Orders of the Day — Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 3:37 pm on 19 November 1990.

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Photo of Mr Peter Brooke Mr Peter Brooke The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland 3:37, 19 November 1990

The Bill is presented at a time when we have recently had further tragic confirmation of the ability of terrorists, both republican and so-called loyalists, to bring death and misery to men and women not just in Northern Ireland, but throughout the United Kingdom and beyond. I do not want now to rehearse the details of the present security situation, in which so far this year 71 people have died in Northern Ireland alone as a direct result of the security situation. They were mostly civilians, but the total included 11 members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and 15 members of the armed forces, including eight from the Ulster Defence Regiment.

All of us are all too familiar with the litany of suffering caused by terrorists seeking to promote their political objectives by violence and the threat of violence—violence all the more atrocious because it is so completely futile. Each of us also, as we take part in the debate, will recollect particular incidents which have made an especially deep impression on us personally and which must inevitably influence our approach to the issues that we are debating.

Since that is so, I do not need to spend time explaining why the Government will not rest until Northern Ireland is cleansed of the abomination of terrorism. I do not need to justify to the House why the Government seek to maintain the rule of law, or why we have a duty to ensure that all the people of Northern Ireland must be free to express their political opinions without inhibition, fear of discrimination or reprisal, or why we have a duty to defend the democratically expressed wishes of the people of Northern Ireland against those who try to promote political objectives, including a change in the status of Northern Ireland, by terror