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Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Bill

Last week, I spoke to someone who told me that some 18 or 19 deadlines have been set in the Province, and all of them have been missed, so 26 March and the other deadlines will not make an awful lot of difference. The point is not deadlines, but what Sinn Fein-IRA will deliver. The word ““trust”” has been bandied about a bit by my colleagues today, and I assure the Secretary of State that the Ulster people from both sectors of the community, and the democratic, elected Members and others, do not trust Sinn Fein-IRA. If we look at the history of successive Governments, we see that Sinn Fein-IRA have taken them for a ride time and again. I believe that this time will be no different. In the past few days I have been on a tour of south Armagh, and I visited police stations. I was shown seven or eight illegal fuel operations, but I learned today that some of them may now have been seized and closed. I visited a farmer who, two weeks prior to my visit—[Interruption.] No, it was not ““Slab”” Murphy’s farm; I had an invitation to that farm, but I did not take it. Two weeks prior to my visit to the farm, two men with rifles arrived, in the dark of night, to kill that individual, who is a former member of the security forces. Of course, the Government will tell us that many such incidents are down to the so-called dissidents, but we all know that nothing happens within so-called dissident organisations without the say-so of those in the structures, or the authorities, of the Provisional IRA. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) mentioned a terrible tragedy in which two people were burnt to death in south Armagh. The young lady was my constituent, and I know the family well. She had a very large funeral. Three weeks ago, she was ordained as a youth worker in her local church. Republicans broke into her house and gave her such a beating with a claw-hammer that she could hardly stand, and then they set both people alight. I am sure that no Member of this House would get over it if such an incident happened to one of their family. She was 21 years of age—a child—and thugs, pure scum, came into her home, hit her with a claw-hammer and practically burnt her alive.