I move amendment No. 1:
Before section 1 to insert a new section as follows:
"( ) No person shall export any explosive from the State into Northern Ireland, or conspire at or procure the bringing of any explosive into Northern Ireland by whatever route or means or from whatever source, unless such export, or such bringing of explosive into Northern Ireland shall, in respect of every individual consignment, have been in accordance with a licence granted by the Minister."
The House will remember that on the last occasion when this Bill was being discussed I pointed out that a very similar topic had been discussed by us when the Firearms Bill of last year was going through. On that occasion the Minister for Justice refused to entertain the idea that we ought to make it an offence for anybody in his jurisdiction.
to conspire or arrange for the exportation of a dangerous or deadly thing from this State into the North of Ireland or to conspire or arrange for or procure the exportation of a deadly thing from abroad into the North of Ireland even though it might not pass through our own territory over the border which Partition has erected.
That point of view did not commend itself to the Minister for Justice then. So far as I can gather from the Minister for Labour, on the Second Stage of this Bill it does not commend itself to him either.
This is why I felt I had to put down this amendment. I do not believe it ought to be lawful for somebody in this jurisdiction to connive at the import of a dangerous thing into the North of Ireland in the conditions which the North of Ireland has had to face over the last two or three years. When we have a Bill before us called the Dangerous Substances Bill it is our duty to ensure that no criticism can be levelled at us along the lines of saying that we have not done our duty in making sure that life and limb in the North of Ireland are as dear to us as life and limb in the Republic of Ireland.
That is why I drafted the proposed amendment and why I have submitted it to the House. Since I put this amendment down, I have been in contact with the people who manufacture explosives legitimately in this jurisdiction and I understand from them that every export of explosives which they make to the North of Ireland is done under licence from the British Home Office. Until Stormont was prorogued it would have been open to the Stormont Home Office to induce the British Home Office to suspend a licence. In other words, it is and was—I have to say this in fairness to the firm concerned and in fairness to the interests concerned—within the power of the Northern Ireland and British authorities to prevent, by means of withdrawing or refusing a licence, the importation of legitimately manufactured explosives into Northern Ireland from the Republic. To that extent I must concede that my amendment is drafted in a way in which, had I had that knowledge previously, I would not have drafted it.
If the export of explosives to the North of Ireland is governed by a licence which can be withdrawn at any time by the authorities which whether we like it or not, are in control de facto of the situation north of our Border, it would be superfluous for us to ask the Minister for Labour or any other Minister to license individual consignments of explosives over the Border. Instead of withdrawing this amendment I will leave it in on the basis that there is still an outstanding problem which the existence of a Northern Ireland licence or a British licence does not cover, namely, the possibility that a citizen of this State, a person resident within our jurisdiction, might try to arrange the importation of explosives into the North of Ireland by some other route—it could be, perhaps, direct by helicopter or by fishing smack.
My concern was to make sure that so far as my party are concerned, and I hope so far as this House is concerned, we would not let a Bill entitled the Dangerous Substances Bill go through without making sure that so far as was within our power our sundered brethren in the North of Ireland would realise that we took seriously the threat to the peace and safety of life and limb for all sides of the population, and for all classes and creeds we so often profess to be concerned about—even if the Minister was to make that point—in view of the knowledge which I have gained since I put the amendment down that the export from here to the North of Ireland of explosives is already sufficiently protected or controlled by the issue of licences from the authorities who are in control up there, nonetheless I think it ought to be wrongful and unlawful for anybody in this jurisdiction, or anybody who claims the shelter and protection of the laws of this State, to take it on himself to contrive the importation of deadly things into the North of Ireland by whichever route it may be, even if it is by helicopter, aircraft, baloon, fishing smack or any other means. I believe that ought to be an offence.
Even though it might quite easily be the case that we could have such a section on our Statute Book for 20 years and never successfully prosecute anybody for it, it would, in my view, show our anxiety to convince the people in the North of Ireland who differ from us in so many ways, ethnically and politically, that we regard the word "Ireland" as meaning something more than Twenty-six Counties and that we regard the word "Irish" as meaning something more than applying to Twenty-six Counties. That to me would be important. Even if we were merely to go through the motions of passing a section which I freely admit might not catch many offenders, I believe this House would be doing Ireland a favour by accepting my amendment.
I do not think any harm could be done by leaving it as it stands. Certainly, I believe that an impression will be made where it most needs to be made, among the Unionist population, among the people who are Irish according to our political cathecism but who have not been brought up in the same tradition as most of us have been and who have a different interpretation of the word "Ireland" than we have. We need to make an impression on them because we have been neglecting them for so long, and we might make that impression on them if we were to make sure so far as this Bill could do it that nothing deadly will go into their Six Counties. I do not care how legitimate or illegitimate their Border may seem to anyone in this House, nothing should be allowed to go into the Six Counties which could blow people apart, innocent as well as guilty, if we have the power to stop it.
That is the point that concerns me. Although I entirely understand the contention of the Minister for Labour that his job is basically to do a patching-up job on a code that might be broadly described as the Factory Acts code, I ask him, particularly as a man who in his capacity as a politician and as a human being, not as a Minister, comes from near the North of Ireland whether he would not be doing everybody in this Republic a service if he tried to adapt his Bill in such a way that this could be shown to the people in the North of Ireland as a signal that we wanted to do what we could to protect them.
I believe that by making it an offence to import explosives into the North of Ireland without a licence or to conspire or to procure the bringing of explosives into the North of Ireland, even if by another route other than the Border, he would be doing a good day's work. If the Minister were to acquiesce in this amendment or, perhaps, if he was to undertake to propose himself at the next Stage an amendment along similar lines, he would be doing all of us—I am trying to speak across party frontiers now—North and South, a great service.