Northern Ireland Assembly, 24 January 2000

157 contributions from 39 members. The official report.

Equality (Disability, etc) Bill: First Stage

Seamus Mallon (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Newry and Armagh)

I beg to lay before the Assembly a Bill [NIA 4/2000] to confer new powers on the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland in respect of discrimination by reason of disability; to provide for the appointment of additional Commissioners of that Commission; to amend the reporting period of that Commission; to amend the transitional and saving provisions of the Fair Employment and Treatment (Northern Ireland) Order 1998; and for connected purposes.

Bill passed First Stage and ordered to be printed.

Ian Paisley (DUP, North Antrim)

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Why was the Assembly given no notice of this Bill? Are we not entitled to be given notice?

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

No. In many other places, notice is not given of the First Reading of a Bill. The First Reading is purely a technical device to publicise the order for the Bill to be printed. When the Bill comes to its subsequent stages, those will go down on the Order Paper, but normally the First Reading does not. In certain circumstances it cannot go down on the Order Paper because the Speaker may decide to bring the Bill forward early, and that decision can be taken after the Order Paper has been published.

Ian Paisley (DUP, North Antrim)

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. In the House of Commons, at times, the First Reading of a Bill does appear on the Order Paper.

The Business Committee was not informed about this either. I understood that nothing could come before this House without passing through that Committee.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

I do not know about the House of Commons, but certainly in the House of Lords there is never any notice of the First Reading of a Bill. In any case, there are differences here about the question of Bills coming forward, advice to the Speaker, the Speaker’s response, and so on.

There was, in fact, discussion in the Business Committee about Bills coming forward and the need for urgency in moving forward with the business of the House. It seems reasonable that this important Bill should come forward as quickly as possible.

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. This is, as you say, an important Bill that you are asking the House to accept. None of us know what it is about. How can we possibly accept it in this way?

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

The House has no option but to accept it. Under Standing Orders, it is not open for debate. It is purely a technical matter whereby the Bill is presented in order to be printed. It is not possible for the House to know exactly what is in the Bill until it has been printed. That is the purpose of the exercise. That is what the First Stage is about in the other places that Dr Paisley and I have referred to. It is not a matter for debate. The only way it could be done differently would be if there were a pre-legislative scrutiny stage, which, of course, there is not.

Seamus Mallon (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Newry and Armagh)

There has been wide consultation on this Bill. A substantive Bill has been proposed at Westminster, and the bodies representing the disabled in Northern Ireland have made representations to it. The First Minister and I have had discussions with the Equality Commission and with other groups. It was their request, and our desire, that this Bill be finalised by May 2000 so that there should be no gap in time between the completion of this Bill and the completion of the Bill at Westminster. Such a gap would have left Northern Ireland without any legislation on this crucially important matter. There has already been wide-ranging consultation.

Ian Paisley (DUP, North Antrim)

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. It should be made clear that the House could vote against this. I do not think any of us want to do that, but the House is entitled to say that the Bill cannot be printed.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

In fact there is no provision in Standing Orders for the House to do that. This is not a Question in that sense. There is no opportunity for this to be voted on; it is simply a presentation to the House and an order to be printed. That is the position under Standing Orders. Of course, the House may change the Standing Orders, and we would have to consider the legality of that with regard to the Act, but at this time the position is as I have stated.

Peter Robinson (DUP, Belfast East)

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I do not think that anyone in the Assembly is saying that the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister should not introduce such a Bill, that it should not flow naturally from Great Britain legislation and that it is not timely for it to be introduced at this stage, but because the heading on the Order Paper merely reads "Executive Committee Business", Members have no way of knowing what types of issues will be brought forward.

I suspect that Mr Mallon knew before today that he was going to introduce the Bill. Could the introduction of various Bills be listed on the Order Paper as a matter of courtesy and to keep Members informed?

David Trimble (UUP, Upper Bann)

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Had Mr P Robinson carried out his duty by attending the Executive meetings, he would have known all about the matter.

Nigel Dodds (DUP, Belfast North)

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Perhaps before —

Peter Robinson (DUP, Belfast East)

Such meetings are covered by confidentiality, so I could not have told Colleagues anyway.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Order. I will respond to points of order, and Members should try to keep some order. As far as the heading "Executive Committee Business" is concerned, Standing Orders make it clear that decisions about that matter or on the ordering of that matter are not for the Business Committee to make. It is for the Executive Committee to order the business in respect of that slot on the Order Paper.

Mr Robinson raised some legal questions — for example, that this would have been known about and sorted out well in advance. Because of the timescale, that is not necessarily the case. The urgency with which the First Minster and the Deputy First Minister sought to bring this issue before the House meant that matters had to be resolved as quickly as possible. However, as regards the matter of the First Readings of Bills going down, there is no particular reason why that should be the case. In practical terms it would not always be possible for that to be the case, otherwise all Bills would have to be delayed further.

For example, this Bill could not have been brought today had that requirement been in Standing Orders — which it is not.

Nigel Dodds (DUP, Belfast North)

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. If, like the First Minister, members of the Democratic Unionist Party were in the business of breaking election pledges, then we would, of course, be sitting in the Executive. It may be all right to say that members of the Executive Committee who are present may know that these Bills will be coming forward, but what about the other Members of the House? Do the First Minister and Deputy First Minister — particularly the First Minister, given his remarks — have no consideration for other Members, who should at least be given the courtesy of knowing what is going to arise from the Order Paper? [Interruption]

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Order.

Nigel Dodds (DUP, Belfast North)

The First Minister may laugh —

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Order. The Minister will resume his seat. This is not a point of order; this is becoming a debate. The Standing Orders are clear. It is not necessary for First Readings of Bills — certainly for First Readings at Westminster — to be on the Order Paper. In this case the matter could not have been on the Order Paper. That is the ruling, and I am not prepared to take further points of order on that specific issue. Some of the issues raised were not points of order. This technical matter is becoming a matter for debate, and that is not appropriate.

Ian Paisley (DUP, North Antrim)

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. You would need to make it clear that even if a member of the Executive attends an Executive meeting, he would not be able to inform Colleagues of issues that would be coming forward if they were confidential. The person who was out of order in this debate was the First Minister.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Order. How the Executive Committee conducts its own business is not a matter for me or for the House.

Seamus Mallon (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Newry and Armagh)

The important thing is that the Executive Committee decided, rightly, that Northern Ireland should not lack disability legislation because of a particular timescale. This type of issue will arise in relation to other Departments. That may require urgent legislation so that parity is not broken. I should have thought that Mr Dodds would have more than a passing interest in ensuring that this House proceeded very quickly with matters that affect his Department — the Department for Social Development — as this one does, so that people are not disadvantaged as a result of delay.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

The position is clear in the Standing Orders. I have given a ruling, and we must now proceed to the next item of business.

Assembly Audit Committee: Deputy Chairmanship

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

I am required to supervise the appointment of a Deputy Chairman of the Audit Committee. Mr Alban Maginness, the Deputy Chairman of that Committee, has decided to resign, as he has been appointed to the Chair of another Committee. We must proceed by running the d’Hondt system.

I ask Mr McGrady, as the nominating officer of the SDLP, if he wishes to nominate another Member.

Eddie McGrady (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Down)

Under the d’Hondt mechanism the Social Democratic and Labour Party has the vice- chairmanship of the Audit Committee. However, my party, in agreement with others, is prepared to leave this post vacant in order that a representative from the minor parties may participate in the Audit Committee. For that reason, I will not nominate for this position.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Mr Trimble has advised me that Mr Jim Wilson will act as nominating officer of the Ulster Unionist Party.

I call on Mr Jim Wilson, as the nominating officer of the political party for which the formula laid down in Standing Orders gives the next-highest figure, to nominate a person who is a member of his party and of the Assembly to be the Deputy Chairman of the Audit Committee.

