Mr Harold McCusker: As someone who has spent a considerable part of his working life in industrial relations and has always appreciated blunt, straightforward speaking, I very much agree with what has been said by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Lady-wood (Mr. Walden). I do not wish to reiterate the arguments we have listened to almost ad nauseam on this subject. The Ulster Unionists acknowledge the paramount...
Mr Harold McCusker: Is the Minister aware that my right hon. and hon. Friends support his comments expressing sympathy to the families of the dead soldiers, and also to the families of the other 30 people killed in my constituency during the past six months? Is he also aware that my constituents get little satisfaction from the Secretary of State's comments that South Armagh is somehow different from the rest of...
Mr Harold McCusker: Is the hon. Lady aware that the headmaster of a primary school in South Armagh told the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in my presence that last winter, in order to provide safety for the driver of his bus and to ensure the safety of his children, he had to supply the divisional commander of the IRA in the area with evidence that that bus was going into the area of South Armagh on...
Mr Harold McCusker: One always gets some satisfaction when rising to welcome an Order, one hopes, for the improvement of educational facilities in the Province. I agree with the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) about wanting parity with the rest of the United Kingdom. We do not normally need to ask for educational parity. There are already moves afoot to eradicate selection at 11-plus in Northern...
Mr Harold McCusker: The Order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, is obviously concerned with specific expenditure on education, and I am arguing that some of its provisions ought to be delayed and that the expenditure could be better used in other directions. However, I shall deal with the matter briefly. If 400 teachers in technical schools in Northern Ireland do not have a contract, are we not in grave danger of getting...
Mr Harold McCusker: asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he is satisfied with security in South Armagh; and if he will make a statement.
Mr Harold McCusker: While the Security Forces may not be outgunned, the statistic which impresses me is the evidence that 14 of their members and 12 innocent citizens have been killed in South Armagh, as opposed to one terrorist. Other statistics may be impressive to some, but that is the statistic which impresses me. It gives little consolation to me or to my constituents to know that the spearhead battalion,...
Mr Harold McCusker: In the dying moments of this debate I make no apology for drawing the attention of the House back to the brutal, squalid and bloody reality of the real cost of defence. The real cost of defence, in my eyes, is the cost in terms of the lives of the innocent boys and men who are dying in Northern Ireland, particularly in my constituency. I hope that I shall not be accused of being provincial...
Mr Harold McCusker: I do not want to go into that matter in any detail. I shall discuss it with the hon. Gentleman afterwards.
Mr Harold McCusker: I do not want to be churlish or argumentative about the Regulations. However, there is a tendency to look at these measures and to assume that there is nothing controversial in them and that, in the circumstances prevailing in Northern Ireland, this is what we must do. While I sympathise with that view, I think we must be critical of these Regulations and see whether we can learn anything...
Mr Harold McCusker: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that I speak not as someone who has made any comment on this matter but as someone who has a high regard for Sir James Flanagan. I believe that he is the man for the job. If he is fit and able to do the job, could he not be asked if he would be prepared to accept an extension of his term of office?
Mr Harold McCusker: Has not the hon. Gentleman within the past few minutes contradicted what he said earlier? Is not the idealism which motivates teenagers of 16, 17 or 18 a political idealism? I disagree with it, but it is because of that that they are caught in the web and are prepared to commit the atrocities they are committing.
Mr Harold McCusker: Will the Prime Minister accept that, while I give a wholehearted welcome to his announcement of these perhaps long overdue measures, as will my constituents, the measures will give little consolation to the widows, the orphans and the parents in the homes I visited last week? Will he join me in paying a tribute to them, as well as to the security forces, because these people, by their words...
Mr Harold McCusker: 7. Mr. McCusker asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland when he hopes to announce the ending of the 11-plus selection procedure in Northern Ireland.
Mr Harold McCusker: Many people in Northern Ireland will welcome the Minister's statement about ending the selection procedure. However, apart from the education and social reasons for ending it, is he aware of the grave disquiet which exists and which resulted in abandonment of this year's selection procedure? Statistics the Minister gave me showed that cheating and abuse of the examination system in...
Mr Harold McCusker: Does the Secretary of State recall that, following the atrocities at the beginning of September, he introduced the spearhead battalion? There then followed a lull in terrorist activities, which resulted in the spearhead battalion being redeployed. That lull was followed by an upsurge in murder, which culminated in the atrocities at the beginning of this year? Will the right hon. Gentleman...
Mr Harold McCusker: The case being made of innocent workmen on the flimsiest evidence being wrenched from their families and sent to Ireland, North or South, would be substantially reinforced if it could be shown that when they got to Ireland they all settled down, got jobs, worked hard and found homes where they could be reunited with their families. But what do we find when we examine the activities of at...
Mr Harold McCusker: What did the union representatives on the Committee say about their overtures in the past to end the so-called discrimination which existed in areas where they represented workers, and what did representatives of management, from the CBI, admit about the discrimination which they practised?
Mr Harold McCusker: I do not accept the Minister's view that there is a widespread belief in Northern Ireland that religious discrimination exists or that there is a widespread practice of religious discrimination. I do not deny that there are individual instances of discrimination, as probably there are in every society for different reasons. I find it extremely hard to understand how both sides of industry...
Mr Harold McCusker: I have tried to determine that by questioning and probing. One feels that sometimes, unfortunately, these people are as out of touch with reality as are politicians in this House. I know examples of individual companies and organisations where an examination of the ratios of religious beliefs would indicate a bias on one side or the other. Those organisations are not confined to East and West...
