Maurice Hayes (Independent)

I too support a composite motion and the agreement of the House on issues such as cluster bombs and landmines. With regard to reporting of business in the House, I have no doubt the resident reporter has provided a balanced account. I would not go further than that. As any of us who write for the newspapers know, the coverage provided simply exemplifies the eternal battle that goes on between columnists, writers and sub-editors who have a job to decide how to fill the page and who are not willing to depart from that. I doubt there is anything sinister in it.

I have enormous respect for Senator Walsh and his concern arising from the bombing of Kay's Tavern. However, I wonder whether this is the right time to deal with that issue. There is an enormous problem with regard to how we deal with memory and the past in a deeply fractured society after a period in which awful things were done on both sides. It might cause further difficulty if we got ourselves into a position of demanding that every stone be turned over on one side and not on the other. If the Senator was a Protestant farmer in south Armagh, he would also think terrorism was a matter of international terrorism coming across the Border aimed at him. One of the concerns I have about the report is that it does not put the bombing into context, as if the events came of the blue. We need to include that context.

There is also a weakness in the report. It appears to me that the views of lobby groups were established and accepted as if evidence or gospel fact. We are at a difficult and sensitive period in the North as parties are edging closer. If one party thought we in this House were ganging up to throw stones at one side and closing our eyes to what was going on on the other side, it could only do damage. I appeal to the House to postpone that debate and perhaps to include it in a wider debate about how we deal with memory and the sins of the past.