Jim Wilson (UUP, South Antrim)

The Ulster Unionist Party will not be making a nomination.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

I call on Dr Paisley as the nominating officer of the political party for which the formula laid down in Standing Orders gives the next-highest figure, to nominate a person who is a member of his party and of the Assembly to be Deputy Chairman of the Audit Committee.

Ian Paisley (DUP, North Antrim)

I will not be nominating.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

I now call on Mr Mitchel McLaughlin as the nominating officer of the political party —

David Ford (Alliance, South Antrim)

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Should Mr Neeson not be the next nominating officer?

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

I am grateful for that point of order. Mr Neeson should be the next nominating officer.

I call on Mr Neeson, as the nominating officer of the political party for which the formula laid down in Standing Orders gives the next-highest figure, to nominate a person who is a member of his party and of the Assembly to be Deputy Chairman of the Audit Committee.

Séan Neeson (Alliance, East Antrim)

We decline to nominate.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

I call on Mr McLaughlin, as the nominating officer of the political party for which the formula laid down in Standing Orders gives the next-highest figure, to nominate a person who is a member of his party and of the Assembly to be Deputy Chairman of the Audit Committee.

Mitchel McLaughlin (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

Despite the delay, Sinn Féin will not be making a nomination.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

I call on Mr McCartney, as the nominating officer of the political party for which the formula laid down in Standing Orders gives the next-highest figure, to nominate a person who is a member of his party and of the Assembly to be Deputy Chairman of the Audit Committee.

Robert McCartney (UKUP, North Down)

I never nominate in these matters.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

I call on Mr Ervine, as the nominating officer of the political party for which the formula laid down in Standing Orders gives the next-highest figure, to nominate a person who is a member of his party and of the Assembly to be Deputy Chairman of the Audit Committee.

David Ervine (PUP, Belfast East)

I nominate Mr Billy Hutchinson for the position.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Is Mr Hutchinson willing to accept the office for which he has been nominated?

Billy Hutchinson (PUP, Belfast North)

I am.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

I therefore announce the appointment of Mr Billy Hutchinson as Deputy Chairman of the Audit Committee.

Assembly Standing Committees: Membership

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Following the appointment of the Chairmen and Deputy Chairmen to Standing Committees, it falls to the Assembly to appoint the membership of the Standing Committees. The Business Committee agreed the proportionate share of membership among the parties, and it fell to the Whips to propose the Members’ names. One result of this exercise was that two Members were nominated to serve on both the Public Accounts Committee and the Audit Committee. This is contrary to Standing Orders, as only one member of the Public Accounts Committee may sit on the Audit Committee also. We therefore have an amendment in the name of Mr J Wilson which will rectify the situation and allow the appointments to proceed. If this is not agreed, it will not be possible to allow the other memberships to proceed.

Resolved:

That Mr Derek Hussey shall replace Mr Billy Bell on the Audit Committee membership list in the paper ‘OP/99 Standing Committees’. — [Mr J Wilson]

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

We now proceed to the appointment of members to the Standing Committees.

Eddie McGrady (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Down)

I beg to move

That the Members listed in the paper ‘OP4/99 Standing Committees’, as amended, shall be the members of the relevant Standing Committees.

In accordance with the notes already given to Members with OP4/99 on Standing Committees, I propose the nominees to the Public Accounts Committee, the Audit Committee, the Committee of the Centre, the Committee on Procedures and the Committee on Standards and Privileges.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved:

That the Members listed in the paper ‘OP4/99 Standing Committees’, as amended, shall be the members of the relevant Standing Committees.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Since the appointment of Members to the Statutory Committees some changes have been proposed, occasioned in some cases by the appointment of Members to other offices and the knock-on effects of that. There is a motion proposing changes to Statutory Committee membership, and that is in the name of Mr McGrady.

Eddie McGrady (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Down)

I beg to move

That Mr John Dallat shall replace Mr Denis Haughey on the Agriculture Committee; that Mr Derek Hussey shall replace Mr Dermot Nesbitt on the Finance and Personnel Committee; that Mr Alex Attwood shall replace Mr John Dallat on the Finance and Personnel Committee; and that Mr P J Bradley shall replace Mr Denis Haughey on the Regional Development Committee.

In accordance with the motion before us, and consequential, as you say, Mr Speaker, on the appointment of junior Ministers and other matters, I propose these four changes to the membership of the Statutory Committees.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved:

That Mr John Dallat shall replace Mr Denis Haughey on the Agriculture Committee; that Mr Derek Hussey shall replace Mr Dermot Nesbitt on the Finance and Personnel Committee; that Mr Alex Attwood shall replace Mr John Dallat on the Finance and Personnel Committee; and that Mr P J Bradley shall replace Mr Denis Haughey on the Regional Development Committee.

Assembly Business

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Members will see that the Consideration Stage of the Financial Assistance for Political Parties Bill is next on the Order Paper. However, we cannot take this until at least tomorrow because of the staged intervals that are required by Standing Orders.

Police: Patten Commission Report

Nigel Dodds (DUP, Belfast North)

I beg to move the following motion:

This House rejects the Patten Commission’s report and calls upon the Secretary of State to reject proposals which would reward and elevate terrorists while demoralising and destroying the Royal Ulster Constabulary, whose members, both full-time and part-time, have diligently and with great distinction served the whole community.

I am grateful for the opportunity to debate this issue this morning. As Members will be aware, only about 20 minutes were left at the end of the proceedings last week, and that was not enough time to enable us to explore these matters fully and allow Members who wished to express a view to do so. For that reason we withdrew the motion and sought permission for it to be reintroduced this week. It has been reintroduced, its terms are identical, and I am grateful to the members of the Business Committee who have allowed it to appear on the Order Paper today.

It is right and timely that the Assembly should be deliberating this matter, given the events of last week and the statement made in the House of Commons by the Secretary of State to the effect that the Government are adopting virtually all the recommendations of the Patten Commission’s Report. Indeed, some reports made previous to the statement that only some changes would be made turned out to be largely groundless. There was some minor tinkering and some very minor changes were made to the proposals, but virtually all recommendations of real substance and meat were adopted, as were all those that are controversial and deeply devisive.

In spite of the large number of representations that were made right across the Province, the Government, nevertheless, proceeded to introduce virtually all the recommendations of the Patten Report.

In spite of the fact that, at present, this is a reserved matter, it is right that the Assembly should deliver an opinion on it. It would be amazing if the Government and all the pundits, commentators and media personnel who are so quick to tell us how important this place is and that the Assembly must and will make an impact on the lives of the ordinary people of this Province chose to ignore the democratic decisions of the House, particularly on an issue such as this.

I hope that the House will decisively reject the Patten Commission’s report, and its conclusions and recommendations, and that in so doing, it will send a strong, emphatic signal to the Secretary of State and the Government that what they have announced is unacceptable, certainly as far as the Unionist community is concerned.

I am sure that during this debate the deep anger, the deep frustration and the deep sense of disillusionment that is felt right across the Unionist community, and by many moderate Nationalists as well, will become apparent. Members of the minority community to whom I have spoken recently have expressed deep concerns about where all this will lead with regard to the policing of their communities. They have also expressed concern about the way in which Sinn Féin/IRA has hijacked the policing agenda and about the way in which the SDLP appears to have lain down while the Government have responded to the demands of the Sinn Féin/IRA propaganda barrage and to those demands alone.

Of all the issues which have flowed from the Belfast Agreement, this is the one which most touches a raw nerve in this community. It is bad enough that we should have unreconstructed IRA terrorist frontmen and their supporters in the Government of Northern Ireland; it is bad enough that virtually all terrorist prisoners have been released much earlier than they would otherwise have been, even under the normal early-release schemes; it is bad enough that we should have all-Ireland, cross-border bodies with executive powers — and I note that one of those bodies will meet in Newry today after a meeting to be attended by the Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Investment and the Minister of Higher and Further Education, Training and Employment with their Southern counterparts; and it is bad enough that all these things should have happened as a result of the Belfast Agreement.

