Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister. However, I do not welcome the fact that the resolution is still, unfortunately, necessary. The Minister, in his former capacity as Attorney General, and I, in my former capacity as adviser, took part in proceedings of the Northern Ireland Cabinet sub-committee when this response to the terrible Omagh bomb was being formulated. It was necessary then and it is necessary now. The firm and vigorous response of the Government at the time contributed substantially to the temporary ending of the Real IRA campaign because all the powers necessary to deal with it existed. Unfortunately, as the campaign resumed some time afterwards, this legislation will remain necessary until terrorism of all sorts is ended.

I congratulate the Garda Síochána on the vigour with which it has pursued both the perpetrators of the Omagh bomb and the perpetrators of all the other actions undertaken both then and since by the Real IRA. I regret any notion or suggestion — my name was drawn into this at one stage — that the Government would in any way soften in regard to two objectives, namely, the ending of the campaign of violence and the vigorous prosecution of those responsible for the Omagh bomb, the bombs that preceded it but did not cause the same loss of life and any further acts they might commit. Some members of that organisation in Portlaoise Prison have expressed doubts about continuing with the campaign. It should be clear to any thinking person that there is nothing positive to be gained by pursuing that tactic. I look forward to the day when they accept they have been defeated by the Irish people and those acting on their behalf.

It is criminal to draw young people into something which is not just criminal but utterly hopeless and which could at best succeed in putting people who could be more productively and positively used behind bars for much of their lives. I regard as particularly pernicious the attempts to intimidate people from joining or staying in the Police Service of Northern Ireland, which is a necessary step. I was particularly pleased that the Minister's special adviser applied for and was accepted as a media and public relations officer for the PSNI. She worked not only with the Minister but also, previously, with the Taoiseach when he was Leader of the Opposition. That sends an important signal to those who would still be tempted to demonise the effort to establish a new reformed police service in Northern Ireland.

I appreciate that it is not necessarily perfect and that there might be, in certain instances, legacies of the past that still need to be addressed and dealt with through various inquiries. We had to co-operate, for our safety and for the benefit of the people of Ireland, with the unreformed RUC. There was good co-operation but obviously it is far more satisfactory to be able to work closely with the new reformed Police Service of Northern Ireland. We have every interest in making it a success. It is both essential and important that the republican movement, at the earliest opportunity, give its support to and participate in it so we can confront whatever remnant remains that is unreconstructed.

I do not have a problem with dissident republicanism that does not engage in violence. There is a body of dissident republican intellectuals who publish their views. There is no harm in having critical voices, regardless of the standpoint from which they originate, within the republican movement and coming from the republican tradition. What is indefensible, however, is attempting to attract people from the mainstream movement into continuing what is an absolutely hopeless campaign. I have always taken the view that democracy is inherent in any sane republican philosophy but if it is ever the case that republicanism and democracy find themselves on opposite sides, democracy will always win.

There are many ideological absurdities. It is sad, for example, that in Republican Sinn Féin and the Continuity IRA there are people who still cannot recognise the existence and achievements of this Republic over so many years. It is a real existing Republic, as opposed to some fantasy that never existed in real terms in the past. That somebody should spend their life living in this Republic and be unable to accept or recognise it as such, incomplete though it might be, is very sad.

There is a letters column in the Irish News where one can read letters from what one might call dissident republicans. I noticed one last week from somebody associated with the 32 County Sovereignty Movement. The person spoke about standing up for socialism. If one means hardline, irreversible socialism, that is not possible except in a Marxist state and democracy would have to be suspended to achieve it. The person also claimed to stand for anti-sectarianism. That is ludicrous coming from a remnant of a movement that has no input or participation whatsoever from the other tradition or community in the island. Their position involves either forcing that tradition to accept an imposed united Ireland or, as somebody from that source once put it, going like the people from Cork did in the 1920s. I recall replying that my grandmother came from County Cork and she did not go.

That attitude is a travesty of the republicanism of the United Irishmen, which was based on traditions or elements of traditions coming together, and that of the 1916 Proclamation which spoke of cherishing all the children of the nation equally. It is an utterly degenerate form of republicanism.

People should not cease, in addition to taking any security and police measures that are necessary, confronting these ideological assumptions. That had to be done with the mainstream republican movement in the late 1980s and it was a far from unprofitable exercise. One must question the assumptions people have in this type of closed world where everything adds up in terms of mathematical logic, as it were, but not in terms of any sort of humanity.

I support this resolution. It will be a wonderful day for Ireland when these two dissident republican organisations decide to accept the will of the Irish people. I am not aware that anybody stood in any of the recent elections to represent their viewpoints, let alone got elected. The will of the Irish people today matters, as Pearse would have written in 1914 and 1915. It matters and we cannot refer to an electorate that has long since disappeared from this earth.