andMr. Keaveney asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware of the general harassment of the travelling public by British army checkpoint personnel and the continuous selective harassment being perpetrated in particular at the Aughnacloy, Strabane and Culmore checkpoints; and if he will take some action in this matter.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Travelling Public Harassment.
10.
The Minister is aware of inconvenience caused to the travelling public at cross-Border security checkpoints generally and particularly at Aughnacloy. However, checkpoints are necessary for security purposes and as long as the present situation continues, some measure of inconvenience will be inevitable. The Minister has received representations about delays at Aughnacloy and in discussions with the British authorities has sought to have these minimised to a degree consistent with the security consideration involved. He has received no representations about delays at Strabane and Culmore nor has he received any information to support the allegation of selective harassment at cross-Border checkpoints.
May I first of all point out that there are complaints on the records of this House by me on behalf of my constituents and on behalf of residents of Derry and Tyrone——
Questions, please.
What is the point in asking questions if answers are not given to them?
We must proceed by way of supplementary questions.
I will proceed by way of supplementary questions, but when I get a ministerial reply saying that the Minister has no information, knowing that at least he has the information from me and that it is on the records of the House, surely it is in order to point out to him that such complaints exist. Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that the necessity for the Aughnacloy, Strabane and Culmore checkpoints is not obvious? Why is it that they are not on the Belfast-Dublin road? They do not exist on the Belfast-Dublin road as a permanent operation like the Berlin Wall, but we have that at Aughnacloy. I asked the Minister whether these permanent checkpoints are on every approach in and out of the Six Counties. If they were, then his information would have a logical base—it could be said they are needed from the security point of view—but is he not aware that they exist only at these particular points as a regular built-up feature—there has been an amazing building up—and since that is so is the Minister not satisfied that the attitude of the British authorities, with whom he has been in contact, to these delays at checkpoints is totally spurious? If there is no need for them on the Belfast-Dublin road, why are they at Aughnacloy, Strabane and Culmore, other than to harass the people of Donegal, Derry and Tyrone who must, of necessity, go through them in both directions?
Naturally, I am not in any way responsible nor can I speak for what the British do but I presume that the different arrangements about checkpoints, the way they have been set up and their operation, are dictated by security considerations which appear relevant to the British, but in so far as the evidence of harassment is concerned, on the last occasion when the Deputy asked about it, on 26th May last, the Minister replied as follows, in No. 2 of Volume 291 of the Official Report:
Frankly, I am not aware of the problems at Strabane and Culmore. Nothing about problems at these points has been drawn to my attention. I note what the Deputy says and I would be happy to have any concrete information from him about problems there so that I could take whatever action might be appropriate.
He went on to admit that there was a serious problem at Aughnacloy but my information today is that no concreate information has been received since about these places either from the Deputy or anybody else. Until we have something concrete to go on, documented and backed up by identifiable persons' statements, that we can send to the British in the form of a complaint, there is no sense in sending them a rhetorical letter stating that we think these checkpoints are not being conducted properly. If the Deputy has information of his own or if he has friends with information they are willing to give us, and if they do not mind their names being identified, we will do what is appropriate. I give the Deputy that definite undertaking.
On this matter of selective harassment, or harassment generally, which it is, what does the Minister expect me to do? I have bloody well more to do than to do the watchdog for the Minister. I have brought it to his attention here. Surely he has available to him within his Department and within the State services the opportunities and the personnel to check out what I have been saying? I ask the Minister, and the Parliamentary Secretary who is substituting for him, to bear this in mind.
I would have thought it was supremely something which the Deputy might have done for his constituents who were being inconvenienced, something that would not take second place to any of his other jobs. I have been trying to tell him that until the Government receive documented allegations, which I can assure him will be taken seriously and followed up, there is nothing we can do. I do not accept it is the Government's job to maintain a continuous surveillance of British arrangements, in case something may be wrong. It is the Government's job to follow up complaints which reach us, properly documented.
I want to get from the Parliamentary Secretary——
We must get on to other questions. I have given the Deputy a lot of latitude. He may put one final supplementary question.
I have not got any answer from the Parliamentary Secretary in regard to this business of selective harassment. I travel that road on average four times a week. Since last December—I ask the Minister to check this, it is already on record——
If what the Deputy means by "selective" is that certain individuals are being picked out and given a bad time for no reason——
What I am saying is that people are being selected in a particularly noticeable way, that every time they cross, whether going in or coming out, they are given this treatment——
The person they should complain to is their TD and, if they get no satisfaction from that, to the Department of Foreign Affairs who will take it up. We have not got these complaints. About other matters, yes, but we have not got complaints about these two checkpoints. I can do no more than to give the Deputy and the House an undertaking that if we receive responsible identifiable complaints about the way the British are behaving at these checkpoints, we will follow them up. Unless we get such complaints there is nothing we can do.
May I ask the Parliamentary Secretary whether I as a Deputy, proceeding to and from my constituency, would be a useful person to give him data in regard to the period from the beginning of December when the present regiment came from England, that I have not crossed on one occasion, on an average four times a week, when I have not been given the selective treatment, the double searching, the interrogations, by the private plainclothes people there? I want to know what is it all about. What a stupid lot of feckers they are——
I have given the Deputy every latitude but this is going too far.
If you come up on this bloody trip as I do every week you would know what I am talking about. I invited the Minister and his colleagues last May when they were going to Donegal during the by-election campaign to come on this route but they damn well went up by way of Sligo because they would not face what we have been living with.
If the Deputy has these complaints he should put them on paper——
I can give dozens of cases. A person cannot go to his constituency without being blackguarded by the damned occupation forces with whom the Government are collaborating——
This is disorderly.
If the Deputy comes to Iveagh House I will undertake that a statement will be taken from him——
Everybody is subject to it.
They are collaborators and damn all else. There is not harassment on the Belfast road or the Ballyshannon road.
If the Deputy will put his pen to paper——
(Interruptions.)
Deputy Blaney must desist from interrupting. This must be the end of it.
I did not interrupt. I get enough interruption coming from and going to my constituency.
The Deputy knows the rules of this House.
I do and I know only too well the rules of the occupation blackguards in the Six Counties, but the Government do not want to know anything about it. They are their pals, their friends, their collaborators.
Written replies will be given to Questions Nos. 12 and 13.