Seanad debates

Thursday, 8 May 2003

Northern Ireland: Statements.

 

On the assumption that people will read the record of these proceedings, I wish to state that I have listened carefully to the assertion by Sinn Féin, in particular, and others, of the need to look forward. Everyone would agree with that sentiment. Whatever else is involved, there is a problem of a lack of comprehension. Sinn Féin also needs to realise that it is dragging along with it a body which forces us all to look back. We are not seeking humiliation for anyone, we are merely asking if we can leave behind a body which was part of the conflict and which Sinn Féin accepts is not part of the future? That is the issue the Republican movement has failed to clarify. We all have our views about what this body did, and whether or not it should have done it, and no doubt everyone in this House has the same view. I simply want to see the organisation to which I refer being left behind. I do not want it obliterated, humiliated or dissolved, but I want it consigned to history. I want to see it definitively stated, in a way that makes sense to ordinary people, that the organisation in question is part of history.

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