Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail)

The extent of that step on our part was far greater than anybody acknowledged in the past.

My earlier question about section 7(2) concerned MI5 and MI6, to which the Minister referred. To take a hypothetical situation, they might in future get up to nefarious activities in the State or in Northern Ireland where their activities would be totally contrary to the stability of the peace process, which is the declared objective of Article 3 of this exercise. In that scenario, assuming the commission is composed of people of the utmost integrity and absolutely independent of all political sides, is it a forum through which such activities could be investigated and adjudicated upon, in the same way as is done with the paramilitaries? I do not make a distinction between the terrorism and activities of loyalist or republican paramilitaries and activities by the apparatus of the state. If anything activities by the state are worse because the state has a specific obligation, over and above everybody else, to adhere to laws. That was the question in respect of section 6.