Tony Kett (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State and the ongoing provisions of the Act which was passed in 1998. We are all conscious of the background when they were first made. After the tragic events in Omagh when so many men, women and young children died in the most barbaric circumstances, the proposed legislative measures were tough and draconian and may have been too far reaching. However, the Government had a decision to make and matters were taken out of its hands by the events in Omagh. It had to do something and in enacting this legislation took the the right decision. The legislation was reasonable and balanced.

In the aftermath of the British-Irish Agreement, which was endorsed by the people of the North of Ireland, and in the light of the slaughter that took place in Omagh the Government was faced with two questions. Was it necessary to protect the institutions of the State and its citizens with some form of legislation and was the proposed legislation, which continues today, reasonable and balanced? The answer to both questions is yes. It was of paramount importance then, as it is now, that we did not allow groups of people to destroy what had been achieved by the Good Friday Agreement. We must do whatever is necessary in law to prevent them from succeeding in that regard. As public representatives and as a Government, we have a mandate from the people, North and South, to continue to implement the Agreement in all its aspects at all times.

For this reason I was delighted to see Mr. David Trimble dealing successfully last week with the wranglings in his own party. Whether one likes him, he is a brave individual who sees the Good Friday Agreement as the only chance for the people he represents. It suprises me that intelligent people such as Mr. Jeffrey Donaldson cannot see that this is the only opportunity they will have. We have heard from Mr. Blair on numerous occasions that this is the only opportunity they will have to wrest themselves away from what they had in the past, something to which, I am sure, none of them wants to go back.

It would be wrong to say this legislation is a cast iron guarantee that no atrocities will be perpetrated. That is the reason we must continue to look to the Garda, the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the intelligence services in Britain which have done a wonderful job in putting a halt to many atrocities which might have taken place. We might have had several other Omaghs but for their vigilance. We need only look at the discovery of a 1,200 lb bomb in the North last week or the individuals recently stopped on the Border carrying bomb-making equipment to realise how effective and successful they have been. Had that bomb been planted and gone off it would have been three times more destructive than the Omagh bomb.