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Rev. Martin Smyth (Belfast, South): Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that anger has existed for a long time, but it has intensified because there is no evidence that our Government are arguing that very point? Some years ago, at the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Ottawa, delegates from the Irish Republic did what they have tried to do in Europe. By majority voting, they changed the title of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the United Kingdom because they had a political axe to grind. Does the hon. Gentleman share our concern that representatives of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland do not appear to have the same determination to maintain our integrity?
Mr. Wilshire: I understand the hon. Gentleman's point. I hope that, over the past few years, I have made it quite clear, at least to him, that I understand his concerns and I am prepared to speak up for them.
My right hon. Friend sought to reassure us by quoting those words, but he did the exact opposite. They were weasel words. If anyone had any doubt, they laid bare exactly what the Dublin Government get up to whenever they get involved in the subject.
If I am being asked whether I will withdraw the amendment because I am reassured, I can say that I am not reassured and I will not withdraw on those grounds. However, I am prepared to consider withdrawing it because I am a realist. On the basis that there is not the slightest chance of the amendment being carried by the House, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Order for Third Reading read.
Dr. Hendron:
I had not intended to make this point, but I found the last 10 minutes of the previous debate rather amusing. Occasionally, I spend a weekend in Donegal, which is in northern Ireland. I realise that it is not in the state of Northern Ireland, but it is definitely in the north of Ireland. No member of my family feels that we are visiting a foreign country. I shall not bore the House by explaining that there are two traditions in Northern Ireland as hon. Members know what I mean.
I listened carefully to the debate in Committee and on Report, and I am sure that I shall say nothing new. I have listened carefully to all the arguments and I shall make only a couple of points.
All hon. Members, and 98 per cent. of people in Northern Ireland, want peace and want the gun out of Irish politics permanently. The hon. Members for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) and for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Mr. Maginnis), and the hon. and learned Member for North Down (Mr. McCartney), spoke about the role of the Irish Republic. I remind hon. Members that, when the
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A Bill similar to this is going through the Dail Eireann. I do not know whether it has become law yet, but as an act of good will the Irish Government showed the Ulster Unionist party the proposed legislation, at that party's request. The hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone accepted that it was a stronger Bill than this one. Aspects of it have been used in this Bill, but I shall not pursue that point because I am not sure of the details.
The Bill would not be before the House if we had not had the Mitchell report. The same applies to the Bill going through Dail Eireann. The purpose of both Bills is to implement that report. As other hon. Members have said, decommissioning is a voluntary exercise. When peace comes to Northern Ireland--I believe that it will come--it will not be at the end of a gun. Perhaps those of us who hope for peace are naive. I accept the point made by several hon. Members, including the hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) that the more we give, the more those people want. Those are not his words, but that is the implication of what he said. Somewhere along the road, a line has to be drawn in the sand to say that enough is enough. However, it can only be right to try to draw in those involved in violence, who are part of a tradition going back centuries--that historical fact is an important point.
I have spent a lifetime in west Belfast, which has seen more violence than any other part of these islands, Britain or Ireland--I do not care how anyone wants to define the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland. I have seen more than most of the violence and, wearing my medical hat, the suffering of families. The Catholic, nationalist people of the Falls road and the Protestant, Unionist people of the Shankhill road hope for peace. I link myself with them when I say that we cannot afford to stand on some sort of moral high ground, saying that we shall not speak to A, B or C. We want peace. It can only be right to try to involve the people who are involved in violence, as part of a tradition that goes back centuries.
There is no excuse for violence, even though it is a tradition in the island of Ireland. The despicable recent attack on the children's hospital in the Falls road--the main regional hospital for Northern Ireland--happened in my constituency. The IRA attempted to murder the colleague of the hon. Member for North Antrim, or bodyguards, or both. That was a despicable act and did not seem like the behaviour of an organisation that was supposed to be talking peace. I certainly have a problem with that. Then, the other evening--I think that it was the evening before yesterday--there was a mortar attack in Andersonstown. An elderly couple were held hostage and an attempt was made to murder members of the security forces.
