Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Bill

My Lords, I begin by apologising deeply to the House, and particularly to the Minister, for being late. I welcome his speech, particularly his last sentence. However, it is a sad pity that whatever games Ministers have played in their youth, poker was not one of them. Sinn Fein/IRA on the other hand, like most terrorist organisations with a culture of communist-style negotiation, is a very good poker player. Why do we always have to make the concessions it wants before it has provided any quid pro quo other than some well publicised but meaningless statements—and only statements of intent? The Government are preparing to relinquish the well-tried Diplock system and substitute a new system of non-jury trial, which is evidently unlikely to be used save in very exceptional circumstances. The Sixth Report of the Justice Oversight Commission of June 2006 says: "““The eventual future of the so-called Diplock courts was not a matter for the review to consider, nor has that been within the remit of the oversight work””." I wonder why. However, fortunately the review says later, in the chapter on juries, that although it noticed the decreasing figure in the number of people tried in Diplock courts and was concerned to maintain confidence in the jury system generally as more cases came to be sent to jury trial, it recommends: "““We think that there are aspects of jury trials that should be reviewed including, inter alia, measures to prevent intimidation of jurors””." It refers also to the risk of intimidation not only to jurors but to others. My concern is that those who stand to benefit from any premature weakening of the Diplock system are the paramilitaries, and whether or not Sinn Fein/IRA has a political interest it will always be concerned to protect its sources of money and power in the community, including the purely criminal elements that provide both. It continues to be heavily involved in serious organised crime, and Sinn Fein/IRA in government will make each decision on this issue a political rather than a judicial matter. I therefore urge the Government to delay any new legislation that could be open to manipulation by Sinn Fein/IRA ministers until at least after the Assembly is up and running. If that is not possible, can we leave the way open to revoke it—within the next two years if necessary? I wait with interest to see what the human rights commission will do with its new powers. I know of no case in which the commission has intervened to protect victims of paramilitary intimidation, but I shall be glad to be proved wrong. The Independent Monitoring Commission has done infinitely more to bring such issues as the widespread victimisation by paramilitaries, leading to exile from the community, into the open. The IMC has consistently exposed that—and I greatly honour the IMC for it—and said that the culture of deference to Sinn Fein/IRA must end. It has attacked the way in which Sinn Fein/IRA uses membership of community restorative justice organs as a means of exerting local influence and continuing to achieve control in ““a more respectable guise””. As the IMC says, "““it is essential that paramilitaries are not allowed to operate in this way.””" I hope that will be the effect of this Bill. My concern is that Sinn Fein/IRA is going to be allowed to get away with no more than some pious phrases. The PIRA leaders have persuaded their rank and file to make polite but noncommittal statements about the police because they also said, more frankly, that they would be able to take over the police and make it their own. They persuaded the Patten commission that the RUC was an enemy because it had very few Catholics in its ranks. Evidently, no one told the commission that that was because the very few Catholic officers and their families lived in fear of their lives and had to move annually to another location. So, the 50:50 rule was introduced and young Catholics came forward to join the new PSNI—a very good thing. The press asked Gerry Adams what Sinn Fein’s attitude would be to these new members of the police. ““What it always was””, he replied. The first young graduate was shot and his family’s home burnt down. Sinn Fein/IRA does not accept the law in Northern Ireland. Let us consider what has happened, or rather not happened, about the murder of Robert McCartney two years ago. I know that I have said this before, but I am saying it again. I asked Her Majesty’s Government on 10 October 2005 whether the IRA had now, after considerable damage to its position in the US, allowed its people to testify in court and enable the McCartney case to be brought to trial. The IRA had earlier cheerfully offered, publicly, to shoot the offenders themselves and seemed to think that was an entirely normal proceeding in its role as supporters of the law. The Minister replied in a letter to me: "““There is no evidence to suggest that the IRA leadership has issued an instruction to its members and associates to cooperate, although Sinn Fein/IRA has publicly called for those responsible to account for their actions. In the absence of such an instruction, the culture and history of the organization is such that cooperation with the establishment is anathema””." That was a thoroughly honest reply, and that month the last of the McCartney family moved out of their home because they could no longer bear the intimidation. They have since suffered it again, not once but twice in other communities, and are ostracised because they dared to criticise the IRA. When is that going to change? Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness have indeed condemned criminality and said vague and virtuous things about the rule of law. Until they not only allow but require witnesses to testify at a trial on the death of Robert McCartney, recognise that the public now has a 75 per cent level of confidence in the PSNI, and cease to intimidate Catholics who join, nothing will really change. The city of Omagh is also still unable to bring those who were guilty to justice because the IRA refuses to give leave to witnesses to testify in a British court. Northern Ireland is still within the United Kingdom. The IRA continues to inhibit the recruitment of Catholics to the police. It was recently reported that 99 new recruits had resigned over the past year and 76 of those gave as one of their reasons for so doing paramilitary intimidation. What have the PIRA leadership said or done about that? The trouble is that we are dealing with a political party with the closest possible links with the highly effective criminal organisation it created, making it the richest party by far in elections north and south. It is also a party with a subliminal, but nevertheless real, machine for intimidation and electoral corruption, with an agenda—the unification of the two countries—it is determined to impose, although neither the Northern Irish nor the Irish electorate want it. We have a dutyto deliver what the people in both countries clearly said that they wanted at the time of the Belfast agreement: not a united Ireland, but two flourishing and friendly neighbours with many common yet distinct interests. I have one last deep anxiety. Where is action on the outcome of the Bloody Sunday inquiry addressed in this Bill? We must under no circumstances pass legislation that would leave any legal action on the Saville report to the Assembly. We must face the fact that Sinn Fein/IRA is a very rich party, with a long history of successful ballot-rigging, electoral intimidation and corruption, which could still emerge as the more powerful party in the Assembly after the March elections. It will be so, not because of the will of the people, but because of the corrupt and intimidating tactics it will effortlessly employ.