Ned O'Sullivan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House and commend him on his speech, which was balanced, reasonable and sensitive. This is a very sensitive area and I will certainly follow the Minister's line in that respect. We all have our own opinions about what happened in the North and this is not really the place to give vent to those. I welcome our visitors and sympathise with them and all others who have been touched by the violence in Northern Ireland. I hope they will achieve closure at the end of it all.The events in Northern Ireland over a 30-year period have marked the people of the North first and foremost, but also the entire nation and these islands. G. K. Chesterton once said of the Irish that all our wars are merry and all our songs are sad. There was nothing merry about the conflict in Northern Ireland. It must have been one of the most horrific periods of sustained sectarian violence probably anywhere in the world. Wrong was committed on all sides, including by the British authorities and the Stormont authorities, and great wrong was also committed by the paramilitaries on both sides, who thought that they were beyond the law and could act on their own volition to take human life just because they believed in a cause. The violence in Northern Ireland was not inevitable. It was most unfortunate that the work of people such as John Hume, Seamus Mallon and the SDLP and the People's Democracy, which was a non-violent protest, was not allowed to continue to full fruition before it became a sectarian shoot-out between two sides who showed no signs of humanity for each other, for women or for children. Terrible atrocities were committed on all sides, and as the Minister has said, there is no hierarchy in loss of life. Every life is precious. Every bereavement was special, whether someone was killed by the British Army, by the IRA or by loyalist paramilitaries; death is a death.

I live in County Kerry, which is probably as far away from the North as one can get. I had no first-hand experience other than what I saw on television as a teenager growing up. It came close to my family with the murder of Garda Jerry McCabe in west Limerick. His father and my father were close personal friends. That was a big shock to us. For many people of my generation, it was the time we finally said goodbye and parted ways with any sympathy for that kind of paramilitary activity, whether it came from the national side or the unionist side.

I recommend a book to anybody who wishes to study the genesis of what happened in Northern Ireland, which I re-read recently. It is calledFatal Pathand it was written by Professor Ronan Fanning. He takes up the "Irish question", as the British love to call it, from Gladstone's Home Rule Bill of 1886 right through to the Anglo-Irish Treaty. There is no question or doubt in that book that partition in this country was not created by the British or by us; partition was created specifically at the request and insistence of Ulster unionists. They did not want the other three Ulster counties. They had plenty in the six, which they could handle. They got their way. They tried to oppose home rule for all of us at one stage. When they realised that was not going to happen, they decided to cut down on what they were looking for - "Let them have home rule, but we will have our own rule". When they got their chance to have their own government, they abused it. There was total discrimination against Catholics at every level, including housing, education and social welfare. The only alternative for Catholics was to get out, but there were too many Catholics to get out. That is what started it and there was no doubt about that. We are not here to talk about who started or finished it. We are here to deal with the outstanding issues so that we can give closure and a sense of conclusion to everybody, especially those who were bereaved in some way.

Recently the Public Prosecution Service of Northern Ireland decided to prosecute one soldier. As the Tánaiste said, this is sub judiceand I will not comment on that. It was a major disappointment to many of the other families. We will have to see how the case progresses and what comes out of it. Bloody Sunday was probably the greatest single atrocity of the conflict, especially as it was carried out by the state authority, and clearly with collusion involving the upper levels of the British Army and Government. As the Tánaiste said, we will not comment further on this at this time.

It is interesting to consider the South African experience where decades of apartheid came to an end. There was a great deal of hatred and bitterness there. They set up a truth and reconciliation department. I am not saying they did everything superbly well but it has succeeded to the extent that the South African experience has been used and replicated in many other countries in Africa to try to bring conflict resolution about. If they can do it there, I do not see any reason we cannot do it here.

The fact that there is no Assembly in the North at the moment is a significant hurdle to achieving reconciliation and peace. If the major parties cannot agree to work together for the common good, how can one expect that there will be equity and equality of respect and understanding for the communities? If the politicians have failed, one cannot expect the ordinary communities to take up this role.

Despite what I have said, there has been great work at community level on both sides of the divide. Northern Ireland remains a bizarre, unnatural entity. We still have to have peace walls and there seems to little sign of engagement, particularly at political level. We are politicians and we know that everything in politics is difficult. At some stage one has to deal with people. As Churchill said: "To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war". I urge that the major parties in the North get serious and get down to restoring the Assembly there. Both the Irish and British Governments have been somewhat remiss as well. It is a good many years since the Stormont House Agreement was reached. It is five years since it was put in place and there has been a great deal of foot-dragging. I am not saying the Minister's Government-----