would want to see it go much deeper and to have more authority on this island. I am a united islander, as I hope the Taoiseach is, but we will not get that unless we have a strategy and we press it and part of pressing it is that the people in the North from each persuasion need to know there is an Irish Government that cares about them and that on issues of justice, no matter who the perpetrator is, the Government will stand fair and square. Just because it happens to be a British Government, that should not in any way bring about any hesitation on the Taoiseach's part. It needs a strategy, a programme and a way of persuading. I cannot see how Mr. Cameron could not be persuaded, if he was getting good advice. As I have said here previously in terms of the Saville inquiry, Tony Blair took away a report for a weekend and that changed his mind on Bloody Sunday. He would tell the Taoiseach that if the Taoiseach were talking to him. The Irish Government played a key role with people in Derry in putting together that report. I do not see why the same thing cannot be done in terms of the three outstanding issues. The Irish Government should compile a detailed report, use the expertise that is there, gather up all the evidence and the information that is possible and then present it to the senior people on the British side so that when the Taoiseach engages with the British Prime Minister it is not a matter of a sort of anaemic statement being made to the effect that "we are committed to the Good Friday Agreement and all the related agreements" but that the Taoiseach can put the proof of that into being by that sort of strategic programmatic approach which the Government can take and the Civil Service has the ability to do given the political direction to do it.

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