Bertie Ahern
Ceist:1 Mr. B. Ahern asked the Taoiseach whether officials from his Department have had any contact with Sinn Féin since the Manchester bombing of 15 June 1996; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13309/96]
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Northern Ireland Peace Process.
Mary Harney
Ceist:2 Miss Harney asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the Government statement of Tuesday, 18 June 1996, in which it is suggested there are no grounds for confidence that Sinn Féin is capable of pursuing normal democratic politics based on exclusively peaceful methods; and whether this remains his view. [13408/96]
Mary Harney
Ceist:3 Miss Harney asked the Taoiseach the formal response, if any, he has received to the two questions posed to Sinn Féin on Monday, 17 June 1996. [13409/96]
Mary Harney
Ceist:4 Miss Harney asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the contact, if any, between officials in his Department and Sinn Féin since the Government statement of Tuesday, 18 June 1996. [13410/96]
Mary Harney
Ceist:5 Miss Harney asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the discussions, if any, he has had with the British Prime Minister since the bomb explosion in Manchester on Saturday, 15 June 1996. [13411/96]
Mary Harney
Ceist:6 Miss Harney asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the statement made by him on the peace process in Trim, County Meath, on Monday, 17 June 1996. [13412/96]
Bertie Ahern
Ceist:7 Mr. B. Ahern asked the Taoiseach the reply, if any, he has received to the two questions that he posed to Sinn Féin. [13418/96]
Mary Harney
Ceist:8 Miss Harney asked the Taoiseach whether the comments made by Sinn Féin President, Mr. Gerry Adams, in The Irish Times of 20 June 1996, represents a satisfactory answer to the questions posed to that organisation by the Government on Monday, 17 June 1996. [13621/96]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 8, inclusive, together.
I am committed to the peace process. I want to see a complete and final end to violence in Irish politics. A peace process involves change, profound change — change in what people do, and change in what people think. A peace process is not served by avoiding difficult questions, or pretending that things are different from what they really are.
Quite apart from the feelings of the recent victims, it is just not possible, if the peace process is to be genuine and strong, to continue to act as if Jerry McCabe was not murdered, as if the Manchester bomb was not planted, or as if arms, bombs and mortars had not been assembled in this State during the recently commenced all-party negotiations. Today I have been informed by the Garda Síochána that among the finds in Clonaslee were dozens of bombs of a new type, which were in course of being assembled. The Garda believe the bombs were intended for early use. These events, and the questions that flow from them have to be faced, and faced publicly, if the peace process is to be robust, durable and honest.
These events have changed the objective circumstances and context of the Government's previous relations with Sinn Féin. There is a connection between the IRA and Sinn Féin. No one denies that, and the IRA's involvement in three recent terrible events changes things. It is these events, not the Government or the media, that are forcing Sinn Féin to face fundamental and difficult questions, to face the questions the Government has put to them.
The publication of the Mitchell principles also poses these difficult questions in an open, public and unavoidable way for Sinn Féin. They have to be answered satisfactorily and convincingly by any party taking part in the all-party talks. Anybody who feels it is impolitic or inappropriate to ask these questions of Sinn Féin now, in the wake of Adare, Manchester and Clonaslee, should reread the Mitchell principles. I will circulate the Mitchell principles in the Official Report to show how closely the Government's questions to Sinn Féin and the Mitchell principles relate to one another.
The two questions the Government has put to Sinn Féin are: (1) Does Sinn Féin continue to support the armed struggle of the IRA? (2) Has the Sinn Féin leader gone to the IRA to ask for a ceasefire, and if not why?
The crucial question posed by Mitchell is one which asks participants to the talks to "renounce for themselves, and to oppose any effort, to use force, or threaten to use force, to influence the course or the outcome of all-party negotiations".
The two questions the Government asked Sinn Féin are no more and no less than the simple restatement of that Mitchell principle I have just quoted. Sinn Féin has said it will accept these Mitchell principles in all-party negotiations.
In light of Sinn Féin's links to the IRA, and the recent activities of the IRA, it is essential to know where Sinn Féin stands on the use or threat of force to influence the negotiations which started on 10 June.