All these matters have caused deep concern in the Unionist community, but now the axe is being taken to the RUC. You have only to pick up the newspapers, you have only to go out among people, and you have only to listen to media reports to know that ordinary people on the ground are deeply apprehensive and angry at the proposals which were made by the Secretary of State last week.

I urge the First Minister to get out among ordinary people occasionally and listen to what they say. I heard him on the radio on Saturday saying that people should not listen to those who are expressing concerns about the Belfast Agreement and to those who are opposed to the agreement. Where on earth has he been over the past 18 months? Who on earth is he talking to? He is certainly not talking to people on the ground.

Every person in the House from a Unionist background — and, indeed, from other backgrounds — will know that the message coming through from the grass roots of every section of the community is one of deep anger and concern at the way in which the police have been treated, at the way in which the Royal Ulster Constabulary has been decimated in spite of its 80 years of service to the people of Northern Ireland and in spite of the 30 years of horrendous injury and aggression that have been inflicted on that gallant force.

I would like to pay tribute — as, I am sure, will other Members — to the 302 officers, both full-time and part-time, who died in the service of this community during the recent period of the troubles. I also want to pay tribute to the almost 10,000 officers who have suffered injuries, many of them appalling, lifelong injuries, at the hands of terrorists.

No one has spoken more eloquently about the hurt and anger felt than spokespersons for current RUC members and disabled officers who regard this as the ultimate insult to their membership and to the memory of those who fell while serving Northern Ireland and defending the community against violence and terrorism.

As I said at the outset, all the main controversial and deeply divisive proposals in the Patten Report are going to be implemented. On all the key issues, this Government sided with the Provisional Republican movement against the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the decent, law-abiding majority in this community.

What was the response from the Republican community and movement to this announcement? On the very day this announcement was made in the House of Commons, we saw the Sinn Féin leadership carrying the coffin of the IRA killer of an RUC officer through the streets of Belfast. Yesterday we saw them — Ministers included — standing before a memorial to the IRA killer of a policeman. That killing took place back in 1942, and I have had many complaints from people who have pointed out that while we know the name of the IRA killer and have read background pieces on who and what he was, we have heard very little about the victim of this crime — an innocent police officer who was done to death by an IRA killer. There is much concentration on the victims of crimes. The media sometimes pay lip-service to this issue, as do some Members. Where, however, was the balance in the reporting of this issue? Where was the attempt to find out how this affected the victim of that dastardly crime? Where was the in-depth analysis of just what a vicious, nasty murder that crime was?

Ian Paisley (DUP, North Antrim)

The people of Northern Ireland should be reminded that the police officer was a member of the Roman Catholic community.

Nigel Dodds (DUP, Belfast North)

That is correct. Const Patrick Murphy was murdered by the IRA. There has, of course, been not one word of remorse or regret from the Sinn Féin leadership. Instead there has been eulogy and praise for the IRA killer at the very time when the Royal Ulster Constabulary is being marked for destruction.

What is the response from the Provisional movement? It is not a generous one; it is not one of acknowledgement. They are asking for more; nothing is ever enough. A prominent Sinn Féin spokesperson said that of course this did not go far enough. It is never enough. The bottom line in this whole debate is that it is not the behaviour of the Royal Ulster Constabulary which offends the Republican movement and Sinn Féin and the IRA, but rather the very existence of a police force in this part of the United Kingdom. The RUC is designed to uphold law and order and to prevent terrorists from getting their way by violent means against the wishes of the majority community and, indeed, the majority of the population in Northern Ireland as a whole. That is why all the other forces of law and order have been attacked, denigrated, demoralised and eventually destroyed over the years. That is why the concentration of attack has been on the RUC.

We all know that in a few years time, if these proposals go ahead, whatever this renamed force will be called will also be the subject of complaint. There will be calls for reform or disbandment until, eventually, they attempt to have their way by doing away with any police force in this part of the United Kingdom. Some people have said that the Secretary of State, in his statement last week, did grant some concessions. However, they were very minor and of little import.

The change of name has been delayed until Autumn 2001. Even the badge on the cap of the RUC has not been saved, despite reports that Mr Trimble was fighting very hard on that front. Nothing was delivered. The district policing partnership boards are not to be given powers to raise money from ratepayers to cover extra policing services. Of course, that does not mean that they will not get these powers in the future. The real objection that many of us have — I will deal with the concerns felt in due course — is that these boards are being set up at this level with participation and membership for Sinn Féin, an organisation part and parcel of the Republican movement which has been murdering and maiming police officers for more than 30 years. Talk about the politicisation and the introduction of politics into policing. There could not be a clearer illustration of the introduction of politics into policing than that proposal.

There are some who will say that we have to bear in mind that the vast majority of the Patten recommendations are non-controversial, that most of them could be welcomed. The reality is that most of those proposals were already being addressed by the RUC and the Police Authority. We did not need the Patten Commission. The real changes to be introduced by Patten are those which will affect the name, emblems and insignia and the political involvement in policing. There will be a drastic reduction in numbers, the full-time Reserve will be abolished, and Special Branch will be wiped out, with consequences for the operational capacity to defeat terrorism. There will also be the appointment of an international overseer.

I have been asked on a number of occasions if everything is perfect with the RUC and whether it should be left as it is. My party has made it clear — and I am sure that other parties have their views — that of course there are areas that need to be changed and where improvements can be made. I am not satisfied with the present make-up of the Police Authority. A substantial section of the community that we represent has been completely left off that body.

There are means by which police accountability could be addressed and where improvements to the operational effectiveness could be made, and proposals on those matters have been put to the Secretary of State. Patten’s and the Government’s proposals are not about improving the operational effectiveness of the RUC but about decimating and destroying it. They are about destroying its ethos and its effectiveness as a counter-terrorist organisation. That has been the aim of IRA/Sinn Féin from the very outset. What they could not accomplish by the bomb and the bullet this Government is delivering through an Act of Parliament. That is the reality, and that is what everyone in the community knows.

People are rightly alarmed that these proposals are coming at a time when the IRA has not given up anything. It has not given up its name or its threat to the community. The Chief Constable told us recently that the IRA and other paramilitary organisations on ceasefire retain the capacity to inflict enormous damage on the community through violence. That threat remains. It has not been removed. There has been no proposal for the dismantlement of the IRA machine, for a reduction in the number of terrorists. We have not heard anything from Sinn Féin regarding that. We have not heard anything about the introduction of a human rights regime for the leg-smashers, the racketeers and the intimidators, yet the law enforcement agency — the RUC — and the other security forces will have this imposed on them. The community will rightly ask what on earth kind of logic there is in this so-called peace process, which rewards the terrorist and their spokespersons by putting them in government, letting them out on the streets, creating political institutions that they are happy about and which destroy the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

When you speak to such people the only answer they give is that it is part of the price of the agreement — the price that the community is being asked to pay. The price is far too high — the community is not willing to sacrifice the RUC. We have to remember also — and we had news this morning of an arrest in the Irish Republic — the continuing threat being posed on both sides of the border by so-called dissident terrorist groups while these very proposals are being made.

Charges were levelled last week in the United States against a number of individuals — serious terrorist charges — and that shows us that, in spite of Sinn Féin’s so-called commitment to peace, the reality is that its members are busy re-arming, getting their agents in the United States to tout for arms and shipping them across to Northern Ireland. Yet the arms that are being used to defend this community are to be removed.

We have to remember too that all this is all taking place in the context of a series of announcements that will be made over the next weeks and months. Proposals will be brought forward shortly on the review of the criminal justice system. Again, they are part of the Belfast Agreement, and concerns have already been raised, not least by the Lord Chief Justice, about what the impact of some of them may be. We also have ongoing proposals for so-called demilitarisation, and where is that going to end?

