Seanad debates

Thursday, 28 November 2002

British-Irish Agreement (Amendment) Bill, 2002: Committee and Remaining Stages.

 

I have a funny feeling of a bit of circular reasoning here. The reasons the Agreement would be terminated are still not clear to me. Senator Brian Hayes has done his best to extract them but they are still not clear to me. It seems that there is a possibility of an institutional hiatus similar to the one we have now where the restoration of the Assembly, it appears, necessitates the termination of this Agreement. As Senator Hayes has said so well, we could have an Assembly, and there is nothing here to exclude it, which sat into a situation of total wrangle for six months or longer or where various combinations vetoed everything remembering the weighted majorities they need. Is this a receipe for allowing wreckers in the Assembly to wreck these cross-Border Implementation Bodies and the Council? With the restoration of an Assembly they could then decide to be awkward and prevent any further progress. The Assembly would be there but there would be no Executive. The logical consequence is that if the Assembly fails to elect an Executive, the British Government will probably suspend it again. It could be suspended and implemented—

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