BRITISH-IRISH INTER-PARLIAMENTARY BODY COMHLACHT IDIR-PHARLAIMINTEACH NA BREATAINE AGUS NA hÉIREANN _____________________________________________ EIGHTTEENTH PLENARY SESSION 29 and 30 March 1999 Dromoland Castle, Newmarket-on-Fergus, Co. Clare _________________________________________________________________ OFFICIAL REPORT (Final Revised Edition) (Produced by the British-Irish Parliamentary Reporting Association) Monday, 29 March 1999 The sitting was opened in public at 10.25 am in Dromoland Castle, Newmarket-on- Fergus, Co. Clare, with Mr Michael O'Kennedy in the Chair. The Co-Chairman (Mr O'Kennedy): The meeting is now in public session. I welcome everyone, especially those who were not here yesterday evening. I remind Members to turn off pagers or mobile phones. 1. ADOPTION OF PROPOSED PROGRAMME OF BUSINESS, AS AMENDED The Co-Chairman (Mr O'Kennedy): I move: That the proposed programme of business, as amended, be adopted. The amendment is a technical one and relates to tomorrow's motion which refers to the agreements following the British-Irish Council and the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference which were signed on 8 March in Dublin Castle by both Governments and welcome the approval expressed in both parliaments. The reason "expressed in" is included is because the procedure followed in the House of Commons is not allowed for in the format of the original motion. Question put and agreed to. Ordered, That the proposed Programme of Business for the current Session, as amended, be approved. The Co-Chairman (Mr O'Kennedy): The proceedings of the Body do not incur parliamentary privilege. In accordance with Rule 2a the following Associate Members have accepted the invitation of the Steering Committee to assume the powers and responsibilities of Members for the entire Session: Mr Seán Doherty TD, Mr John Browne TD (Carlow-Kilkenny), Senator Enda Bonner, Ms Jean Corston MP, Mr Jeff Ennis MP, Ms Helen Jackson MP, Mr Andrew Mackinlay MP, Lord Glentoran and Baroness O'Cathain. I ask Members who wish to speak on tomorrow's motion to give their names to a Clerk. The Chair must take these names into account and balance both sides. 2. AMENDMENT TO THE RULES The Co-Chairman (Mr O'Kennedy): The report of the Steering Committee on proposals for the Amendment to the Rules, Document No. 62, has been circulated to Members. Mr Kevin McNamara (Hull North): I move: That the amendments to Rules 29, 32 and 34, and the consequential amendments to Rules 33 and 34, be made with immediate effect. These amendments arose out of the embarrassing position we had at York and out of the establishment of the ad hoc Working Group. When we went into private session at York, the guests present from the States of Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man had to leave even though we had invited them to attend. This first amendment is to give the Co-Chairmen discretion to allow official guests remain when we are in private session. The second amendment arises from the need to formalise the workings of the ad hoc Working Group examining the future of the Body. It is a straightforward technical amendment. I should mention that a statement will be distributed later, which some Members of the English Parliament have signed, expressing support for the Good Friday Agreement and hoping for a happy outcome this week. Maria Fyfe (Glasgow Maryhill): What Parliament did you say? Mr McNamara: The British Parliament. We live in hope that we too might get independence one day and get rid of our colonial trappings. If colleagues could sign the statement we would be grateful. Question put and agreed to. Ordered, That the Amendments to Rules 29, 32 and 34 and consequential amendments [Doc. No. 62] be made with immediate effect. 3. STATEMENT BY MR JOHN O'DONOGHUE TD, MINISTER FOR JUSTICE, EQUALITY AND LAW REFORM The Co-Chairman (Mr O'Kennedy): As we have concluded our preliminary business I am happy to welcome the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr John O'Donoghue TD, who is representing the Irish Government. Mr O'Donoghue will first make a statement on the broad issues and then answer questions which have been submitted. The time allotted for this is one and a half hours in total so I ask Members to co-operate in the presentation of the questions to enable us take as many questions as we possibly can following the Minister's statement. As we are to conclude at 12 noon we have only one and a half hours to conclude this Session's business. The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr John O'Donoghue TD: Chairpersons, ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased to be here this morning to address the Plenary Session of the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body on behalf of the Irish Government. As a member of the Government I am