On this occasion I am very happy to leave the commanding heights of the economy and of agriculture to my colleagues. I would like to make some comments on other areas, including the Appropriation Act, which I either missed out contributing to in the recent past or may not get a chance again for some time. I am very glad to use the Appropriation Act as is traditional in this House to make various reflections on particular areas.
Under foreign affairs, I want to comment on Northern Ireland and on the appalling murders in recent days. My own track record has been one of, some people would say, one-sided condemnation of the IRA atrocities, understandably so because these are the atrocities which are fuelling, and continue to fuel, the conflict and because they are committed in our name. Let me also state, as Rhonda Paisley said about two or three weeks ago when she called for a ban on the UDA, that the list of atrocities carried out in the name of Protestant loyalism is no less hellish in the eyes of all right-thinking Unionists than those carried out in the name of the Irish Republican movement. It is some kind of consolution to us that these unequivocal sentiments are being voiced by Ian Paisley's daughter and that she calls unequivocally for the banning of the UDA. Her remarks are quoted in the present issue of Fortnight Magazine, page 21, March 1991.
I am coming to the conclusion that condemnations are virtually useless. We are faced with a dilemma here. We have to keep making them. If we do not our silence will be taken for consent or connivance. Terrorists are now beyond the reach of condemnation. I have just finished reading a book called Terror by Connor Gearty which is an analysis of terrorism in Europe, of which the IRA are only a section. He makes a very convincing case, beyond a certain point terrorists are no longer interested even in the professed objectives they set out. Our attitude to terrorism should simply be that this is an evil which has to be dealt with. There is no good falling down on your bended knees and asking them to reform, etc. That is worse than useless. In that connection, the Christmas cease-fire of the IRA was outright hypocrisy. I was surprised that some of my colleagues were taken in by it and welcomed it as a new dawn.
What we should be urging, of course, as the people most agonisingly involved like Archbishop Daly are continuing to urge, is to get the politicians to live up to their responsibilities. Mr. John Hume is frequently telling the IRA that the object now is not getting out the Brits, that the Brits are ready to go, but persuading the Unionists to come to some agreement. It does not seem to me that he, himself, is pursing that logic. I think he is evincing a certain reluctance to get into dialogue with his Unionist neighbours.
I cannot see how these dreadful murders which happen in an intimate community can ever be dealt with unless the community as a whole feel responsible for policing and for security. There is no point hoping that the security forces can handle the problem unless they have the confidence of both sides of the community, and they cannot have the support of both sides of the community unless there is some form of devolved government and some form of power sharing — I do not see how we can possibly get away from that and unless both sides of the community learn to live together in that part of Ireland.
I would like to draw your attention to an interesting distinction here that Mr. John Hume constantly talks about — the need for Unionists to come to terms with living in Ireland, but Archbishop Daly, whose wisdom in certain respects I greatly admire, stresses rather that it is a question of this part of Ireland. There is no problem here; we have no problem living with Unionists because they are up there. They have no problem living with us. There is no problem with sharing the island in that way. The problem is the two sides of the community sharing that bit of the island and unless they face up to that there is going to be no real future.
The role of our Government should be a supportive one and they should have no lingering, tribal claims about territory or vested interests in territorial unity. Their role should be to support and encourage and to be glad that they can do something to prevent or to help bring these problems to an end. Unfortunately, I do not see that the Government are performing this clear role. There is a secrecy and ambiguity about Government policy on Northern Ireland. I hope that at the Ard-Fheis this weekend the Taoiseach will, as he has promised, clarify that policy. I hope that clarification will not be a reversion to old catch-cries.
On the other hand, I must say I do not agree with blaming the Taoiseach for everything if these talks do not take place. The accusation was made yesterday that he bears a heavy burden before the bar of history. It is unfair and disproportionate to suggest that and, indeed, the Leader of the Opposition would do well to heed the advice of a Civil War general in America which ran as follows, "elevate them guns a little lower". His fire power at the moment seems to be rather indiscriminate. I notice the media are given to depicting the Leader of Fine Gael in the role of a bull and the Taoiseach in the role of a toreador and that imagery suggests to me that the same gentleman would do well to heed Winston Churchill's observation about John Foster Dulles that, "he was the only bull he ever knew who brought round his own china shop with him".
