Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State and the legislation. The peace process and the Special EU Programmes Body for peace and reconciliation have made a useful contribution over recent years. I have attended a number of conferences under its auspices dealing with specific small projects on both sides of the Border. At a more general level, one of the positive aspects of the past four or five years has been the ability of the North-South bodies to continue to operate, albeit on a care and maintenance basis. That is not satisfactory in the long term and their work needs a new political impetus. I hope that will happen.

Last week's events, taken in the round, represent positive progress and there are economic as well as political reasons for this progress. I accept that the situation is difficult for both of the main protagonists, but we should not forget the other parties, such as the Ulster Unionist Party, the SDLP and the Alliance Party, which have soldiered on without the same traumas experienced by either end of the spectrum. It is something of a lesson in that if one becomes too extreme in one's opposition, embarrassment will inevitably be felt when one must change position. This lesson applies equally to the fierce denunciations of the Good Friday Agreement and the notion of power-sharing.

I will not detract from Senator Jim Walsh's comments, but I none the less found slogans such as "SS RUC", as seen in west Belfast, distasteful. I welcome that both ends of the spectrum are getting to grips with the problem. Despite the difficulties that some members of both groups will experience, all of the signs are that we can bring the matter to a successful conclusion.

In the past two days, I attended a conference in New Delhi on peace processes around the world, including in the Sudan. For the first time in my experience of giving a presentation on Northern Ireland, there were no questions. Compared to many others, there is no doubt that the peace process is seen as successful and hopefully nearing a conclusion.

During the return plane trip, I read an article written by Mr. Richard Haass, the US envoy in the early years of President Bush's presidency and the current president of the Council on Foreign Relations. His analysis of the Middle East situation was sobering in some ways.

The article referred to the Irish peace process and recommended that "US officials ought to sit down with Hamas officials, much as they have with the leaders of Sinn Féin, some of whom also led the Irish Republican Army". That will probably not be very digestible in Washington. Mr. Haass stated: "Such exchanges should be viewed not as rewarding terrorist tactics but as instruments with the potential to bring behaviour in line with US policy". One can smile a little at that. The same article states: "And democratisation is of little use when dealing with radicals whose platforms have no hope of receiving majority support".