Brendan Ryan (Labour)

Níor thug mé faoi deara go raibh an oiread sin daoine ag caint faoi anim baile an Daingean. Níor gá an iomarca aird a thabhairt don feactas atá ar siúl.

While the statement is, of course, welcome and one welcomes and accepts the report of the international decommissioning body, we can only hope for progress. We could also hope for normal politics. I and, I am sure, most Members are sick of the extraordinary way a certain political party can look back at my party's record for the last 25 years and the records of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil and tell us what we did wrong, whereas if we dare to mention what they were doing in that period we are promptly told we must look forward.

We must engage in realistic politics. All of the things we all did wrong together are infinitely small by comparison with what was done in our names by these people. If they want to look forward, let them draw a curtain behind them. If they want to look back at us, I tell the House that we will look back at them. We have a great deal more to look back at and to be angry about than they do.

Speaking of being angry, there are five people still in prison who went in before the House adjourned. I do not often wave technical qualifications, but I record that in my limited sphere of knowledge the risk assessment carried out in north Mayo did not represent an example of the way good engineering should be practised in an entirely novel development. This is new. It has never been done anywhere before and should not be done like this.

These people will have to be got out of prison. It is a strange society in which five law-abiding people feel obliged to end up in prison for 90 days because of the inability of the State to listen to their needs. Ultimately, the State is responsible because it was the State that allowed this kind of project to go ahead. It is an embarrassment to us all but it should be an embarrassment to the Government in particular.

I would like to have a debate about the issues in this House in the immediate future. Let us not hide behind the fact that it is undoubtedly legal that the men are detained. It could be legal and unjust. The intentions of other people for many years were both legal and unjust. We must debate the matter at length.

It has come to many people's attention that in spite of the law which states that any aeroplane which lands in this State must provide a manifest of passengers and cargo, some aeroplanes do not do so. That is the law of the land and it is international law as far as air traffic is concerned. I would like the Leader to ascertain if it is true that certain aircraft have been exempted from that requirement. These aircraft are now widely discussed in the media of half a dozen countries, including the United States, but when they land here they are not asked who or what is on board. If that is the case I would like to know why they are exempt from the law of the land and on what basis because it appears we are in grave danger of being directly involved in facilitating the kidnap and torture of, in many cases, innocent human beings. It is time we stood up like other non-aligned and neutral countries, such as Sweden and Austria.

Something was drawn to my attention before the summer, namely, that it is no longer possible for us to know where an item of clothing we purchase was manufactured because EU regulations have changed. Many of us have a great revulsion against the idea that what we wear would have been produced in sweatshops or places where child labour is used or exploited, for instance, in Burma. We cannot know any more. Materials are imported from Burma but we do not know what they are because they are no longer labelled. I ask the Leader to ascertain how and when the rules were changed.

As always on the first day of the session there are 200 or 300 items on the Order of Business that will not be adequately discussed by any part of the Oireachtas. I am somewhat disturbed to find three EU draft directives referring to GMOs on the Order Paper. Those directives should not be agreed by Government without a proper debate in the Houses of the Oireachtas. I am equally disturbed to find that the most up-to-date report on the financial affairs of a VEC is for 1999. The idea of a six-year delay in producing a financial report even makes what the Comptroller and Auditor General has to say look less significant.