Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Government has promised to introduce, as soon as possible, some legislative measures following on from the Stormont House Agreement. As the Tánaiste is aware, the Conservative Party, in its manifesto before the UK election, promised that if re-elected to government, it would scrap the Human Rights Act. If such a development takes place, it would break the formal link between the British courts and European Court of Human Rights, and it would have very serious negative consequences for the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. As we all know, the Good Friday Agreement was endorsed in referenda in both the North and South in May 1998 and it was ratified by the British Parliament. It is an international treaty lodged with the United Nations and both the Irish and British Governments are co-guarantors of it. In the section of the Agreement guaranteeing the rights of minorities, the British Government specifically committed to "complete incorporation into Northern Ireland law of the European Convention on Human Rights [...], with direct access to the courts, and remedies for breach of the Convention, including power for the courts to overrule Assembly legislation on grounds of inconsistency". Can the Tánaiste assure us that the Government will convey to the British Government in very strong terms that we will not tolerate any diminution in the provisions of the Good Friday Agreement and that the Irish people and, I am sure, the British want to see the full implementation of it, the St. Andrews agreement and other relevant agreements that followed on from it? Our Parliament and Government need to convey a very strong message to the British Government that there can be no unpicking of the Good Friday Agreement.

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