David Norris (Independent)

I agree with the distribution of bouquets on which my colleagues have embarked but I would also give bouquets to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Dermot Ahern, for his determination in the matter, to Dr. Garret FitzGerald and to Mr. Albert Reynolds, who played a crucial significant role. I would also include even Mr. Blair, whose blundering bull in a china shop attitude towards Iraq is such a contrast to the progress he has made on Northern Ireland.

On what the Minister said about the transition to a political solution, I absolutely agree. He said that the IRA's move away from military activity must be sustained but it is up to us to encourage that by welcoming rather than begrudging the imaginative way in which the move has happened. I certainly welcome the move. The Minister also referred to loyalist paramilitaries, which I believe are a real problem. There has been a drop-off to virtually nil in things such as punishment beatings by the Provisional movement but the same is not true of the loyalist paramilitaries. As one who comes from a Unionist background in this part of the country, I condemn and deplore what is being done by the loyalist paramilitaries, who are neither loyal nor Protestant or Christian in any sense. They stand roundly condemned.

The reinstatement of democratic rule through representative institutions in the North of Ireland is important. It is interesting that politicians on all sides are hungering for that but it is curious that the voters, I gather, do not really care any more. That needs to be addressed, because it is important that the institutions are reinstated. One way in which we could help that is by living up to our obligations on cross-Border co-operation. As Senator McHugh highlighted last week, the extension of the railway line from Northern Ireland to Letterkenny was suggested by the British. We should also push co-operation of that sort as well.

I note the disjunction between the IMC and General de Chastelain. I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I point out that several newspapers remarked on the fact that the information, which was a bit vague, was supplied by the PSNI and MI5. To my mind, that puts a question mark over it.

It is interesting that the DUP has come up with the idea of a shadow Assembly. That should be explored. I very much welcome the fact that Jeffrey Donaldson and other such people whom I regard as very dour come down here to appear on "Questions and Answers" where they have an opportunity to experience at first hand the audience's response. I am sure it is good for those politicians to hear people with strong Dublin accents take a view that is not entirely dissimilar to their own.

On the issue of whether the paramilitaries are like the Mafia, I have said for a long time that the similarities are obvious. The Mafia emerged from a similar background in which people who had fought for the rights of the oppressed then entered criminality. A real problem is that middle-aged people who have spent their whole life in an aura of excitement in which they have been involved in bank robberies and so on were presumably paid from some central source. If that source is just cut off, what do those people do? I think we need to bite the bullet and make some accommodation by, if appropriate, bringing them into some kind of policing role or make allowance for some kind of payment to them. I do not know how, but those people will need to be weaned away.