Eoghan Harris (Independent)

At the same time, the pressure must be kept on Sinn Féin, which has done good deeds and bad. Recently, Senator Maurice Cummins spoke eloquently on the murders of Paul Quinn and Robert McCartney. The ledger on the good side of the peace process is very attractive but there is a downside that legislators like ourselves must watch. It is not good enough for us to congratulate ourselves platitudinously that everything is going well in Northern Ireland and then put it out of our business and resume our chats about road safety and other matters that concern us in the Twenty-Six Counties. That is all very well. However, those in this House have an obligation to the entire island. What we do regarding Northern Ireland will live beyond us for centuries. What we do about road safety may have some effect next week or the week after and might save a couple of hundred people here and there but what we do about Northern Ireland will save tens of thousands grief and misery in the future if we do it right.

Therefore, knowing now that we have a Constitution which makes no claim on our Unionist neighbours and is a document of which we can be proud, having been amended by experience, it behoves us not to allow this last threat to the state of peace in the two states on the island from the Real IRA to go unchallenged. It behoves us to keep up pressure on Sinn Féin to bring the murderers of Paul Quinn and Robert McCartney to justice. The Greeks pointed out that when the moral order is disturbed, when someone is killed and it is hushed up and left go, the whole community falls under a shadow and cannot walk in the light until that shadow is removed. A great shadow has been lifted in the south Armagh area since the death of Paul Quinn because of the courage of his parents and the courage of the local people who have supported them.

While I do not want to be gruesome about it, throughout the Troubles it was the habit of the Provisional IRA in that area to insert a meat hook above the knee of people whom they considered to be anti-social elements and to pull down sharply thus destroying the muscle above the knee and giving the victim a permanent limp. As a result the person would be seen to limp and the evidence of the IRA's work would be seen as a warning to the community and a form of intimidation. I am told that the PSNI and the Garda report that this culture of intimidation omerta. Fear has come to an end and the people of south Armagh are speaking up.

I am pushing matters here in a debate on the Constitution but I was unable to speak on the Order of Business. It behoves us to take up every opportunity we can to show the brave people of south Armagh and along the Border, those who stood up to the culture of criminality, that we are on their side and will help them to walk in the light.