If, to use the Mitchell words, Sinn Féin "renounce for themselves the use of force to influence the course or the outcome of all-party negotiations", then it would simply not be consistent with the Mitchell principles if Sinn Féin continued to support an armed struggle by the IRA.
Not only this, the Mitchell principles request parties to "oppose any effort by others to use force, or threaten to use force, to influence the course or the outcome of all-party negotiations". Acceptance of the Mitchell principles, therefore, imposes a specific obligation on any party which has influence on a paramilitary organisation to go to that organisation and ask it to end its military campaign. This demonstrates that the Government's two questions flow directly and inexorably from the Mitchell principles and are questions Sinn Féin will have to face once it enters the negotiations.
The main lesson of the 1994 ceasefire is that it is vital to face difficult questions beforehand. I want the next ceasefire to be more durable than the last, and that is why it is best to face difficult questions at this stage. The Mitchell report raises the difficult questions honestly and publicly. In answering the Government's questions, Sinn Féin will do no more than it will have to do in any event if and when it joins the all-party negotiations. A peace process ultimately has to be based on truth. Truth is at the heart of all peace-making, and out of truth comes trust.
What the vast majority of people now want to hear from Sinn Féin is that it has persuaded the IRA to restore the 1994 ceasefire, and how it proposes, in that context, to give practical effect to the six Mitchell principles.
The Government recognises that it is difficult for any movement to turn its back forever on violence, and on the evocative tradition that is sometimes associated with violence. Such a movement must work its way through this transformation in its own way and using its own words. That process has, in some senses, been under way for years.
However, it is not an act of friendship towards such a movement to minimise the extent of the change that is necessary. The Mitchell principles, on which the Government's two questions were based, contain the most fundamental challenge the Republican movement as a whole will ever have to face. There is evidence that some of those in leadership positions in Sinn Féin are endeavouring to bring the whole Republican movement around to a full and practical acceptance of the Mitchell principles. While the two questions posed by the Government have not yet been satisfactorily answered, I believe that these questions, and the Mitchell principles from which they directly flow, are now being seriously examined within the Republican movement. For the sake of the peace process, I hope this examination of these fundamental questions within the Republican movement will culminate in a durable and irrevocable IRA ceasefire, with no misunderstandings or ambiguities remaining in the minds, either of the IRA itself or of those who could be victims of the IRA. This time, everyone must know it is over. Otherwise trust will not be built.
In line with previous practice, I do not propose to give details of official-level contacts with Sinn Féin. I can, however, confirm that the Government decided on 18 June to keep under review the question of further official-level meetings, if any, in the light, inter alia, of Sinn Féin responses to the evolving situation and to the questions put to it. In the meantime, lines of communication remain open.
I had a telephone conversation with the Prime Minister Mr. Major on 18
June, following the review which the Government carried out that day. I expressed the Government's revulsion at what had happened in Manchester. We reviewed the situation following the events in Manchester and Adare, as well as progress in the talks under way in Belfast. We also had a useful exchange on European affairs. Subsequently, we met in Florence in the margins of the European Council. We discussed the talks in Belfast, East/West economic co-operation, priorities for the Irish Presidency of the EU and co-operation against drug abuse and crime.
Mitchell Principles.
Extract from the Report of the International Body.
20. Accordingly, we recommend that the parties to such negotiations affirm their total and absolute commitment:
a. To democratic and exclusively peaceful means of resolving political issues;
b. To the total disarmament of all paramilitary organisations;
c. To agree that such disarmament must be verifiable to the satisfaction of an independent commission;
d. To renounce for themselves and to oppose any effort by others, to use force, or threaten to use force, to influence the course or the outcome of all-party negotiations;
e. To agree to abide by the terms of any agreement reached in all-party negotiations and to resort to democratic and exclusively peaceful methods in trying to alter any aspect of that outcome with which they may disagree; and
f. To urge that punishment killings and beatings stop and to take effective steps to prevent such actions.