The strange fact is that the people who talk peace--I refer to the paramilitaries and their representatives--in addition to attempting to take life, are bringing soldiers on to the streets of my constituency. In so doing, they are ensuring that there will be many house searches. It is ironic that the organisation carrying out the violence thereby brings security forces on to the streets, causing more searches. The people in many housing estates resent those searches, but they do not seem to appreciate that the fault lies with the Provisional IRA.
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The Minister referred to a settlement and to democracy. I have nothing new to say on the subject, but I should like stress that that is what the talks in Castle buildings are all about. That is why we had an election last May. Some of those who wanted that election are now saying that we can postpone the talks until after the next election. The people of the island of Ireland--including the Irish Government--especially the people of Belfast, want those talks to succeed, but for them to be total and inclusive, Sinn Fein must be present.
No hon. Member is better qualified than I am to put a question mark against the credibility of an IRA ceasefire, should one come about. We cannot judge the IRA by its words, but we judge it by its deeds. No one else--not this Government or the Irish Government--will know whether a ceasefire is credible. I accept that several murders took place during the last ceasefire. They were so-called drug-related murders--a term that I would not normally use. They were committed by the IRA. The Northern Ireland Office was slow to put the blame where it rightly lay, as were the Irish Government. I assume that they were hoping that the IRA and the republican movement would go down the road of democracy. I understand that, but it was the IRA that carried out those murders. Recently, in the heart of my constituency, a young man was tied upside down and had his legs broken, again for some so-called crime.
Mr. Maginnis:
As we come to the conclusion of the debate, we are, I suspect and hope, considering the Bill in the certain knowledge that IRA-Sinn Fein form an irredeemable organisation, inexorably wedded to a strategy of violence that is intended to take them through to the next millennium. On that basis, many will wonder whether the Bill is a waste of time. During the past quarter of a century, normal society has had to endure not just violence, but the propaganda and the justification of that violence nationally and internationally.
Throughout the world, the constant barrage of such propaganda has unfortunately fixed in the minds of some the concept of freedom fighter versus occupying force. We must constantly grapple with how best to show that that is not the case. It is essential that the Government and society have formal legislative measures in place to demonstrate effectively that we are a democratic society and that, as President Clinton said when he visited Belfast late in 1995:
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Whatever the response, what we are in the process of enacting today must not be seen as the property of the terrorist--something to be pigeonholed until he decides to respond. Instead, it must be employed as another weapon in the arsenal of democracy to be used unrelentingly to diminish the propaganda of the terrorist.
Like many in this House, I am jealous of the integrity of what I call my Britishness. I do not believe that other nations have any right to interfere in our internal affairs, but on the other hand I hold the view that our international friends have an obligation to us--and we to them--in times of trouble and distress. I wish that I could be convinced that those who live to the south of me were my international friends.
On such a basis, we have considered a Bill that allows the Government to invite people of international reputation and such technical skills as will be required to participate in the disarmament of the terrorist process, and we must use our openness to involvement by others to our best advantage.
Like others here, I do not believe in deals with terrorists. I hope that the Government learnt a salutary lesson between 31 August 1994 and 9 February 1996. They should now know that working assumptions that fly in the face of reality and ignore informed advice can only end in tears. That must never happen again. Since our society accommodates each individual on the basis of their willingness to abide by its norms, neither I nor anyone else has the right to preclude someone from either making that choice or making a positive adjustment. Disarmament must be a prerequisite of such a metamorphosis.
"Violence has no place at the table of democracy and no role in the future of this land."
If we use it to press home that point, the decommissioning legislation can convey the message that Northern Ireland is an integral part of a sophisticated democracy that has in place the means whereby men and women of violence can recant and come in from the cold. To protect innocent members of society, it will of course be necessary for the Government to continue to meet force with force. Let there be no doubt or equivocation about that. Terrorists must never be in doubt that they will face the full and unrelenting rigours of the law. At the same time, however, we must be able to show that there is prepared and ready a safe and privileged path along which today's terrorist can pass with impunity into the democratic mode. That will help to refute his assertion that he is in any way denied an alternative to the course that he has previously chosen in defiance of the expressed will of the greater number in Northern Ireland.
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