Clause 3 - Certificates of eligibility
Northern Ireland (Offences) Bill
10:30 am
Jeffrey M Donaldson (Lagan Valley, DUP)
Surely the Government are not going to repeat the mistakes they made with the early release scheme. In that scheme, there were supposed to be linkages between decommissioning and the release of prisoners, but the linkages were not there. As a result, some of the main paramilitary organisations have had all their prisoners released yet have still not decommissioned a single bullet. Will the clause not have precisely the same effect in terms of the return of exiles? The paramilitaries will pocket everything that the Government give them and give the absolute minimum in return.