I thank the Taoiseach for his lengthy reply. The Fianna Fáil Party is also dismayed by the IRA shooting of a garda, the bombing in Manchester, finding a bomb factory in Laois and the failure of the Republican movement to agree the conditions to allow Sinn Féin to participate in all-party talks. We strongly favour the door being kept open as long as there is a glimmer of hope; that conditions should not be more stringent than they were to allow Sinn Féin to participate in talks, if there is a ceasefire.
In demanding that Sinn Féin condemns the recent actions of the IRA is the Government effectively creating a split in the Republican movement? Does the Taoiseach consider this is helpful to peace?
The Taoiseach stated today and on other occasions that he would like the next ceasefire to be durable; so would I. Does he not consider it more important that Sinn Féin persuades the IRA to bring the movement which has been involved in the troubles during the past 25 years with it into the peace process rather than leaving a section behind that will continue to engage in violence? The Taoiseach acknowledges there is a strong element in the Republican movement seeking to find a path to peace, does he agree we should all engage in encouraging them to continue to convince their colleagues, even those with a tendency to murder and destruction, along this path?
The killing by the IRA of Detective Garda Jerry McCabe is the first murder by the IRA of a member of the Garda Síochána since Garda Frank Hand was murdered by the IRA at Drumree on 10 August 1984. I hope Deputy Bertie Ahern is not questioning me for having asked Sinn Féin, including a Sinn Féin candidate for the Dáil, to condemn what happened in Limerick.
That really is appalling.
I believe it was appropriate to ask any public representative appearing on national television, who failed to condemn what happened in Limerick to do so. That was the only occasion on which I challenged Sinn Féin for its failure to condemn the killing of Detective Garda Jerry McCabe. I assume Deputy Ahern fully understands why I did so and that he accepts I was right.
As far as a split is concerned, it is not in the interests of anybody that there should be a split. We need the entire Republican movement in all its manifestations to accept the Mitchell principles in full. If it is able to accept the Mitchell principles in full, it must be able to answer yes to the two questions put to it by Government. It was in order to focus its attention on the essence of the Mitchell principles that the questions were put to it, but it is the ambition of the Government that the entire Republican movement should accept those principles and all that they imply.
Notwithstanding the fact that there are some people in Sinn Féin committed to peace, does the Taoiseach agree that Sinn Féin is merely the political wing of the Provisional IRA, that it is the same organisation and therefore, for the Government to pose a question asking Sinn Féin to go to the IRA implies that the Government believes in some sense these are two different organisations?
I do not accept that supposition. In my original reply I said that I believe there is a very strong link between Sinn Féin and the IRA and I said in response to Deputy Ahern that in posing the two questions — which summarise the essence of the Mitchell principles — the Government was asking the entire Republican movement to abjure the use or threat of force for political purposes. It is only when practical effect is given to that commitment that there will be the trust necessary for success.
The Government has gone to enormous lengths to meet in a favourable way every single request put by Sinn Féin in regard to the structure and nature of the talks that started on 10 June. Despite the bombing in Canary Wharf and the revocation of its ceasefire by the IRA we allowed official level contact with Sinn Féin to continue in order that we could hear what it needed in regard to the terms of reference of the talks to start on 10 June and seek to have that done so that there could be a ceasefire and it could be at the talks.
We were successful on every particular question put by Sinn Féin in getting an answer along the lines it could accept. Despite that, within a week of the talks starting, we had the first killing in 12 years of a member of the Garda Síochána by an IRA unit, the ignition of one of the biggest bombs ever in Manchester and evidence of the manufacture of arms which I have just announced. To my mind, it is those events which require the republican movement as a whole to answer the two questions put to it by the Government.
There is no sense in trying to be so nice that we do not ask the questions which need to be asked. It is no favour to a movement, some of which at least us genuinely struggling to change, to pretend that the questions it is grappling with are any less than the ones it is in fact grappling with. It was in order that the entire republican movement should understand what is at stake that I and the Government decided to pose these questions to it.
