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Northern Ireland

My Lords, I join all those noble Lords   who have heaped praise on the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, in his new post. I will have more to say on that later. I thank my noble friend Lady Park for bringing Northern Ireland back into the House again. I regret the loss of Paul Murphy as Secretary of State. I am not sure why he was sacked. It is worth asking because we all thought that he was doing an extremely good job. I just wonder whether it was that Sinn Fein/IRA did not share our view. I am sure that he was not   sacked simply to make room for a shuffle to accommodate the demotion of Mr Hoon, although we can well understand that need. We can only hope that some of the kite-flying suggesting that Mr Murphy may be a future chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee is well justified. He would do a good job there, as he did in Northern Ireland. I regret that he has gone from Northern Ireland. Since we last debated these matters we have had the general election. I am not sure that the results in Northern Ireland gave too much encouragement to those who believe that the way to electoral success is to occupy the middle ground. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, will tell us of the progress of the Saville inquiry. It has taken too long, it has cost too much, and its report is long overdue. I understand that the Government justify the establishment of that inquiry by the need, as they see it, to establish the truth about that day and to bring those responsible to justice. However, civilians were killed not only on that day. A number of my friends have been murdered, Tony Berry and Ian Gow among them. Two attempts have been made by the IRA to murder a Prime Minister—both, thank God, unsuccessful. Now that we know, and it is officially acknowledged, that the distinction between the IRA and Sinn Fein is just about as wide as the distinction between the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office, we need a little more inquiry into those events. If, as the Taoiseach has said, the leaders of Sinn Fein are the leading members of the army council of the IRA, we should inquire further into those matters. It is impossible to believe that murders such as those that I have mentioned and the attempts to murder two Prime Ministers could have been planned, authorised and managed other than at the level of the army council of the IRA. If that is true, and if what the Taoiseach has told us is true, Adams and McGuinness are almost certainly involved in those crimes. Maybe I am wrong; perhaps the Brighton bombing and the mortar attacks on No. 10 were maverick affairs like the murder of Mr   McCartney, and the only role of the IRA leadership has been to ensure that the perpetrators should not be brought to justice, except the most junior members, who could perhaps be sacrificed. But I doubt that. We need to know the truth. There can be no reconciliation until the truth is known. Were Adams and   McGuinness the godfathers of a terrorist group throughout the years in which they have posed as leaders of a political party? We should know; the Government should know—I think that the Government do know, but they are in denial. We should set up a judicial inquiry to uncover the truth, most particularly of the two attempts to murder Prime Ministers. Another advantage would be that, if we uncovered the truth of those crimes and some others, although some of them are outside time limitations, it might be possible for the Government to seek to relieve Sinn Fein/IRA of some of its riches and criminal gains to help to cover the costs of the criminal acts that it has committed. It is unacceptable to me that the people of Northern Ireland should be denied that knowledge and the security and justice that are enjoyed by their fellow citizens of this kingdom on the mainland. Ministers accepting gangsters as colleagues and licensing armed rackets and armed racketeers as the price of an absence of overt terrorism on the streets is not acceptable. I hope that it will not be acceptable to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. I remain pessimistic. Peace without justice is not a stable peace. The noble Lord, Lord Shutt, spoke for many of us in his welcome to the noble Lord, Lord   Rooker. We all have a high regard for him. If the policy towards matters in Northern Ireland remains unchanged, either the noble Lord will lose his reputation or, sooner or later, he will lose his job.