Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is a fact that policy on long-term illness medical cards has been changed. Very sick citizens, including very sick children, should have the right, without equivocation, to a medical card.

I wish to raise a different issue with the Taoiseach. As he knows, US diplomats Richard Haass and Meghan O'Sullivan are conducting intensive discussions on outstanding aspects of the Good Friday and other Agreements. They include legacy issues arising from the conflict. Anyone with an interest in building the peace knows that these legacy issues of the past cannot be allowed to be an obstacle in building the future. Therefore, we need to have a measured and inclusive debate on all of the issues involved. This morning the Taoiseach may have heard that the Attorney General in the North, Mr. John Larkin, had put forward his ideas for dealing with one aspect, the issue of prosecutions. He has expressed the view that there should be no prosecutions for incidents that occurred before the Good Friday Agreement. He has also said the current position favours non-state forces, but that is not the case. We know that the British Government is in breach of a number of international agreements, including some with the Irish Government. There is also, to all intents and purposes, a virtual amnesty for British forces and their allies, while thousands of republicans and innocent Nationalists have served lengthy prison sentences.

I have not yet had a chance to read the Northern Ireland Attorney General's full submission, but I intend to do so. It is good that the Haass talks have encouraged people to make submissions and that he wants to hear the voices of the people, including the voices of victims. Mr. Haass has received a few hundred submissions. Our society needs to have this debate. Can we have some understanding and some measure of reasoned, rational, intelligent and sensitive debate on these issues that will recognise that any mechanism put in place must be victim-centred and on the basis of equality? We have proposed that there be an international independent truth recovery process. Others have different ideas, which is fair. We need to take the opportunity to discuss these matters in order that we can move forward in a way which looks after the victims but also builds a future for the survivors.

I am very conscious, for example, of the upcoming official visit of the President to Britain and all of the other seismic changes we have seen in our time. These need to be measured and discussed, not just in palaces but on the streets, in the laneways and on the hillsides of this island, most particularly in the North. Will the Taoiseach encourage a debate on these matters in the way I have outlined and will he set aside time here to allow that to happen?

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