Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I do not propose to elaborate on my connection with Donamon but if any Member wants to buy me a pint later I will share the secret with him or her.

I do not want to say much about Detective Garda McCabe. I simply want to quote, briefly, from a witness, as reported in The Irish Times today: "They didn't give them a chance, a caution or shag all. They started shooting into the Garda car through the windows, where the two plainclothes men were in the front seat." In my political career I have been among the most vocal of those who have been critical of the Garda Síochána. In particular, I have often been critical of the Special Branch. However, it is an outrage that a political party in this State, as part of the condition for doing what it should have done years ago, would say to our Government, in effect: "We won't observe the laws of democracy and give up our guns unless you release from prison people who were robbing a bank for personal gain, with whom we have denied all connection when it suited us." I could be critical of the Government, but the fundamental question is about the nature of a political party, which is popular among our young people and which regards that as an acceptable demand to put to a sovereign government.

I believe our sovereign Government is wrong and I could give out about it, but I will not do so. I am more concerned with the nature of a political party that thinks people who cold-bloodedly murder members of the Garda Síochána for personal gain, during a ceasefire, and with whom they originally denied all connection, should be classified somehow or other as among the heroes of Irish republicanism. I will never hand over — I hope Fianna Fáil never does either — the title of republican to the type of people who would do what I have just described. I am sorry that Fianna Fáil and the Government have been put in a position of having to make that compromise. I have nothing but contempt for a political party that has used its position to apparently extract such a concession from our Government.

On other matters, as Senator O'Toole said, I gather that socialism, like Alice in Wonderland, is now whatever the Taoiseach calls it. It is somewhat akin to Louis XIV saying, "L'état, c'est moi", socialism is also c'est moi now, so far as I can see.