I move:
That Dáil Éireann condemns the Prevention of Terrorism Act in its provisions and in its implementation as clearly discriminatory against Irish citizens and being in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, and calls on the Government as a matter of urgency to seek the repeal of this legislation and to insist, in accordance with normal diplomatic practice elsewhere, that the Irish Embassy in London be immediately notified of any arrests of Irish citizens made under this Act.
You may ask, as it is the basis of the Minister's amendment, whether Dáil Éireann is entitled to condemn a piece of British legislation. The only reason Dáil Éireann is even discussing the issue is that it is legislation directed against Irish citizens travelling between here and Britain and at Irish citizens living in Britain and in Northern Ireland. We in Ireland have a responsibility towards our citizens living in another country or jurisdiction. Governments everywhere see it as their duty to protest when their citizens suffer harassment, victimisation or discrimination in another country simply because of their nationality. Dáil Éireann has every right to condemn legislation anywhere directed against Irish citizens.
I must point out in passing that the British Government and Parliament have never felt inhibited about criticising any of our laws or even our Constitution. They have repeatedly condemned our laws on extradition and they have even asked us to remove sections of our Constitution which state that the national territory comprises the whole of Ireland. For both these reasons the Minister is not justified in seeking to prevent this House from condemning a piece of British legislation that discriminates against Irish citizens.
Indeed, it is a matter of regret that the Minister and the Government whenever an issue of this kind comes up, while purporting to criticise abuses or, to use a phrase in the amendment "possibilities of abuse", nonetheless tend to defend the basic principles behind repressive legislation and security practices. In his amendment the Minister criticises possibilities of abuse, application and irregular practices. He does not condemn the Act itself. In this House last autumn the Minister fudged the supergrass issue. He has fudged the plastic bullets issue, leaving the case against them go by default in a UN sub-committee in the summer of 1983. Earlier this month he fudged the UDR issue and now he wants to go on fudging the Prevention of Terrorism Act. He is seeking to make sure that any criticism ventilated in this House is rendered harmless. No wonder Mr. Hurd takes a benign view of the Minister's statements. They are always couched in a qualified way that does not actually require the British authorities to do anything.
It is a wonder that the Minister, following his meeting yesterday, had the audacity to refer to his Clonmel speech of last November, one of the least convincing speeches of his entire career, in which he tried dishonestly to claim that the Irish people saw behind the Press conference of Mrs. Thatcher's "real and unprecedented movement on the British side" at the Chequers meeting. Indeed, the people saw real and unprecedented movement in the wrong direction. The Clonmel Nationalist called that speech “a defence of the indefensible” and totally inappropriate to a Chamber of Commerce meeting. Yesterday the Minister was enthusing about the role Mrs. Thatcher had in mind for the Irish Government. The spirit of deference is obviously alive and well. No doubt the Minister was given the benefit of Mr. Hurd's advice on how best to reply to this debate, and no doubt we will hear all the worthless and meaningless assurances he has been given.
It would seem that Anglo-Irish relations take precedence over the civil rights of Irish citizens. The clear message that the British Government are receiving in relation to all these issues is that the Irish Government will go to any lengths to avoid attacking the root cause of Nationalist alienation while making a great fuss and show, principally for domestic consumption, about individual incidents. This sort of sham nationalism is absolutely transparent both to the British Government and to the Nationalist community in the North.
Everyone in this House abhors violence in all its forms. This is well known and it has been stated clearly in the report of the New Ireland Forum. There can be no doubt in anybody's mind about this issue. There are occasions when special legislation is required, but that legislation must nonetheless respect basic civil rights. The British Prevention of Terrorism Act was hasty legislation rushed through in response to a particular atrocity. In the opinion of many people it was a political rather than a security response to the situation. There has long been serious concern about the validity of some of the convictions arising from the Birmingham bombings, a matter which has been raised on a humanitarian basis by Cardinal Ó Fiaich and the Department of Foreign Affairs among others.
The political atmosphere of the time was not conducive to cool, rational decisions about either real security needs or the protection of civil rights. It was with some amusement that I heard the Minister say a few weeks ago "I hope we never have to introduce such legislation whereby people can vanish from the streets for 48 hours". Of course, the irony is that the Coalition, in which the Minister was a member of the Government at that time, brought in an exactly similar Bill in 1976, the Emergency Provisions Bill, which was in this respect a carbon copy of the Prevention of Terrorism Act and the Minister voted for it. Fianna Fáil on return to Government in 1977, in which I was Minister for Justice, repealed that section. We are discussing this motion in a somewhat similar atmosphere two months after the Brighton bombings which have been condemned clearly by all parties in this House. There is no evidence that the Act which has been in force for ten years has prevented such acts of violence which we all deplore. Can anyone suggest seriously that there is any lack of legislation in Britain to deal with acts of violence or apprehending terrorists?
The principal features of the Act are the power to exclude persons from Great Britain on suspicion of involvement in terrorist activity and to hold people for up to seven days for questioning without right of access to a solicitor or to one's family. Further, there was a provision which made it an offence to possess information which may be of material assistance in preventing acts of terrorism or apprehending persons so involved and not to pass it on to the authorities. This clause interferes seriously with the freedom of the Press and, I understand, has been repealed.
By allowing the authorities to detain persons for up to seven days without trial, there is no safeguard against unlawful detention or against abusive interrogation practices. Secondly, the Act permits detention for the purposes of questioning, and at ports and airports this can be done on a random basis without even any requirement to justify a reasonable suspicion of involvement in terrorism. The power of exclusion is entirely arbitrary and can be applied without any evidence or justification needing to be produced and there is no appeal. The exclusion order, which is regarded as a breach of human rights and as contrary to the European Convention, is in effect a power of exile, more usually associated with totalitarian countries.
