Brendan Ryan (Labour)

People have the right to use the police service to have their brother's murderers arrested, prosecuted and hopefully convicted. No political cause is so sacred that people like that can be protected. Anybody who protects someone like that is not a republican. That needs to said categorically here.

I understand that we are in favour of the EU ending its embargo on the sale of arms to China. I do not know whether this has been debated somewhere, but I understood that EU policy was now more accountable to the Oireachtas. This is a fundamental decision — selling arms to a brutal regime which has perpetrated something close to genocide in Tibet. The idea that we would sell arms to them has great moral implications. We should have an opportunity to debate this before an EU decision is taken. It is perhaps the first time in my political career that I have agreed with George W. Bush about something.