When, if ever, are we going to see, any reciprocation on the part of the terrorists for whom all these concessions are being made? The reality is that we will wait a very long time for any such reciprocal movement. They have not had to make any move so far in this process, and why should they begin now? That is the reality of it, and it is time that we had a firm pledge here from the First Minister and the leadership of his party. I make a distinction between the leadership and the grass-roots support of the Unionist Party. It is time that we had some indication from the leadership of the party to my left of what it is going to do about these proposals.

A leading columnist said in the ‘Belfast Telegraph’ on Saturday that it was now clear what Mr Trimble’s line of defence is on any of these problems. He gets all furious and concerned on the day that an announcement is made, then he lets it all calm down for a number of months to let everybody get used to it, and then he proceeds as normal. This time I do not think that he is going to get away with it. People are simply not going to sit.

Esmond Birnie (UUP, Belfast South)

Will the hon Member give way?

Nigel Dodds (DUP, Belfast North)

No. The Member will have an opportunity to contribute later.

People in this community will simply not allow this issue to be swept under the carpet. On this issue there is no hiding place. There will be no opportunity simply to allow it all to calm down and be forgotten until the legislation comes forward in Parliament. Now is the time for something to be done, and I will indicate later what that should be. The ordinary members of the Ulster Unionist Party know what it is. I suspect that the leadership of the Ulster Unionist Party also knows what it is, because it has been advised on it by leading members both publicly and in private. It remains to be seen whether it will listen.

Ian Paisley (DUP, North Antrim)

Does my hon Friend not think it is a strange irony that Mr Patten has been appointed in Europe to look after security, freedom and safety of the individual? Yet he is the very person who has proposed that new recruits are to be appointed on a fifty-fifty basis.

Is it not surprising that those who have shouted loudest about religious discrimination are strangely quiet when we have deliberate discrimination which flies in the face of all the laws of the European Union?

Nigel Dodds (DUP, Belfast North)

I thank my hon Friend for that intervention. The fact that the European Commissioner responsible for these issues is the same Chris Patten is an irony which will not be lost on people in Northern Ireland and, I suspect, in the United Kingdom as a whole. Having a man such as this in charge of that area will certainly re-inforce many of the deep concerns and suspicions that people have about the direction of the European Union.

On the point about fair employment laws, it is clear that there are grave question marks over the enforceability, admissibility and legality of this, as far as European legislation is concerned. A leading Queen’s Counsel delivered an opinion on this matter and said that discrimination in the numbers of men and women being recruited to the RUC or the police service as a means of correcting imbalance would most assuredly be against European law. However, when he considered the matter on religious grounds, he was not quite sure.

Without any doubt the fair employment laws — laws which have been upheld and lauded for their fairness and heralded by this Government and by parties in the House as the only approach possible — will have to be abandoned for this proposal. These safeguards will have to be done away with when it comes to future recruitment for the police service, for it is quite clear that these proposals run counter to current fair employment law. How far will they go with rigging the system for recruitment when they are going to do away with the very fair employment laws that were passed to counter discrimination and imbalance — laws which parties in this House have vehemently supported over the years, in spite of criticism from us?

This is something that touches a nerve in the community. Is there any real doubt that if this proposal did not have the support of a sizeable section of the Nationalist or Republican community the Secretary of State’s statement in the House of Commons last Wednesday would have been very different? If there had been a proposal on a series of recommendations, or if a commission had been set up, on a fundamentally divisive issue to which 100% of Nationalism was opposed, does anybody seriously think that the Government would have proceeded to implement these proposals or the recommendations of that Commission? Of course they would not.

We would have had a statement saying "We would like to have gone down this road; we still believe that it is the best way forward, but at this time no cross-community consensus exists, so we must search for a way forward that brings the two communities together." A petition on this matter, containing between 300,000 and 400,000 signatures was handed into 10 Downing Street, showing almost universal opposition to these reforms from within the organisation itself.

Robert McCartney (UKUP, North Down)

Does the Member agree that the terms of the Belfast Agreement, in providing Mr Patten and his commission with their remit, specifically charged the commission to bring forward proposals for police reform that would enjoy widespread support throughout the community?

Nigel Dodds (DUP, Belfast North)

The Member is absolutely correct. The terms of the Belfast Agreement have not been met because of the opposition to this.

I will now move on to deal with the terms of the agreement. It is clear that the agreement set up and provided for the remit and the parameters within which the commission would operate. The Member is absolutely right. This series of proposals and the Secretary of State’s statement will alienate far more people than they satisfy, and that is entirely contrary to what the commission was supposed to be about.

The reason the Government have chosen to ignore their normal conventions in these areas and on these sorts of issues, the reason they have chosen to ignore the broad swathe of community opinion, to totally ignore representations from within the security forces — to whom they normally pay a great deal of attention, we are told — is that they are not interested in accommodating and listening to the views of the broad mass of the people. Their focus is on appeasing an extreme minority. In terms of the implementation of the Patten Report, the Government are interested only in satisfying Sinn Féin. That is just like saying that you have to make the police force in England acceptable to hoods, vandals and drug dealers, because only then will you get the support of such people for a policing service. You have to set down principles for a law enforcement agency and objective criteria under which they will be able to carry out their job effectively. If that does not please the criminal element, those who wish to see that force and the institutions of the state destroyed, so be it.

It is incumbent on any police force and law enforcement agency to carry out its duties impartially. A police ombudsman has been appointed with widespread support from all parties in the House. We have been told that the force itself has to reflect the entire community. In the words of the Sinn Féin leader "Can people from Crossmaglen and West Belfast feel comfortable in it?" I wonder what sort of people he had in mind. We all know who he had in mind. That sort of force will not be the effective policing force that the broad mass of people want, not least in Nationalist areas.

Nothing is more sickening than to listen to the slick and oily words of a Secretary of State who, before he was appointed, never set foot in Northern Ireland. He comes here and lectures us about the tremendous sacrifice, courage and valour of the RUC — and I have already paid tribute to the courage, valour and integrity of the RUC. The Secretary of State belatedly awarded them the George Cross; he talked about the force’s being greater than its name. If that is so, why change it? With one hand he pays compliments and patronises, and with the other, he smashes the force that he is complimenting. No wonder many of us were a little concerned when the George Cross was awarded. At that time many people wondered if this would be a posthumous award; sadly, that is what it has turned out to be. The manipulative Secretary of State tried, through propaganda and spin doctoring, to put a different gloss on it, but the people know this. Instead of running around with his newly found friends that we read about in the media, he should go out and listen to ordinary people. Then he too would understand the deep resentment brought about by his action.

He has done dishonour to the service of RUC officers over 80 years. I will not go into details on the various changes, for I know that other Members will speak on those aspects. We have dealt with issues relating to the name of the RUC. The Secretary of State says that any new badge decided by a new police board will have to meet the test of cross-community support.

He does away with the force, even though that move does not have cross-community support, but he says that any new name must meet that test. No doubt the call for cross-community consensus will be warmly welcomed by the SDLP. What about a bit of cross-community consensus for reforms of the RUC? Of course, that is not on, for the only agenda is to appease the extreme minority in Sinn Féin/IRA and its supporters.

What about the police force down South, the Garda Síochána? Its symbol has a very close identification with the Irish State. Has there been any proposal to do away with its symbols or insignia? Have there been any proposals from the Irish Government who are so quick to comment on Patten and on what should happen in Northern Ireland? Have they made any proposals on recruitment?

I understand that, at the last count, they had to engage in a pretty intense exercise to find the number of Protestants in the Garda Síochána. They did not amount to more than 20, yet in terms of community balance, there should be almost 300 — more than 10 times more. What do the gardaí or the Irish Government propose? What are the British Government doing to press the Irish Government on these issues? What is the First Minister doing?

William McCrea (DUP, Mid Ulster)

Does my hon Friend know what representations the SDLP has made to the Southern Government about the serious matter of there being only 20 Protestant members of the Garda Síochána?

