Eugene Regan (Fine Gael)

I wish to add my voice to the unequivocal condemnation of the killings in Northern Ireland. We are all shocked by these events which are a blast from the past and is something we thought we had left behind. The people killed are Mark Quinsey, 23 years of age, Patrick Azimkar, 21 years of age, and Constable Stephen Paul Carroll, 48 years of age, and one can imagine the misery that has been created for their immediate families.

I have some inkling of this because my own grandfather was an RIC sergeant who was shot in an ambush at Tourmakeady in 1922. I know from my own experience the effect this had on my father and it goes down through the generations. We thought after all the killings in Northern Ireland that time would heal and we would leave this all behind us and yet here we have to confront the same situation again.

I will make three points to show what we can do. There is no doubt that in the atrocities of the more distant past, the people responsible were seen as heroes. The atrocities of the Troubles were sanitised for the purposes of securing peace and the Good Friday Agreement. However, there are actions we can take. We can condemn such atrocities and this is what the House is doing today. We can condemn the callousness of shooting pizza delivery people because it is beyond contempt. With regard to co-operation on security measures and police co-operation in a European-wide context, we have held back from co-operation, from signing up to particular measures at European level, because of sensitivity with regard to Northern Ireland. The issue of hot pursuit is something which is adopted by all other member states and recognised in terms of mutual co-operation between their security and police services. We do not accept that principle here because of sensitivity towards Northern Ireland. We have to be honest and face up to the problems we have. The political context is different now and it allows for such co-operation. If that was the one single issue that came out of this, this Government could sign up to those type of security measures which are a general feature of police co-operation in the European Union.

I refer to the little bit of anti-British propaganda, whether at football matches or otherwise and politicians can slip into this mode. There is a tendency to have that jibe at Britain and Britishness and that type of anti-British propaganda is what gives some comfort to those who perpetrate these atrocities.