We were influenced by the reaction in this House and elsewhere to the failure of the last ceasefire when one Deputy said: perhaps we could and should have done more to tie down firmly both Sinn Féin and the IRA. That was the advice offered to me from across the floor. I think it was good advice and a good reflection on what happened before. It is important that the questions be put and answered now.
I advise the House of the time constraint imposed upon us in dealing with questions to the Taoiseach on this day — 30 minutes only are available.
I assume the Taoiseach listened to the first line of my question and what I said recently. I will not, therefore, take issue with him in trying to turn it around. In response to other incidents his predecessor made strong attacks on the republican movement. Let me mention but one. On 10 March 1994 following the bombing at Heathrow he outlined in the strongest terms what he felt about the actions of the republican movement, but that was done without creating the tensions that the Taoiseach either seems to want to create or is creating in the republican movement. Is the Taoiseach happy that the Government could be — perhaps we all are — in serious danger of losing any influence it might have with the republican movement by trying to force Mr. Adams in particular into condemnation of those he is trying to convince to move forward?
The only event that I asked the IRA to condemn specifically was the killing of Garda McCabe. I take it the Deputy is not saying that I should not have asked Sinn Féin to do that.
I have already made that clear.
That was the only occasion I asked it to condemn something. This was the first killing of a garda since Garda Hand was killed in Drumree in August 1984. I asked a man who stood in the name of Sinn Féin for the Dáil to condemn it but he failed to do so. Sinn Féin has not yet condemned that event in those terms.
I believe that the lesson of the last ceasefire, as Deputy Ahern said in the House after its collapse, is that we should have done more to tie down firmly both Sinn Féin and the IRA as to their intentions. My predecessor said at the time of the last ceasefire: "Yesterday's IRA statement is quite clear and unambiguous and can only have one possible meaning, that its campaign has ended for good". That is what he, I and every Member of the House believed at that time.
On 16 September Mr. Martin McGuinness of Sinn Féin said: "I believe the IRA ceasefire will hold in all circumstances and that is a very clear statement". We all know it did not hold in all circumstances. Perhaps the reason is, as Deputy Ahern said, that we could and should have done more to tie down firmly both Sinn Féin and the IRA before the ceasefire which did not hold in all circumstances and which was not "for good", to use the words of my predecessor.
It is in that context that these questions must be put. It gives added urgency to those questions when we discover that bombs are actually being manufactured and assembled at this time in this State for early use. It might be desirable to allow the republican movement time and space without insistent questioning to come to its own conclusions in its own words and time about these matters. In normal circumstances that would be reasonable, but these circumstances are not normal. We have had the first killing by an IRA unit of a member of the Garda Síochána in 12 years just before the talks started, a bomb in Manchester and evidence of dozens of similar bombs being manufactured in County Laois. This gives added urgency to getting these answers.
It is important to understand also that private answers are not sufficient. If the veracity of these answers is to be tested it is to be tested in the way in which the entire republican movement acts subsequently. It is very important that the public and the entire republican movement should know the questions that have to be answered and the answers that have to be given. It is important that the entire republican movement should understand what the six Mitchell principles say and mean because it is not sufficient that there be a simple verbal commitment, a simple use of the Mitchell principles as if they were some form of empty formula. It is important that the Mitchell principles are accepted for what they mean in full by the republican movement as they have been by the loyalists. We will then have the conditions for genuinely inclusive talks based on trust aimed at reconciliation.
Does the Taoiseach accept that there is one republican movement with a provisional military wing and a political wing? Does he further accept that that movement clearly believes peace and violence are interchangeable political tactics, each to be used when it suits? The Taoiseach said it was regrettable that we did not pin the IRA down on the last occasion and find out what its intentions were. Does the Taoiseach accept that after what happened at Clonaslee — Sinn Féin should be asked to condemn that as well as the Manchester bombing — the IRA's intentions are clear? That being the case, does the Taoiseach see any point in the Government maintaining links with Sinn Féin as long as it maintains its link with the Provisional IRA?
