Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

Sometimes people can comprehend a lot of things from the phrase "the peace process". I remember on one occasion joining a peace march in O'Connell Street after some terrible atrocity and from out of a side street came a group of Sinn Féin people with a placard that referred to a poor man called Mr. Ed O'Brien, who had been blown up while on active service for the IRA in Britain. They had posters commemorating him as a peace activist. I felt very sorry for his family that language was perverted in such a way and that setting off bombs was put down as peace activism. Sometimes words cease to mean anything. In the circumstances we have decided to delete paragraph (k) completely and elaborate on paragraph (j), extending it to encompass Northern Ireland. That is probably the best way of dealing with this issue.