Nigel Dodds (DUP, Belfast North)

I will wait with interest to see whether the SDLP takes up that challenge and says whether it has issued any statements or made any representations of concern on the issue. I certainly have not heard anything about that from those who have expressed concern about the implications of the Patten Report and the so-called imbalance in the police.

Ian Paisley (DUP, North Antrim)

Is it not a fact that all senior officers of the gardaí are political appointments by the Government?

Nigel Dodds (DUP, Belfast North)

Members have only to read some recent history of Irish political life, particularly during the Haughey Administration, to see the extent of political interference with senior members of the gardaí. People were transferred from one police station to another at the behest of their political masters for political reasons. Police cars were used to ferry witnesses and to get people offside.

I commend some of that literature to those who are so quick to promote the values of the tremendous Irish Republic and who urge us to look southwards to see an example of modern pluralist democracy. They should study the way in which the police down there have been interfered with and how political corruption has led to the resignation of not just one but several Cabinet Ministers over the years.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Order. I draw the Member’s attention to the question of time, as he has now been speaking for more than 35 minutes. That in itself is not out of order, but the Business Committee has determined that the debate will end at 6 o’clock. A substantial number of Members wish to contribute to the debate. There is also an amendment for debate, so I appeal to the Member and to all other Members to allow time for all contributors to put their views.

Nigel Dodds (DUP, Belfast North)

Mr Speaker, I hesitate to say that you could have said that in less time. I will certainly bear your comments in mind and will draw my remarks to a close. [Interruption]

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Order. The more points of order that are raised now or, indeed, earlier, the less time there is available for debate.

Nigel Dodds (DUP, Belfast North)

I understand that at least three hours has been set aside for the debate, so the points of order prior to the debate should not have had any effect.

I will draw my remarks to a close because I want as many Members as possible to speak. In view of the outrage that has been expressed and the concerns of many, people are asking what will happen here now. I have already indicated how the First Minister intends to play it — basically he intends to do very little. He says that when the matter comes before the House of Commons, amendments will be moved. Quite right. I have no difficulty with that, and I am sure that all Members who are concerned will support those amendments.

However, the reality is, as pointed out at the weekend by the deputy leader of the UUP, Mr Taylor, that this will not make any difference — it will be a waste of time. The Government’s majority is such that it will not make any difference.

So what do we do? Do we do what Ken Maginnis tried to do and have a private word in the ear of the Secretary of State? Mr Maginnis highlighted his great concern, only to be shafted by the Secretary of State in the House of Commons.

Esmond Birnie (UUP, Belfast South)

Will the Member give way?

Nigel Dodds (DUP, Belfast North)

No. The Member will have an opportunity later.

Mr Maginnis was told by the Secretary of State in the House of Commons that his public pronouncements were very different from the compliments that he paid him in private. In respect of this issue, should the First Minister and his party not exercise the leverage on the Government which they are entitled to exercise? They have been urged to do so by the DUP and the whole Unionist community.

There is no point in dithering. There is no point in sitting on. There is no point in hoping that at some stage down the road the Secretary of State or the Government will suddenly change their mind. It is up to Mr Trimble and his Colleagues to say that they will not go on propping up the institutions of the agreement and tell the Secretary of State that they are not prepared to preside over the RUC’s being axed.

This is not the time to issue pious statements of condemnation. This is the time to actually do something. Action by the UUP is the only way that these institutions will be collapsed or brought down. Under the legislation only three Unionist Members have to be on the Executive to make it work. That is why, for the benefit of those denser members of the UUP who are speaking from a seated position, the UUP has to move on this. Perhaps they could use their calculators to work out why that is the case.

However, the reality is that many of us will look in vain for that judgement. Again I make the distinction between the leadership of the UUP, as exemplified by the First Minister, and the grass-roots members of the party, who take a very different view on this. We will look in vain, however, for a sign that the leadership will start to exercise good judgement given what the gentlemen who make up that leadership have said over the years about the Patten Commission. Their judgement has certainly been lacking.

I have only to look at what Mr Maginnis, the security spokesman for the UUP, said on 4 June 1998. He said that he was

"very happy with the make-up of the Patten Commission."

And he went on

"I think practically we could not have hoped for anything better."

Then we had the same Mr Maginnis speaking on behalf of his party on 28 April 1998. This is what he said then:

"If we are going to have a sensible look at the RUC, then I believe that Chris Patten’s appointment is progress, because there was talk that we were going to have some distant international figure, perhaps an American or a European."

Do I hear the name George Mitchell being mentioned? Was it Ken Maginnis who mentioned George Mitchell first of all?

However, as Chris Patten said,

"What on earth did these people think they were going to get when they signed up to the Belfast Agreement?"

The remit, the terms and conditions and the parameters of the Patten Commission were in the agreement for all to see.

As Frank Millar, a former honorary secretary and chief executive of the Ulster Unionist Party, said, in his capacity as a journalist in the ‘Irish Times’, on 20 January 1999,

"In the mind of Mr Patten and his colleagues, as to most outside observers, it was, and is, manifestly clear that the International Commission and the Belfast Agreement were the two sides of the same coin".

A blind man on a galloping horse could have seen that the principal of parity of esteem, as enshrined in the agreement, would translate into the end of the identification of Northern Ireland’s police service with the symbolism of the British State. That is the reality. Everybody knows it. Let us not make the same mistake again. Let the Ulster Unionist Party not make the same mistake as they have with the Executive. IRA/Sinn Féin has been allowed into the Executive. Pledges have been broken. Promises of "No guns, no government" have been ditched in the hope and expectation that IRA/Sinn Féin would deliver on decommissioning. As we are seeing on a daily basis, that is not happening.

Now it looks like the same mistake is going to be made again. "Let us implement Patten. Let us go for all these changes." they say, in the hope, belief and expectation that all will be well further down the line. The reality is that if this is allowed to proceed — and it will proceed only if, as I said earlier, action is not taken— then someday it will too late to save the RUC. This community will find that it is too late to have the proper defence it needs against the terrorist threat.

Séan Neeson (Alliance, East Antrim)

I beg to move the following amendment: Delete all the words after "This" and add

"Assembly believes that, while the Patten Report causes pain to many, it can provide a new beginning for policing in Northern Ireland, responsive to and representative of the entire community.

This Assembly urges leaders from all sections of the community to give full support to the proposed reformed police service and to encourage people to join."

Like Mr Dodds, I welcome the opportunity to debate the Patten Report. The Assembly and the Business Committee were wise to delay the debate until today because this has provided us with the opportunity to respond to the Secretary of State’s speech. The amendment before you, in my name and that of Mr Close, is one which is a balanced reflection on the Patten Report and the Government’s response to it. The Alliance Party broadly welcomes the report. However, we, like others, have some reservations.

When we submitted our response on the Patten Report to the Government, we put forward our vision of policing in Northern Ireland. We want to see a single, integrated, professional police service, which is representative of, responsible to, and carrying the confidence of the entire community in Northern Ireland. We believe that the responsibilities of the police are, primarily, to serve and protect the public and to uphold the rule of law fairly and impartially. We are pleased that, in the main, the report reflects this vision.

In saying that, we recognise the pain that many people in Northern Ireland are going through as a result of the report. I served on the Police Authority for six years, and I walked behind many of the coffins of RUC personnel. We have to understand the pain and hurt felt by people in Northern Ireland — particularly in many areas of the Unionist community. By the same token we must also understand the hurt felt by every family in Northern Ireland which has been bereaved during the 30 years of the troubles. We have all suffered. We are all feeling the pain. However, if we are to move forward, we have to move forward in a climate of change.

Yesterday I bought the book ‘Lost Lives’. Once again, it brought home to me the number of friends, relations, civilians and police personnel that gave up their lives during the troubles. The one message that is important for this Assembly to adhere to is that while we are all trying to create a society of forgiveness we must not forget the suffering that has been felt by the whole community over that futile 30 years of violence and the troubles.

