Miss Bernadette Devlin: Why is it possible for certain prisoners who have been convicted in Northern Ireland to be allowed to serve their sentences in British prisons at their request, while the Minister has consistently refused to allow prisoners who are currently undergoing grossly inhuman treatment in British prisons to be transferred at their request to prisons in Northern Ireland?
Miss Bernadette Devlin: Since when the original elections took place to the Northern Ireland Assembly, it was neither clear what powers it had nor whether an Executive would be formed or a Council of Ireland would emerge, will the right hon. Gentleman, having completed his package, and the parties to it being unanimously in agreement, be prepared to put the new coalition to a General Election in Northern Ireland?
Miss Bernadette Devlin: I am listening to and following the hon. and gallant Gentleman's argument very carefully. Does he accept from people who share my politics that, while we accept that people who follow his persuasion are not being pushed through the open door, the door behind them is rapidly and firmly being closed? The British Government are not only doing that and denying the loyalist population the...
Miss Bernadette Devlin: I have often been accused, both inside and outside the House, of oversimplifying matters in order to put my point of view, but a gross over-simplification is being perpetrated in the House by the Government and the Opposition. The people of Northern Ireland are being told that they must accept the new Executive, the amendents to the Constitution Act, and the Council of Ireland, not because...
Miss Bernadette Devlin: It is certainly not against the interests of the EEC. This is why I intervened during the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Down, South (Captain Orr); and why if it were not so tragic it would be funny to remark that I was the Member for Sandy Row. I appreciate the spirit of what was meant by that, but the kind of society into which the provisional IRA cannot bomb and terrorise the...
Miss Bernadette Devlin: Fifty per cent. of my constituents are Loyalists—[An HON. MEMBER: "Forty-five per cent."] Correction—45 per cent. I apologise. It was not my intention to mislead the House. But I do not care who elected me. I represent the people of my constituency. I have pointed out, on both issues, how we have got nothing. With respect to Her Majesty's loyal Opposition, I consider that I am in a...
Miss Bernadette Devlin: I thought that I detected mutterings from the Opposition Front Bench. My apologies to those hon. Gentlemen if I was mistaken. Is it in the power of this Minister-designate to cancel the housing debt? Otherwise, it is talking in the air to talk of 20,000 houses when we cannot get another penny from the banks. Or is it thought possible to shore something up just to get it off the ground, so...
Miss Bernadette Devlin: The hon. Member for Windsor (Dr. Glyn) does me a grave disservice when he says that I stand alone in the House in not wanting peace in Northern Ireland, for that was the implication of his remark. The whole tenor of my speech was that I felt this agreement and this wool-pulling exercise, far from leading to peace, would lead to violence and greater frustration. It is misleading to say that I...
Miss Bernadette Devlin: Will the hon. Member give way?
Miss Bernadette Devlin: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. While it may be a long- standing practice for persons to have been known to plot to bring down Governments, is it in order for the hon. Member to imply in his speech that I was personally involved in some kind of extra-parliamentary or unparliamentary behaviour in this House and then not permit me the opportunity of clarifying the position?
Miss Bernadette Devlin: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I was concerned not with the question of whom I may or may not drink tea with—and, to my great shame, I have often drunk something stronger with the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt)—but I was concerned to raise a point of order on whether the hon. Member for Belfast, West was implying certain things in his latter remarks—namely, that...
Miss Bernadette Devlin: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Miss Bernadette Devlin: Mrs. McAliskey rose—
Miss Bernadette Devlin: The hon. Gentleman has raised this point in several debates, and I am a little concerned by his attitude that if one is opposed to something one is not allowed to accept reality. I know that I am opposed to the Bill. I also know that it will be passed by this House. It is not fair for the hon. Gentle- man to imply that I am guilty of some kind of irregularity. I am quite entitled to say that...
Miss Bernadette Devlin: Mrs. McAliskey rose—
Miss Bernadette Devlin: The hon. Gentleman cannot anticipate the activities of the Minister-designate of Health and Social Services. That is what he is doing. I did not criticise. I asked questions of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. I asked whether the Minister-designate would have certain powers. It was a straight-forward question—namely, how can the Minister refuse to implement an amnesty and retain...
Miss Bernadette Devlin: When one is talking about conspiracies and getting together, there seems to be, starting with the remarks made by the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt), a deliberate attempt to put across the idea that the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) and I are in some kind of alliance. I, from what is called in this House the extreme Left, oppose the Executive; the hon. Member for...
Miss Bernadette Devlin: Yes, it was.
Miss Bernadette Devlin: Judging by the tone of the debate and its development, it would appear that the statesmanlike Members of the House, the "moderates", the "responsibles", the "respectables", have as usual, gone before, and, if I may include myself so as not to be called to order, the rabble have followed after. I want to follow the hon. and gallant Member for Down, South (Captain Orr) and my hon. Friend the...
Miss Bernadette Devlin: I think it was quite clearly pointed out, both in what I said and in what previous speakers said, that the present Executive holds nothing for the ordinary people in Northern Ireland. It is self-admitted to be exactly the same, socially and economically, as what we had before. Politically it is Humpty Dumpty and it would be better if he had never got on the wall.