While urging the Taoiseach to dissipate the mist of secrecy and ambiguity that seems to surround Northern policy, we all bear a heavy responsibility but, most of all, the politicians of the North. I would hope they would stop massaging their egos and get around to filling the political vacuum. It is nonsense for the Taoiseach to say that there is no wish for devolution in the North. Séamus Mallon has no wish for devolution; John Hume has no wish for devolution and maybe many of the Unionists, but all the polls suggest that the great majority of the Northern community would welcome power-sharing and devolved government.
Continuing under the heading of justice and foreign affairs, let me raise the question of extradition which is in and out of our concerns, if you like. We have to brace ourselves in the next week or so, with the release of the Birmingham Six, for another assault by anti-extradition interests in this country on the principle of extradition. While I would be the last to denounce supporters of the anti-extradition committee as fellow-travellers — and such an accusation was virtually made in respect of Deputy Garland's activities before Christmas — it is very important that people who join anti-extradition committees and parade with them and so on, dissociate themselves from the obvious IRA elements in these movements. It is not my observation that they do so dissociate themselves, that they are quite content, if you like, to be in the same company as Provo apologists. They have an obligation to make that kind of dissociation; otherwise they are giving aid and comfort to the IRA in their propaganda battle for the hearts and minds of people in this part of the country. Although that battle seems to be totally lost at the moment, remember the IRA will continue to fight that propaganda battle. Therefore, I would suggest that those who prattle about ending extradition are naive and irresponsible. The principle of extradition must be maintained. It is a matter of honour and obligation. No matter how imperfect the situation in practice, it can be reformed, but the principle must be maintained.
I would also refer briefly to another implication of the Birmingham six case and that is to remind ourselves that our own machinery of justice and arms and organs of justice are by no means perfect. We have a beam in our eye and even though we are very fortunate in our Garda Síochána and in the consensus they established at a very early stage in the history of this State, let us not fool ourselves that there are no bad apples in the barrel. We, too, raised the spectre of an appalling vista to prevent civil actions on the part of those who feel they have been wronged, such as in the Nicky Kelly case.
Finally, I wish to make some comments on the Gulf War since I was with the EC delegation the week before last when that was being discussed. I have listened to some of my colleagues here on the whole matter of the Gulf War from the very beginning of the conflict and all I can say is that I wish I could be as sure of anything as they are of everything. The Gulf War must have left us all in a state of agonising confusion. For me, if I could be sure that it was a legitimate United Nations operation, I would have supported it from the beginning but I agonised about the way in which the allies — from the very early stages — went beyond that mandate. The bombing of Baghdad violated the essential principle of the United Nations mandate. We can only deplore the appalling things that have happened on both sides and among those — and I am one of those who deplore anti-Americanism and many of my connections are with the United States — was President Bush's blatant triumphalism, especially his almost vindictive assertion that they had kicked the Vietnam spectre at last. That seemed to me to be looking at the whole operation from the point of view of salving American pride in an old-fashioned jingoistic manner that is totally unaccpetable.
I have sympathy for the way the Government dealt with the whole problem. The fact is we are no longer masters in our own house. It would be grand if we could adopt that splendid and large independent foreign policy of which I am a foremost advocate but I am a realist at the same time. We have to have regard to our membership of the Community and indeed we have to have regard to the realities of our links with the United States also. I am not saying that is a justification why we should support murder, but it does expose the ambiguities of our foreign policy, of our so-called neutrality policy. We have very little road left to travel in that respect.
The consequence of the Gulf War, the feeling in the Community that a common foreign policy is more than ever necessary, will force us sooner or later to make the same kind of clarification that I would like to see in respect of Northern Ireland policy because, like our policy in the North, our policy on neutrality and foreign policy also is shrouded in secrecy and ambiguity. My own hope is that we will make that vital distinction between security and defence.
Of course, as a member of the Community we must participate fully in security measures, disarmament, anti-crime and anti-drug measures, a common European police force, perhaps, but if we are to retain any shred of our own personality and our own place in the world over 70 years we cannot join a European strike force, as I heard it frighteningly described in Luxembourg last week. Our European partners should appreciate that we have that much distinctive policy to bring to Europe, that we have these other links with the world and that we should be allowed to retain, as it were, that credibility and that distinctiveness we have as a result of our post-colonial record and our independent foreign policy. Under the heading of foreign affairs, both in respect of Northern Ireland and the European Community, I am looking for a clarification of Government policy beyond the present levels of ambiguity and secrecy.
