Seanad debates
Thursday, 8 May 2003
Northern Ireland: Statements.
I accept and welcome that the IRA has moved fundamentally on its position but when we voted for the Agreement, we all accepted that it would be no more. The Minister has made it quite clear that we need clarity from it concerning its activities, which invoke huge authority and power. It wants power in its communities to, in a sense, act as a republican police force. That cannot happen in the new Ireland and it has to understand this. We all know its past. I said recently that it was a very ugly past. It has no future in Ireland because what it offers is a repudiation of everything for which the Good Friday Agreement stands. I was very happy that the Minister expressed those sentiments in such clear and unambiguous terms.
No comments