We are not here primarily discussing the operation of the Act in Northern Ireland, but it is a part of what Dáil Éireann discussed last November in relation to the supergrass system. It allows uncorroborated confessions, including the use of informers, to be used in evidence in one-judge courts. Only a very small proportion of those arrested have been charged under the Act and an even smaller number have been found guilty. Of 5,683 people arrested between November 1974 and September 1983 only 2½ per cent, or in numbers 137, were charged and only 9 per cent of those charged were found guilty. Not one person has been found guilty of murder and only four persons were found guilty of attempted murder or conspiracy to murder. These statistics have been supplied by the Irish Information Partnership. While some 70 people have been convicted of possessing firearms and explosives offences, nobody has suggested that such offences could not be prosecuted except for this Act. It is important to note that 95 per cent were totally innocent. In Northern Ireland the percentage is even lower.
There can be little doubt that the Act is being used largely for purposes of questioning and of harassment. Withholding information is in itself an offence under the Act. I would remind Deputies that Members of this House and even a former Minister for Foreign Affairs have been held under the Act, which gives some idea of the indiscriminate use made of the Act.
There was an attempt, in breach of the common travel area, to introduce a landing card requirement. This card, issued to Irish citizens, states that it is issued under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, which can only mean that the authorities regard every person issued with one as a potential terrorist. The information is computerised and means that a large section of the Irish population in Britain is on police files. Deputy David Andrews publicly protested about this, and the practice has been curtailed.
Reports have appeared in the newspapers of detainees being ill-treated in detention, and of being subjected to threats. Crew members of the B & I have been picked out and detained several days in succession on a random basis. The former British Labour spokesman in Northern Ireland Mr. Clive Soley, MP, has said and I quote from The Irish Press of January 4, 1985:
Perfectly law-abiding people have been dragged in under the Act, held for days without any contact with their families.... In my opinion this Act creates a serious problem of people's democratic rights.
There has been a suggestion that some of the recent arrests, are politically motivated. The circumstances that a number of those arrested have a public profile, and indeed were campaigning against the Prevention of Terrorism Act and for a reopening of the cases of the Birmingham Six, is surely a cause of some disquiet. Even should the case against some of those arrested fail, they will have been out of circulation for some time. It has been pointed out that political activists in the Irish community are most likely to be picked up.
Our Embassy in London has been unjustly criticised for its role during the last month. I am sure the Embassy does its best within the limits of Government policy. The Embassy will do what it is told to do by the Government. To the extent that there is any dissatisfaction with official reaction to these events, it should be directed at the Government.
We have asked, and we ask again, that the Irish Embassy be informed immediately of all detentions under the Act, so that it can provide an effective consular service. This is the routine practice in virtually every other country. We believe also that detainees should be allowed access to solicitors and that their families be informed. However, this is not enough. The Act itself must be condemned straightaway.
The Minister has been subjected to severe criticism for his manner of defending the Act in the last few weeks. His remarks have been used gleefully to defend the Act by right wing Tory spokesmen, such as Peter Utley of the Daily Telegraph, who quoted the Minister's statement that the Act was not being used to harass the Irish community in Britain.
The secretary of the Irish Bishops Episcopal Commission also criticised the Minister. The Irish News severely criticised the Minister. Indeed, I should like to quote from their editorial, as the Irish News is generally regarded as a very moderate voice of Nationalist opinion in the North. I quote:
Another Minister talking nonsense can be found in the Republic where the man in charge of foreign affairs has explained his stance towards Britain's Prevention of Terrorism Act.
This is the Act under which about 6,000 people have been arrested. Only some 150 have ever been charged — that is less than two per cent.
The Minister, Deputy Peter Barry, apparently, is satisfied the Act is now being used more responsibly. He bases his satisfaction on the claim that the level of detentions under the PTA has dropped from 1,000 a year last decade to 100 a year now. God help those 100 because the Republic's Minister for Foreign Affairs, with complacent attitude, certainly will not.
Deputy Barry said he would "stand up and defend" any Irish people harassed under the PTA. Deputy Barry, you should have stood up years ago. Mr. Douglas Hurd, on the other hand, praised the Minister for his measured words. It is easy to see from the Government's amendment why. The Minister's amendment to our motion expresses deep concern at the possibilities of abuse of some of the provisions and their application, but all that it actually deplores is denial of access to a solicitor and information to families. It is obvious that the word in our motion that sticks in the Minister's gullet is the word "condemn". Have we now reached the stage where we are afraid to condemn what the British Government are doing to our citizens in Britain?
If peace is to come to these islands, it is essential that pieces of legislation that only fuel a sense of grievance and of alienation must be repealed. We should say this clearly and without hesitation to the British Government and parliament in the knowledge that there are many members of that parliament who would express themselves in even stronger terms than we would. How can we expect British MPs to succeed in repealing legislation that impinges on the rights of Irish citizens if our Minister for Foreign Affairs indicates that he is now much happier with the Act? Let us give a clear signal here tonight and give encouragement to the friends of Ireland in the British parliament and assist their efforts, instead of fudging our signals as the Government by their amendment wish us to do.
Many in the Government parties carry their liberalism on their sleeves. Many of them have expressed concern about the basic rights of oppressed peoples in far off countries. They have no option but to support our motion.
I wish to allow Deputy Liam Fitzgerald use the remainder of my time.