The President of Sinn Féin, Mr. Gerry Adams, said on 20 May that in the context of all-party talks, if the other parties signed up to the Mitchell principles, Sinn Féin would make its commitment to these principles absolute. All the other parties have signed up to those principles. Those principles include the use of democratic and exclusively peaceful means of resolving political issues, the total disarmament of all paramilitary organisations, such disarmament to be verifiable to the satisfaction of an independent commission, and the renouncing of and opposition to any effort by others to use force or to threaten to use force to influence the course of the outcome of all-party negotiations.
If the other parties signed up to the Mitchell principles, Sinn Féin has said it would make an absolute commitment to abide by the terms of any agreement reached in all party negotiations and to the use of democratic and exclusively peaceful methods in trying to alter any aspect of the outcome with which the organisation may disagree. Finally, Sinn Féin said on 20 May that if others signed up to the Mitchell principles, it too would make an absolute commitment to urge that punishment killings and beatings would stop and to take effective steps to prevent such actions.
The statement by Sinn Féin on 20 May saying that if others did so it would accept those principles is a basis for believing that there are people in the republican movement who seek not only to restore the ceasefire but to ensure that violence ends for good. For that reason the Government has not closed off lines of communication to those people. The Government believes that all members of the republican movement — those who provide safe houses, those who conceal arms, those who may feel that they engage in punishment beatings under some form of republican authority — must know the exact meaning of what the leadership is saying it is willing to sign up to when it says it will make its commitment to the Mitchell principles absolute. That is why I am returning to the Mitchell principles and to the two very simple and relevant questions that the Government put to Sinn Féin.
It is important that there be transparency and accountability in a peace process, as in any other area of political life. If there is to be transparency and accountability in the peace process, there must be clear answers to simple questions. I have put those simple questions to Sinn Féin. If there is tension, to use Deputy Ahern's words, in the republican movement because these questions are being put to them, perhaps Deputy Ahern should ask himself why that tension exists. If tension exists in regard to being asked about the Mitchell principles, perhaps it exists because there is not yet a true commitment to those principles.
The Mitchell principles have been published for quite a long time. They have been the subject of extensive consultation. Sinn Féin was so attached to the Mitchell principles that it protested that the British Government had binned them. The republican movement knows what the Mitchell principles are and if there is tension within that movement perhaps it is a constructive tension which is needed to clarify the issue. Perhaps the absence of tension on previous occasions was not a good thing. Perhaps it indicated that the true questions were not being put by the leadership to the membership, that the membership was being told one thing while those who were dealing with the political leadership were being told something else. That type of ambiguity is not possible in matters of life and death, in this case the death of a member of the Garda Síochána.
There has to be clarity. It is no exercise of charity not to put those questions clearly. They are also simple, clear and definite that evidence of tension surrounding an inability to answer them can only be dealt with by those who feel that tension working out what their true beliefs are and recognising that any peace process involves a process of change. It is not possible to continue with the beliefs and practices of the past if those beliefs and practices involve the continued option of the use of violence and, at the same time, to be involved successfully in a peace process.
I have reminded the Taoiseach that there was a great deal of tension on the road to the ceasefire in August 1994. The terrible atrocities in the fish shop on the Shankill and the bombings at Heathrow added to those tensions. This is nothing new. I do not have time to give a lesson on the recent history of the peace process, but things are no different now. Everybody in this House agrees that a firm reinstatement of the August 1994 ceasefire and the signing of the Mitchell principles should be a first priority. Sinn Féin has said that too. It was not able to achieve that with members of the broader republican movement. That is not the issue. Notwithstanding the impatience of this democracy with the IRA, which is felt by everybody in this country, I ask the Taoiseach to continue not to close doors to the republican movement.
A group within the broad republican movement is trying to advance the peace process. Perhaps it will fail. I am sure the Taoiseach would agree with me that if in the short-term the IRA is determined to wreck the peace process there is little we can do to stop it, but perhaps we can in the long-term. As long as some elements of the broad republican movement are striving to maintain a position of leading to a ceasefire we on this side of the House suggest that the Government should do everything it can to assist them. It happened before that people who had been involved in violence were helped to move into the democratic system. The Government cannot sacrifice the basic democratic principles, nonetheless much can be done.
