Election of First Minister and Deputy First Minister

Part of the debate – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 12:15 pm on 2 November 2001.

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Photo of Ian Paisley Ian Paisley Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party 12:15, 2 November 2001

I want to read a statement:

"Democracy dictates that before we will sit in an Executive with Sinn Féin we require a declaration that the ‘war’ is over, the standing down of ‘active service units’, the handing over of the remains of the ‘disappeared’, full co-operation with the Decommissioning Commission, an end to targeting and punishment beatings and actual disarmament itself."

All that has not happened, and those are the words of Mr Trimble, spoken on 26 May 1998. Sir Reg Empey, who proposed him, said on 30 August 1998 that

"an IRA arms handover would not be enough to give Sinn Féin seats on the Executive. If punishment beatings are continuing, if training, targeting, if units are still active on the ground, then the purposes of decommissioning would purely be fraudulent."

We are asked to believe the spin doctors and the rigged polls in the ‘Belfast Telegraph’, and to bow to past pressures and not open our eyes. The people — both Protestant and Roman Catholic — have opened their eyes. They have been told to look at what the Official Unionist Party has brought to them. Mr Trimble boasts of what he has brought to us. What has he brought? He has brought IRA/Sinn Féin to the heart of Government. Today, we heard that the leader of IRA/Sinn Féin is raising money for firemen and their families in America. What about the firemen and families that it murdered, blew up and shot? What hypocrisy.

The deputy leader of that party said that, if someone came to him and said that he or she had information that would lead to people being prosecuted for the Omagh tragedy, he would not tell that person to go to the police. In America, the leader of IRA/Sinn Féin said that the IRA has a different morality to that of the people who blew up the towers.

The people of Northern Ireland are not fools; they will not be fooled any longer. We must remember, "you cannot fool all of the people all of the time". Sooner or later, the matter must come to the country. We were told that cross-border bodies that are not answerable to the Assembly would not be formed — that has happened. We were told that terrorists who were put away by the process of the law could not be released, but killers and others have been. The Prime Minister wrote graffiti on the walls and tried to deceive the people of this country. The RUC has been destroyed. Think about those people who, under the shadow of night, took the badge of the RUC from outside its headquarters before the specified time. What more is there to come?

We have seen the British Government spend thousands of pounds to fly in propagandists to take photographs of the dismantling of security towers. No photographs have been taken of the so-called act of decommissioning. Why not? Surely, if it is an honourable, ground-breaking move, IRA/Sinn Féin should be proud of it. They are not. An amnesty is now proposed for those on the run. Such proposals have nothing to do with the agreement; they are additions to it.

Changes to the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000 have been suggested. It was unfortunate that, when Mr Mallon spoke about them, he quoted Woodrow Wilson, who, after making that statement, was thrown out of office. That is some comfort for Mr Trimble today. Mr Mandelson told us that the Act would not be changed.