Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

I was absolutely taken aback by last night's IRA statement, which can only be described as surreal. Sinn Féin and the IRA were also linked 80 years ago in the same way they are now. The republican political leadership met in August 1924 and Deputy Seán McEntee said that although Sinn Féin claimed to be the de jure Government, he could not stand over the army, meaning the IRA, exercising powers of life and death unless it was in Government with the full mandate of the people. In response, Eamon de Valera said that that was absolutely his position as well. He believed the IRA could not have power of life and death over people, nor could it even have power over property in a situation where there was peace. If we had the same moral clarity from the republican political leadership today that came from Eamon de Valera and Seán McEntee in 1924, then we would be a great deal further forward.