Some hours ago I made clear my views at this Dispatch Box on the murder which took place yesterday in the constituency of the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) and I presume to speak again for the House when I respond to his comments and say that he would be entirely right to convey the sympathy of the whole House to his constituent, who suffered so grievously yesterday.

We have already spent about six and a half hours considering Northern Ireland business. We spent some time dealing with important security measures and we have spent some hours discussing direct rule. In its variety of forms, it has been, as always, a wide-ranging debate. At times, it has been robust—as robust as I can recall, and I believe that this is my 12th direct rule debate. At other times the debate has been highly emotionally charged. In a sense those emotions, coupled with the range of substance, are a reflection of life in Northern Ireland. Therefore it is entirely appropriate that our debate should be in that form.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) for the way in which he opened the debate the Oppostion side and for his kind words to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State—words which were reflected by a number of other speakers. While I realise that I am no impartial observer, I thank hon. Members for their words, which I entirely endorse. It would be appropriate to tell the hon. Gentleman that we recognise the sacrifice that he has made in terms of the television cameras and I hope that he will take some encouragement from the fact that it has been helpful.

The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North was kind enough to mention the changing face of the urban and industrial landscape of Northern Ireland. I was pleased that he also pointed out that the strength of a society is drawn, at least in part, from its diversity, and that it is government's responsibility to try to advance that process.

The one exception to the generous comments about my right hon. Friend came from the hon. Member for Londonderry, East (Mr. Ross) and I regret his personal attack on the Secretary of State. He opened up the debate from the Floor on the question of the intergovernmental conference scheduled for 16 July. That has been the subject of comment by most hon. Members who have taken part in the debate.

The hon. Member for Belfast, East did us a service when he reminded us that in the past seven weeks we have come face to face with a number of difficult circumstances —circumstances which, on the face of it, created the impression that they might take a lot of solution. However, we made our way through all of those.

Like my right hon. Friend, I have heard everything that has been said in today's debate. Let me remind hon. Members what my right hon. Friend said. He said that the Government believed that a basis for the resumption of the talks should be found, and he intended to initiate discussions with all the participants—including the Irish Government—to bring that about. In the light of all that has been said, and the power with which it has been said, I do not wish to add to my right hon. Friend's comments; they will have been heard, as will the other speeches.

The hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon) made an important point: he said that everyone in Northern Ireland should have a sense of identification with the Province—to feel part of it, and to believe that they had a stake in the community there. If we cannot allow people to generate the circumstances in which they can feel that, they will behave irresponsibly, and that is not in anyone's interests.

I shall not enter into the inter-party discussion about discrimination. Hon. Members have proved this evening that they are very capable of making their own cases and defending their own corners. The hon. Member for Newry and Armagh, however, levelled two charges not against other political parties but against the Government. The first related to the pattern of employment in the Northern Ireland civil service. I think that my right hon. Friend dealt with that adequately, so I shall not repeat the arguments. Secondly, the hon. Gentleman referred to what he described as a report by the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights.

I have not even seen the report, let alone read it. I understand that it is not actually a SACHR report; SACHR invited two academics to produce a paper for it. As far as I know, SACHR has not adopted that paper as its report, still less published it as such.