Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State and the unanimity of the House. I deeply regret the necessity of renewing this legislation. One would have hoped the causes which made it necessary would have disappeared. The Minister of State has made clear the successful use of the legislation by the Garda. It is one of its outstanding achievements in the past five years to have managed, since Omagh, to keep dissident terrorist activity, which has resulted in loss of life, to an absolute minimum. Our praise for the force cannot be too high.

This legislation was drawn up after the Omagh bomb. The first concern of the Government at the time, apart from pursuing the perpetrators and showing solidarity with the victims and their families, was to ensure there would be no repetition of the bombing, in so far as it lay within our power, and persuade the Real IRA to stop. The safety of the State and its people and the people of the island was at stake. A great deal depended on the firm reaction of the Government and the Oireachtas to that event. The Good Friday Agreement was in its infancy.