Shane Ross (Independent)

I was most impressed by nearly all of what the Minister had to say. I heard him yesterday on "Morning Ireland" when he went as far as anybody in a position of great authority to say that Gerry Adams and others like him were still and had been members of the IRA. The scenario he painted today was depressing, although I am not sure I share his ultimate conclusions. What the Minister is saying is that it is up to the IRA or what he generously terms the "provisional movement" or the "republican movement" to decide its future. That is merely a euphemism for the armed movement which we have come to know as Sinn Féin, the IRA or whatever we want to call it. What he is really saying is that it is a moment of truth for it — democracy or the gun. I wish I believed that because I have heard this from the mouths of others for ten years since the ceasefire.

The provisionals had the choice of democracy or the gun for the past ten years and have taken the same decision each time. They have taken both roads and they have been successful in taking the choice of democracy and of the gun. They have managed through tomfoolery and deceit to fool people into believing they believe in democracy while at the same time holding on to their guns. Not very long ago I saw a sight in the other House which did not fill me with any great pleasure, namely Mr. Gerry Adams sitting in the Distinguished Visitors Gallery. If the Minister is right, Mr. Adams is the man who holds sway over the Members of the Dáil by being a member of the army council and not through any democratic means. That is what we are dealing with.

We are dealing with something else here. We are dealing with Members of the Dáil who are elected — there is no denying that — but who are controlled by people who not only do not believe in democracy, but who believe in killing people. This is a different debate from the almost trivial debates we have here — the minor debates on matters which are not so important, and I include finance, health and so on in that. This is about people who believe in murdering others for political means and who are tolerated. There is a growing toleration which is symbolised in the suggestion that we should release the killers of Garda McCabe. We have reached the stage where we are saying "All these guys will get out sooner or later". There is a contradiction in many of our thoughts on this matter, and I see it in the Government amendment to this motion. The Minister is courageous and sincere in what he says, but the Government amendment is extraordinary in its blatant contradiction and doublethink. I am not entering into semantics, since it sticks out a mile. It states:

. . . notes and approves the stated position of the Government that the persons convicted of the brutal killing of Detective Garda Jerry McCabe will serve in full the sentences imposed on them by the courts and notes the Government's clearly stated position that there will be no possibility of their early release other than in the context of a definitive ending of the Northern conflict including an end to all forms of paramilitarism by the IRA.

It is a blatant contradiction. Either they will serve their fixed terms or not; one cannot have it both ways. I know what is being said by the Minister. He is saying that, if they lay down their arms once and for all, the Government will let them out.

We are being subjected to a process of softening up before they are let out. I know in my bones that that is on the agenda. It has nothing to do with the Good Friday Agreement. It has to do with what they call the "final settlement", which will be agreed by the provos like they have agreed everything else. Every time they agree to lay down their arms, they have a minor explosion which keeps the process going, keeps them getting elected to the Dáil and Stormont and maintains them as a tolerated military organisation. All those in this country who have negotiated with them in the past ten years have known perfectly well that they were negotiating with people holding guns to their heads.

The Minister knows that, and says it himself. He is negotiating with people with guns in the cupboard, who are gunmen themselves and, at the same time, control many other gunmen. He is saying that, if they let all their arms go and the conflict ends completely and verifiably — I am using all the jargon which has been used before and has not convinced anyone or achieved anything — the Government will release the killers. We should not say that in public. We should say what the Minister was saying yesterday, with such immense conviction and scoring so many telling points against Mr. Adams. My interpretation was that he was saying that Mr. Adams was still a member of the IRA army council. Nowhere is it more apparent that such doublethink is going on.

Let me move on to the issue of releasing the people in question. I happen to have some constituents in Northern Ireland, some of whom are Nationalist and some of whom are Unionist; I suppose they are balanced. The most bitter pill the Unionist population had to swallow in the Good Friday Agreement was the release of the prisoners. That was what they found so difficult, as everyone knows. The RUC widows and others felt quite rightly that those guys were getting away with something under the guise of the other side laying down their arms, which they never did.

I do not know what their response will be if we refuse to release Detective Garda McCabe's killers. Perhaps they will say that we were not prepared to make the same sacrifices they were. However, I am very doubtful whether it was the right decision in the first place to let those killers out in the North. It gives a weapon to the Provisional IRA, and the people on the other side were let out too.

I find it difficult to know what way to vote tonight, since I know that utterly sincere views are held on both sides. There is an almost unanswerable case for not letting those people out because of the signal of weakness that it sends to Mr. Adams and other members of the IRA army council. It is saying to them that if they keep going, those guys will get out. It is part of the nudge and wink approach and gives them hope that they may hold onto their arms for ever. However, I also see great virtue in saying that, if there is final solution, great sacrifices will have to be made by all sides. There is no answer to this problem, and I deeply regret that it has come to a divisive debate of this sort in this House. We should take what the Minister has said to heart, expressing a great degree of confidence in the fact that he has the courage to say in public that members of the Provisional IRA are operating as criminals in this country and that he is prepared to confront them.

It is time that members of the army council of the Provisional IRA were named and outed and that we got to know who they are. It would be an enormous shock to the general public if they were named and exposed as liars. It is an extraordinarily sobering fact that the most popular political leader in this country also appears to be a member of the IRA army council, not only condoning the killing of people in Northern Ireland but representing the killers of one of our gardaí.