One of my greatest difficulties with the Patten Commission is that it did not give the RUC the recognition it deserves. The Secretary of State referred to this in his Commons statement last week, and I believe that we also need to put on record our appreciation of the RUC’s work during the troubles. Some people regarded it as cynical, but I welcomed the award of the George Cross to the RUC.

We have some reservations. First, my party is concerned about the proposed local police boards. I am in favour of local consultation. The community police liaison committees have made a worthwhile contribution throughout Northern Ireland, although it has always been my criticism that those committees based purely on the local council have not been as effective as those which involved all of the community. There is a need for local consultation. However, despite the Secretary of State’s decision to leave the question of finance to the criminal justice review, I want to put on record my grave reservations about giving district councils any authority to raise money for policing. I hope that a mechanism for local consultation can be established, bearing in mind that if this Assembly succeeds, there could be changes within local government.

The other area about which I want to express concern is recruitment. I want to see a balanced police service. At the moment it is totally unbalanced in its gender and religious make-up, but to devise a quota system that is illegal, under both British and European law, is not on. Quotas are both illegal and unnecessary. The 1991 census shows that the composition of the target 18-30 group is roughly balanced. Looking beyond that, I want to see a police service that reflects not only religion and gender but also race. This is not the most pluralist society, but there are sizeable ethnic minorities developing. Their numbers should be reflected in the police service.

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement on the possible downsizing of the police service. It is important that any such downsizing be based on the security situation and not on political considerations. It is important that the Chief Constable be given the impartial role of advising the Government on the needs of his service and the effects of any downsizing of that police service. We must ensure that no irresponsible action is taken.

One of the major aspects of our amendment is to call on community leaders to encourage recruitment to the proposed reformed police service from right across the community. Here, I must take issue with a number of groups in the Assembly.

I believe that there is an onus and a responsibility on Sinn Féin and Republicans to acknowledge the changes that have been taking place recently. The Executive has been established. The Government have responded to the Patten Report. Proposals are coming forward for demilitarisation. However, if we are going to move forward, it must be on the basis of trust.

David Trimble has set a deadline of the end of January in relation to decommissioning. My party believes that the Good Friday Agreement clearly set a May deadline — but the May deadline is for the completion of decommissioning by both Republicans and Loyalists. An opinion poll in ‘The Irish Times’ last Saturday showed that 86% of people in the Irish Republic believe that decommissioning should start now. I am firmly of that view.

I must be honest. Like many people living in Northern Ireland, I am getting a little tired of the arrogance of Republicans with regard to the changes that are taking place in Northern Ireland. To move forward is not a matter of having one’s cake and eating it as well. All sides of the community have to make sacrifices to ensure that this society can break away from the 30 years of violence and move forward into a truly peaceful society.

The proposals in the Patten Report were brought forward on the basis of a peaceful society. That has to be created. Therefore if people hold back, they are also holding back on the implementation of the Patten Report — and it is for the Chief Constable to decide on any downsizing that might be necessary.

Another matter that annoys me is the GAA’s response to the report. Once again it is begrudging, rather than moving forward and accepting the importance and nature of the Patten Report. It is holding back. It will not change Rule 21, which, in essence, is political apartheid. In any society in the twenty-first century, political apartheid is unacceptable. It is not on. If this were South Africa, there would have been an outcry about it.

Therefore if a truly pluralist society, based on trust and confidence, is to be created, this form of discrimination by organisations like the GAA can not be afforded. I know that there are those in the GAA who want to see change, and I urge them to bring about the abolition of the iniquitous Rule 21 sooner rather than later.

Going back to the opinion poll in ‘The Irish Times’, it related to all paramilitary organisations. Therefore, while I have pointed the finger at Republicans, I point it equally at Loyalist paramilitary groups. The murder in Portadown just over a week ago clearly shows that unless decommissioning takes place then incidents like this will continue throughout Northern Ireland. The onus and responsibility on Loyalists is equal to that on Republicans. Why can we not get away from the "win/lose" situation in Northern Ireland? Nationalists are perceived to have won by the Government’s response on the Patten Report, and Unionists have lost. How are we going to get away from this mentality? The Patten Report reflects the policing needs of the new society that we hope to create in Northern Ireland.

The main proposal shows the total hypocrisy of the DUP, whose support for the police has been conditional. I remember the leader of the DUP, when he was being carried out of the Assembly Chamber on 23 June 1986, pointing his finger at the policemen and saying

"Do not come running to me if your homes are attacked".

That typifies the double standards of the DUP throughout the troubles.

Many police officers have said to me that they are embarrassed to have the DUP leading the so-called "Save the RUC Campaign". They are embarrassed by the activities and double standards of the DUP during the last 30 years.

In our response to the Patten Report we must recognise that throughout the 30 years of the troubles the police have been the piggy in the middle. The best example of that has been at Drumcree. If the police let the parade down the Garvaghy Road, they are attacked by Republicans; if they do not let the parade down the Garvaghy Road, they are attacked by Unionists. In 1996 we remember the First Minister, Mr Trimble, pointing the finger at police personnel on the Garvaghy Road. Support for the police has been conditional.

The whole Assembly can accept this amendment. It aims to reflect on the sacrifice of the police over the 30 years of the troubles and yet recognise that the Patten Report aims to provide effective and efficient policing. It is a plan that could be adopted by police services in other parts of the world. I urge the leaders of every community in Northern Ireland to encourage people to join the proposed, reformed police service.

Tom Benson (UUP, Strangford)

To see the good name of the RUC being sullied by Chris Patten and his fellow executioners is one of the most painful experiences that I have had to endure. I say this as one who had the great honour of serving in the RUC for over 30 years. During that time I served with the finest group of men and women one could ever wish to meet — Roman Catholic and Protestant alike — and the suggested dropping of the proud name RUC is an insult not only to those who have faithfully served the citizens of this country but also to the 302 people who made the supreme sacrifice and gave up their lives. It is particularly insulting to the widows, the children and the fathers and mothers who lost loved ones in the prime of life.

How Chris Patten, Tony Blair, Peter Mandelson and the other betrayers who have contributed to this dirty deed can feel comfortable or sleep in their beds is beyond my comprehension. Of course, Patten’s reward has been a £200,000-a-year job in the European set-up. Is it too much to hope that when the legislation to enact this is passing through Parliament, enough hon Members will restore the good name of the RUC? If not, I suggest that the George Cross, rightly awarded to the RUC, be not passed on to the new police service for Northern Ireland. It was earned proudly by the RUC and should remain with that great name.

No one could say that Roman Catholics are discriminated against in the RUC. Roman Catholics have held every rank up to and including Assistant Chief Constable, Deputy Chief Constable and Chief Constable. Indeed, at one stage a Roman Catholic Assistant Chief Constable was the head of Special Branch.

The force was certainly well served by men such as the late Brendan Durkan, who reached the high rank of district inspector. He was the father of our new Minister of Finance and Personnel, Mark Durkan, and he was a close friend of my Colleague Sir John Gorman.

Another colleague was the late Supt Danny McDaid, who was a native of the Bogside in Londonderry. Danny gave great assistance in providing welfare to injured members and widows during my five years as chairman of the Police Federation, No 7 Region.

The religious imbalance in the RUC is the result of the intimidation, by murdering Republican thugs, of Roman Catholics from Nationalist areas who had joined the RUC.

Alban Maginness (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Belfast North)

Will the Member give way?

Tom Benson (UUP, Strangford)

No.

I can give an example of this. A very close colleague of mine, who had reached a high rank in the force, was a Roman Catholic who had married his childhood sweetheart. Both were from west Tyrone. During the time when his family was growing up he could never return to visit his wife’s parents because of the near-certainty that he would be shot. Because both sets of parents lived in a strong Nationalist area he had to take his wife and family down, drop them off to visit and then get offside. Several hours later he would pick them up at a predetermined safe area — sometimes many miles away.

