DAIL DEBATES

Sitting Time
Sitting Date
10:40
16 May 2003
Text:

Mr. Kelleher: I welcome the opportunity to speak on this legislation because it allows me to address the issues pertaining to Northern Ireland and the peace process.
The Bill derives from the Good Friday Agreement and the Patten report. If we are serious about addressing the issue of Northern Ireland, we must refer to the recent postponement of the elections. I was disappointed that the British Government postponed the elections because it is dangerous to signal that if one is satisfied with the possible outcome of an election, one can postpone it. That is why I believe the elections were postponed. All pro-Agreement parties have supported the peace process, but, while there have been - and will continue to be - difficulties, they must put their shoulders to the wheel to ensure that the process moves on. I accept that there will obviously be one-upmanship and gamesmanship in the lead-in to elections. Sinn Féin will also have to play its part to ensure that the Good Friday Agreement moves forward cohesively.
As election time approaches, political parties tend to look at political issues rather than at the broader picture of the peace process and what we are trying to achieve. Sinn Féin and others in Northern Ireland will have to encourage their members to sit on the PSNI board and to be recruited into the police service. It is important that this message should be communicated to all communities in Northern Ireland. It does not bode well for community policing and the ordinary everyday problems of drug abuse, crime prevention and if there are large political parties in Northern Ireland which are still not willing to give their loyalty to a police service. We must address this issue.
There is a need for a real statement to be issued that people on all sides of the community in Northern Ireland will forever put down their arms and refrain from using them to inflict punishment beatings or internal paramilitary disciplinary procedures. Punishment beatings are barbaric and all parties should support the police service - the establishment came about as a result of the Patten report - and should encourage their members to give their loyalty to it.
There are suspicions in the nationalist community about collusion
between the RUC and paramilitaries in carrying out murders and other
atrocities in the North over many years. Deputy O'Donovan mentioned the Stevens inquiry and what will follow from that. While we must get to the bottom of these issues, if we continually look backwards and try to carve tomorrow from a tombstone, we will never achieve a scenario in which everyone in the North can feel comfortable with their police service. I urge the British Government and all concerned to ensure that any inquiry that is deemed necessary is carried out in such a way that it can find the truth, expose any wrongdoing and move forward to allow everybody to support fully the police service.
The peace process is about normalising society in Northern Ireland by ensuring that politics there are democratic and accountable. However, it is also about cross-Border co-operation - a matter that is important for the South as well. We must use our resources for the advantage of everybody on the island. Cross-Border co-operation should be encouraged to an even greater extent in the areas of tourism, agriculture, the environment and anti-pollution measures. People are now travelling from the South to the North to undergo medical procedures under the treatment purchase scheme. These are positive developments which will ensure the development of co-operation between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Ultimately, that process will break down barriers and the perceptions people in the North have about the South and vice versa. Very few people from the Republic have travelled to or taken holidays in Northern Ireland,
even since the cessation of violence and the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. We should encourage them to do so.
The Garda Síochána (Police Co-operation) Bill is a start on the road to what we consider to be normal co-operation between police forces. International co-operation on a major scale is required to address the problems of drug smuggling, paedophilia and human trafficking.

10:50
16 May 2003
Text:
[Mr. Kelleher]
There is evidence that there has been a major increase in the trafficking of people, particularly of young girls from eastern Europe into western Europe for prostitution. This is of major concern and requires police co-operation across the EU and outside it.
This Bill gives a legal basis and framework to more enhanced and
structured co-operation between the two police services by providing that personnel from one police service may move to and work in a police service, in accordance with article 1 of the intergovernmental agreement. It is an important and positive step that people from another jurisdiction can work in our police service and vice versa.
There is great loyalty to the Garda Síochána in the Republic. It has served the State exceptionally well since its foundation. Despite our troubled history, we have had an unarmed police force since the State's inception. This clearly demonstrates that people from the two traditions within Civil War politics have had a great loyalty to the Garda Síochána. If there is co-operation between North and South, it should encourage people in other parts of the island to look at the PSNI with the same loyalty and affection, provided that the political parties in the North support recruitment to it and encourage loyalty to it.
That notwithstanding, trust must also come from the other side. There have been many allegations, some of which have been proved to be facts by the Stevens inquiry, of problems associated with collusion with paramilitaries in carrying out executions in the Nationalist community. While great wrongs were perpetrated on all sides, we must learn from them and move forward to ensure that both communities have that loyalty.
I welcome what the Bill sets out to achieve, but it will only achieve it if there is goodwill on all sides. We are trying to ensure that we have a police service which is effective, efficient, can draw on resources from and address problems on both sides of the Border in close co-operation for the betterment of the people on this island. It may also assist in addressing many other issues regarding human and drug trafficking and many other illegal activities carried out on an international and cross-Border basis, particularly the smuggling carried out by paramilitaries to avoid excise duties. I wish the Bill a speedy passage and I know it has broad support in the House, which I hope will be reflected in broad support for the Garda Síochána in the Republic but, more importantly, for the new Police Service of Northern Ireland in the North.