Maurice Hayes (Independent)

I do not often disagree with Senator Feeney but I do not think we need any courage in this House. The people who show the real courage are the Rafferty and McCartney families. It is easy enough for us to talk about the rule of law but the really courageous people are those who vindicate the rule of law. It is easy to talk about rights but the courageous people are those who assert their rights in a hostile environment and for which I applaud them. We must support those people.

A remark attributed to Edmund Burke states that all it needed for evil to succeed was for good people to do nothing. We must ensure a culture in which good people can do something. I am not familiar with the details of Mr. Rafferty's murder and I am anxious not to prejudice any trial. I remind the House that a suspect is a suspect.

I was deeply impressed by Senator Mansergh's remarks and anything I say may be taken as a rider to them. I am familiar with the Markets area of Belfast and I am acquainted with the McCartneys and with their case. The frightening aspect is not the murder alone which was vicious and bad enough but the fact that a whole community could be cowed into silence. That culture of omerta needs to be changed and this is a challenge to all those who aspire to political leadership or to political office.

It is not sufficient to advise people to go to the police. People were told to go to the police regarding the McCartney case but what did 80 witnesses see, everyone of whom was in the toilet when the incident occurred? It must have been the biggest toilet in western Europe. We are asking for rather more than compliance with the letter of the law.

Like most people in this House and in this country, I rejoiced at the act of decommissioning this week and seeing the republican movement turning firmly towards politics and giving up the armalite for the ballot box. However, there must also be decommissioning of a culture. There is a baggage of criminality and of fellow travellers and these will be millstones around some people's necks. I appeal to the people in Sinn Féin to acknowledge this fact, to disown those people and to get rid of them. In the case of the McCartney killing everybody in that community knows who did it. They know why the person is being shielded by the republican movement and by Sinn Féin. If they are to have any pretension to engagement in formal politics, they will need to end that culture for their own good and for the good of all of us.

I acknowledge that loyalist violence exists in the North as does sectarianism but discussion of loyalist violence takes the focus away from the present debate as does discussion of 800 years of British rule. Our own laws have been in existence for more than 80 years in this part of the island and this is sufficient legitimacy. The Garda Síochána has been the only police force for more than 80 years. Whatever reservations people might have about the PSNI, they can have none about the Garda Síochána.

I counsel against a system of restorative justice schemes. These can be excellent in themselves and can be of help to the victim but they must be closely linked with the Garda otherwise they become a vehicle for vigilantism or summary justice. I applaud the Rafferty family. I was deeply moved by the debate and by the unanimity shown. I am grateful to the Fine Gael Party for providing this opportunity to the House to show it is solidly behind citizens who have the courage to claim their rights and ask that they be vindicated.