Members can now see why many Roman Catholics who wished to make a career in the RUC considered the intimidation and risk too great. The surprising thing is that any Roman Catholics at all were prepared to withstand the pressure.

Members will have seen the great excitement, in the last week or so, over the exhumation of the body of Tom Williams, the IRA murderer, and the big memorial service for him yesterday. I am certain that, like me, they heard little mention of the man he murdered. He was Const Patrick Murphy, a decent, honest Roman Catholic man doing his duty, and he left a widow to bring up her young family. This was a brave Roman Catholic man who made a career in the RUC and ended up a sad statistic. Unfortunately Patten and Mandelson have forgotten these victims and are now rewarding the murderers.

I cannot speak too highly of the loyalty and bravery of my colleagues in the RUC. I stood with them during the serious riots in the Falls, the Shankill and the Bogside, when petrol bombs and bullets were the order of the day. I know what it is to be on the receiving end of a brick thrown by a Bogside Republican at Butcher’s Gate. No amount of intimidation and murder could prevent the RUC from continuing professionally to defend its fellow countrymen, both Unionist and Nationalist. I am 100% behind the motion, but the DUP’s motives for bringing it forward appear to have more to do with having a bash at the Ulster Unionists and David Trimble than with defending the RUC.

Let us examine the DUP’s record of support for the RUC over the years. First, it tried to form the Third Force, which was really a means of undermining the authority of the RUC and the security forces. Then it marched up and down mountains waving firearm certificates — again distracting the RUC from its prime function of administering law and order. During its many protests, some members of the DUP were quite happy to knock policemen and policewomen about and tramp police caps on the ground — caps that bear the very badge that the DUP is now purporting to be trying to protect. On one occasion, when some of its members were being carried away from a sit-down protest, remarks such as "Don’t come to us for help when you are being burned out of your homes" were made and other insults hurled.

I am delighted that the DUP has now come into line with the Ulster Unionists in defending the RUC.

The proposer and seconder of the motion are expert at making snide remarks about my party, so let us examine their contribution to the defence of Northern Ireland during the time of the troubles. Did either of them don the uniform of the security forces, and what medals can they wear? I could make a snide remark like "Perhaps the Clontibret Star", but I will not go down that road.

I fully support the motion, and I appeal to Tony Blair, William Hague and Charles Kennedy to advise their members to do what was suggested by Msgr Denis Faul, who is surely a responsible representative of the Nationalist people. The RUC name should be retained and the words "Police Service for Northern Ireland" added. If parity of esteem is to mean anything, this must be the correct course of action.

If the RUC is sacrificed on the altar of appeasement, these three political leaders and their parties will be tramping on the graves of those who gave their lives to protect all people, Unionists and Nationalists alike. This would be an insult to the bereaved who will go on suffering for the rest of their lives.

I make this plea from the bottom of my heart.

12.00

Alex Attwood (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Belfast West)

First, I wish to state that I intend to tread warily and easily, not least because of the comments made by Mr Benson, who said that this is one of the most painful experiences of his life.

When I reach the body of my speech my perspective will be to tread warily and tread easily because we tread on people’s hearts and experiences. Nothing that I say on behalf of the SDLP — indeed, no SDLP comment today — will be meant to do anything to compound the hurt, anxiety and anguish in our community.

However, a number of matters that were raised by Mr Dodds and Mr Neeson need to be commented on.

Patrick Roche (NIUP, Lagan Valley)

In view of your comments about not wishing to tread on the sensibilities of Members, what do you make of the comments made by the deputy leader of your party when he attended the Brehon Law Society ‘Irishman of the Year’ award in Philadelphia? He took the opportunity to inform his United States audience that in the North of Ireland the RUC has reduced the rule of law to little more than the law of the jungle. That is your party’s position.

Alex Attwood (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Belfast West)

I will deal with that issue, but first I wish to deal with some other points.

Mr Dodds referred to the Garda Síochána. He asked if the SDLP had made any submissions to the Irish Government about issues such as emblems and names in respect of the Garda Síochána. Whilst I did not wish to start with this issue, the point that Mr Dodds raised is germane to the issue of Patten, the RUC, and policing change.

While it may or may not be necessary for the Garda Síochána to modernise in a pluralist society, it can be said that there is no disagreement about the nature of the Republic of Ireland and its Constitution. There is no disagreement about the nature of its institutions of state, including its police service. As far as we are aware the people of the Republic of Ireland are comfortable regarding the name ‘Garda Síochána’ and the symbols and emblems it displays.

That is the reality in respect of the Garda Síochána and the Republic of Ireland but it has not existed heretofore in the North of Ireland. The fact that these core values and requirements about the nature of the state and its institutions did not exist in relation to the North is one of the compelling reasons why the nature of our state, and its police service has to change. This is why the name, the emblems, the symbols, policies and practices of the police service in the North must change. There are compelling arguments why that must be done — arguments that do not exist in relation to the Garda Síochána.

In the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation in Dublin, the SDLP — along with many other parties — made proposals to the Irish Government about how that state should modernise in the context of a pluralist future and the new millennium. Therefore we are not behind the door about making proposals to the Irish Government about ways in which they could change their constitutional institutions in order to reflect more fully the requirements of our changed circumstances.

My second point was raised by Mr Dodds also. He said that the SDLP had lain down before Sinn Féin in relation to the issue of the RUC and policing. I fundamentally disagree with that assertion. Our attitude towards the RUC and policing change has been fundamentally different to that of Republicans. We have repeatedly said that, whatever its nature, our conflict should not be expressed in violent terms. It should not be visited upon any member of our state, including the RUC, in violent terms. We have said to our community that, whatever our difficulties with the Patten Report — and there are some — it remains the baseline around which people in the North can begin to gather in order to create a police service which earns the allegiance of all. We have said that to our own community and to Republicans.

Regardless of our anxieties about the hesitancy evident in some of the Government’s comments on Patten in its response last week, we tell our community, and we urge Republicans to tell theirs, that this represents the opportunity for a new beginning for policing. We should not dismiss it idly or casually.

We differ from Sinn Féin in this matter and in many others. It is dishonest and inappropriate to say that we have lain down before any party on this issue. Our judgements have been made solely on what we feel best serves the needs of all communities in the North — not on what may or may not be the view of any other party.

I wish to turn to the core of my speech by returning to some of the comments I made earlier in reply to Mr Benson. It is important that some of these matters be put on the record in this Chamber, just as we hope we have put them on the record in the public domain in the past. Nothing that I say on behalf of the SDLP should deny certain truths. My community recognises how greatly, both individually and collectively, the RUC, their families and the wider community have suffered. They have acted courageously, and members of the present RUC are entitled to be in a future Northern Ireland police service.

While we have been tough on what is wrong in policing — myself in particular, perhaps — we have also been tough on the wrongs visited on the RUC. Some of those who seek to protect the RUC do not fully accept that my community acknowledges what the RUC has endured. My community’s requirement for far-reaching change is seen as somehow diminishing what has been endured. That is not the case, and my community wishes this to be known conclusively. If nothing else arises from this debate, I want those Members who feel most protective of the RUC and who have valued its role over the last 30 years to understand how my community and our constituency view the RUC, notwithstanding our concerns about RUC actions in the past.

There is a concept developing, especially in certain eastern European states, of "chosen victims, chosen victories". It concerns the selective remembrance of the past. We can all relate to how we have "chosen victims and chosen victories." Whilst it is too painful at this stage of our history to move beyond that way of viewing past conflict, it is essential that we remind ourselves that others have their own victories and victims also.

If we are selective or partial, and if we do not deal with matters in a complete way we will end up not dealing with the conflict of the last 30 years and the pain inflicted and endured over that time in a complete way. Whilst our community has not yet reached that stage, it will be essential for us to fully and creatively deal with past abuses if we are to move past this phase of conflict.