I urge the Taoiseach to maintain the Government's influence with the republican movement and not drift back into the way we have been for decades in this House — talking about it while having no influence. We still have an apportunity to influence at least sections of the republican movement and I urge the Taoiseach to do all he can to assist. It is the easiest thing on earth to get up here and to lecture an speak against the republican movement. It is not easy for its members. They are risking their lives. I ask the Taoiseach to continue to try to assist them.
The Deputy referred to tension in the republican movement. When he used the term "tension" earlier he did not refer to the tension arising from IRA military operations but to a tension he suggested had been created because of the questions the Government put to Sinn Féin.
No, do not twist that.
It is entirely appropriate that the questions the Government put to Sinn Féin should be put. Those question flow directly from the Mitchell principles and if there is tension resulting from an inability to answer them, that is aconstructive and necessary tension which must be eased by the movement. To suggest the Government should not ask those questions is to suggest the Government should try to paper over cracks, to ignore realities and pretend things are other than they are. The process of peace would not be served by a process of denial of the truth.
As for the influence the Government might have on the republican movement it derives from the assurance it got on every one of the issues on which it sought to have assurance in regard to the talks. This Government was successful in negotiating with the British Government to ensure we could give satisfactory answers to Sinn Féin in regard to the talks, in regard to every one of the issues it raised. That practical record showing that politics works, and that if they come to us with reasonable requests we will pursue them reasonably and successfully, is the basis of any influence the Government has on the republican movement. Any influence the Government has on the republican movement does not derive, as Deputy Ahern may suggest, from the Government failing to put hard questions to Sinn Féin. It does not do credit to anyone or show respect for anyone to avoid asking a question because someone is not ready to answer it. Talks have already started. To take part in the talks Sinn Féin knows it has to sign up to the Mitchell principles and answer positively the two questions the Government put to it. Sinn Féin has known for many months that those questions have to be answered. The action of the IRA is an attempt by a section of the republican movement to answer those questions. The answer is basically, that it will not accept the Mitchell principles. Certainly what happened in Adare and Manchester and in Clonaslee is not consistent with the Mitchell principles.
As I pointed out to Deputy Harney, in contrast to that, the leader of Sinn Féin said on 20 May he and his party were willing to make an absolute commitment to each one of the six Mitchell principles. It is time for Sinn Féin and the republican movement to resolve that contradiction. That is all that is being done at this stage. It is owed by all of us to the victims — too many recent victims — of IRA and other forms of violence.
That must be the end of questions to the Taoiseach. We are running quite late.
Is it still the Taoiseach's view that there are no grounds for confidence that Sinn Féin is committed to democratic politics exclusively by peaceful means?
The only ground for confidence is the statement by the President of Sinn Féin on 20 May that Sinn Féin was willing. If others did so, to make its commitment absolute to the Mitchell principles. Anything said since does not add to any confidence that might have existed in the past. The actions of the IRA, with which Sinn Féin continues to maintain an organic link, do not add to the confidence there.
The Taoiseach said last week he had no confidence.
It would not be prudent to say all communication with Sinn Féin will be stopped ——
Has anything changed since last week to give the Taoiseach confidence?
——because on the basis of what was said on 20 May there is some ground for confidence. However, that confidence is being seriously diminished by events since, and by words used since. I hope as a result of the very clear statement on the issue, those elements in Sinn Féin and in the republican movement who want to accept the Mitchell principles and who want to put violence behind them for good will win the argument and a united republican movement will go irrevocably onto the path of peace and non-violent non-threatening politics. It is a hope dimmed considerably by events and words uttered by the republican movement in recent days and weeks but it is nonetheless a hope which has some foundation in the words used by the President of Sinn Féin when he said on 20 May his party was willing to make an absolute commitment to the Mitchell principles. We must return to that as a basis for some hope. Obviously the questions I put on behalf of the Government to Sinn Féin were founded on the Mitchell principles to which Sinn Féin said it was willing to make an absolute commitment.
That must be the end of questions to the Taoiseach for today. We now proceed to deal with questions nominated for priority.