keenly aware and appreciative of the invaluable role the Body has played over the years in developing relations between parliamentarians in both our countries; and as a former member of the Body I have fond memories of many such occasions. By accident or design, the Body is meeting at a very significant point in the evolution of the Northern Ireland peace process. One year on from the Good Friday Agreement, it is an auspicious moment to assess progress since that historic breakthrough, and in particular progress on implementing the Agreement. At the same time, as we are all well aware, one element of that implementation - the establishment of the institutions envisaged in the Agreement - has been held up for some time by the difficulties relating to the decommissioning of illegal weapons and the establishment of the executive. The efforts to resolve this impasse, involving both Governments and the Northern Ireland parties, are reaching a new intensity this week in Belfast, even as we speak. I will return to these efforts later. When the Body met in the Extraordinary Plenary in Dublin in May last year, and then in York in September, you reviewed the tremendous progress which had been made, first in the Agreement itself and then in putting it into action. The historic referendums in both parts of Ireland on 22 May 1998 gave all of the people of this island, for the first time in living memory, the opportunity to decide openly and collectively on their political future. The overwhelming support they gave to the Agreement removed for ever any claim of historical legitimacy for the use of violence to resolve political differences. It also gave the Agreement a strength and legitimacy of its own which none of its opponents have been able to impugn, and which has stood it in good stead in the period since then. The elections to the new Northern Ireland Assembly in June led to the election on 1 July of David Trimble and Seamus Mallon as First Minister and Deputy First Minister designate, and in partnership together they have become the public face of the new Northern Ireland. Since you met at York, there has been to some extent a public perception of a loss of momentum, with some going so far as to claim that nothing has been happening. Nothing could be further from the truth. A great deal of work has been done and much has been achieved in implementing the far-reaching changes called for in the Good Friday Agreement. The timetable envisaged in the Agreement was highly ambitious and exacting, as it had to be in the face of the very considerable and urgent problems of Northern Ireland. It is instructive to remember that the comparatively straightforward process - comparatively, I hasten to say in this company - of devolving power from Westminster to Scotland and Wales warranted a gap of some 20 months between the referendums and the establishment of devolved administrations. There has indeed been some slippage in the timetable. This is not exactly surprising in a process as complex as this, where every issue has to be negotiated among half a dozen or more parties. Some of that slippage has been due to the difficulty over decommissioning, which has indeed proved difficult to resolve. Unfortunately, because it has delayed the establishment of the Executive, and thus of the other institutions and the transfer of powers to the Assembly, the disagreement over this one aspect of the Agreement has tended to overshadow the strides made in implementing other aspects of the Agreement. A Northern Ireland Assembly in which both Unionists and Nationalists will share power, a North/South Ministerial Council with implementation bodies, and the amendment of Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish Constitution were some of the elements in the Agreement which we were told for years could never be accepted by one side or the other. Yet, like the dog that did not bark, there has been very little opposition to them in the end - all of the difficulties have arisen elsewhere. The lesson is clear: people have accepted the Agreement for what it is - a genuine compromise between the requirements of all sides. The task of negotiating among so many parties a completely new departmental structure for the government of Northern Ireland has not only been a very complex task but also a highly political balancing act, since all of the major parties in the Assembly will have a share in government. At the same time, these same parties were negotiating with the Irish Government on the equally complex task of designating the areas which would come under the North/South Ministerial Council, either through co-operation between existing agencies or through new implementation bodies. This process involved detailed negotiation of the composition, remit, mandate and detailed characteristics of the bodies involved.