It is inevitable that the differences about the future of policing are intense. Emotions surrounding the RUC and our experiences of it have been different. Wrongs have been perpetrated against the RUC, and wrongs have been perpetrated against Nationalists and others by the state and its agencies.

Next Sunday I, Bairbre de Brún and other Assembly Members will be speaking at the "bloody Sunday" commemoration rally. It would be helpful and creative if the pain of "bloody Sunday" were more fully acknowledged and accepted by all Members of the Assembly and not just by those who have been associated with that issue.

Maurice Morrow (DUP, Fermanagh and South Tyrone)

I am interested to hear the Member say that next Sunday he will be parading and coat-trailing in Londonderry. I recall that his leader is on record as saying that it is time to draw a line under the past and let history be the judge of it. Unfortunately, as he knows, a very expensive commission has been established to investigate what is supposed to have happened on "bloody Sunday". Is he prepared to draw a line under this, or is this one of the special items that is reserved for the domain of the Nationalist community?

Alex Attwood (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Belfast West)

When John Hume referred to drawing a line under the past he did not mean that we should ignore or abandon it, or that our obligation to explain, interpret and deal with the past should not be accepted. There is a difference between drawing a line under the past, in terms of how we conducted our political affairs, and how we should try to understand and interpret what happened in the past so that it does not happen in the future. That is why we have a victims’ commission, a police ombudsman and a human rights commission which is enabled and empowered to investigate and deal with issues of the past which have caused anxiety and concern. There are issues of the past that every Member can talk about that must be dealt with, but that is different from saying that we should ignore the past and abandon it to memory and history. That is what John Hume meant, and if he were here it is what he would say.

Ian Paisley Jnr (DUP, North Antrim)

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Is it appropriate for the Member to try to mislead the House by suggesting that the policing ombudsman has the power to investigate past alleged misdemeanours by the RUC? She has no such function.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

That is not a point of order.

Alex Attwood (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Belfast West)

I did give way to the Member. If he were to consult the police ombudsman the Member would be aware that any existing complaints that are ongoing and will become the responsibility of the police ombudsman. These include complaints arising from the killings of Robert Hamill, Pat Finucane and others, and the investigations into the circumstances surrounding the death of Rosemary Nelson. Complaints from anybody else, from whatever background, will continue to be within the custody of the police ombudsman, and she will have the responsibility of dealing with those issues when she is empowered next August.

Patrick Roche (NIUP, Lagan Valley)

I am sorry to have to interrupt the Member twice. Does he not think that it is a little incongruous to be attending the "bloody Sunday" event next week with Bairbre de Brún, who is a colleague of Gerry Adams, when in the book ‘Man of War, Man of Peace’, written by Mark Davenport, Mr Adams is explicitly mentioned as being among the planners of "bloody Friday"?

Alex Attwood (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Belfast West)

There is no incongruity whatsoever in any Member going to Derry next Sunday and standing with the families of those who suffered on "bloody Sunday" to respect the dignity which they have shown in their campaign and to acknowledge that we are at a very important moment, given that the Government have undertaken this inquiry into the circumstances of "bloody Sunday" — to stand with them in order to get at the truth of what is in representative and local terms a deeply painful moment in the last 30 years of our history. There is no incongruity in doing that. That is why I will be there next Sunday and not for any other reason.

We all must recognise the wrongs of the past and the wrongs perpetrated one on the other in the past. As a consequence we come to the issue of policing change carrying different, sometimes common pain, but with pain comes wisdom.

The late Robert Kennedy, who often quoted the ancient Greek writer Aeschylus, said

"In our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart and in our own time against our will comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

That wisdom has informed the political process over a number of years, and, unlikely though it may seem at the moment, it may yet inform the policing debate over the coming months. I appeal to everybody to stand back and reflect on what Patten and the Secretary of State have said and proposed. Everyone should ask themselves a number of questions. These are essential if we are to move this debate from the sterile ground which it currently occupies into a more fertile area. The following questions must be answered if we are to solve the current policing problems.

First, if each of us were asked to design a police service for a new beginning, could we say honestly and with absolute conviction that the Patten proposals and the Government’s response are so far off the mark? Do any of us, including Republicans, seriously believe the changes are the outworking of the obsolete slogan "Disband the RUC"? Are the proposals on training, recruitment, human rights and structure such that, taken in totality, they would not create a service to which we could all give allegiance? Ultimately, if both traditions join in equal numbers and with equal enthusiasm, is that not a prize worth striving for? The answers to those questions, which should be placed honestly before each of our parties and communities, may enable us to begin to work through the current problem and find a solution.

I should like to comment on what the British Government have said and what they will do in the coming weeks. The judgement of the SDLP is that, taken in totality, the Patten and Mandelson proposals create the potential for a police service that can earn the allegiance of all. That judgement will be better informed when the Government publish their draft legislation. We trust that the legislation will faithfully and fully reflect the Patten and Mandelson proposals. I say that advisedly.

The draft Northern Ireland Bill, which gave legislative effect to the Good Friday Agreement, did not faithfully and fully reflect the agreement when first published. It required a lobby inside and outside the House of Commons and the good offices of Paul Murphy, in particular, to ensure that the powers of the Human Rights Commission and the responsibilities of the Equality Commission, as intended by the Good Friday Agreement, were reflected in the Northern Ireland Act.

The intentions of the Patten and Mandelson proposals need to be reflected in the forthcoming Police Bill; and we anticipate that that will be the case. If not, people’s concerns that elements within the police or Government wish to design the new police service in their own way rather than in a way that is consistent with what Patten and Mandelson have proposed will be confirmed. If that were to happen, a new policing world would dawn, but the old men would have come out again and remade it in the likeness of the world that they knew.

The Government need to be aware that we shall watch closely to ensure that that situation does not arise. In particular the Government should be aware that we wish to see human rights put centre stage in the new police service. It is surely not coincidental that the lead chapter of Patten is on human rights, and it cannot be coincidental that the lead sentence of the report says

"the fundamental purpose of policing should be … the protection and vindication of the human rights of all."

Patten translates that principle into a wide range of practices, including a code of ethics, codes of practice, training and awareness of human rights, close monitoring by the police board, integration of human rights in every module of police training and a new oath for new officers that expresses an explicit commitment to upholding human rights.

Given the centrality of human rights to Patten, there cannot be selective, partial or occasional implementation of his proposals. On this issue where Patten’s proposals are authoritative, where the arguments are definitive and compelling, where the recommendation is unambiguous, Patten should be implemented through Mandelson in full, and in good time. The same is true for any Patten proposals that are definitive, compelling and unambiguous.

I conclude by addressing my comments to those in the Nationalist and Republican constituencies. While the SDLP has a degree of concern and caution over certain Patten/Mandelson proposals — in particular, the timeframe for balanced membership, the use of plastic bullets and emergency laws — nonetheless, we say to all, and not least to those in our community, that it is a baseline around which those who wish to see a representative, unarmed, civilian, accountable police service that conforms to human rights standards can congregate.

We say to all — and again not least to those in our community — that we must move beyond slogans about the RUC and into strategies about good policing policy and practice. In spite of the headlines, 85% and more of the Patten proposals can be signed up to by 85% and more of the population. The Patten proposals, with all their integrity, that Mr Mandelson intends to implement in their totality represent a new beginning in the practice of policing to sustain our new beginning in the practice of politics.

I remember when I first read the Patten Report I was anxious about what was not recommended. Last Tuesday I was anxious about the hesitancy in the Government’s response to some of the proposals. All of us, and I not least, would design a new police service somewhat differently. But if each of us were asked to design a police service for our new beginning, not in the image of Nationalism or Unionism, not remade in the image of the previous policies and past practices, we would design a service to be shared in and joined in, and the Patten/Mandelson proposals are not so far off that mark.

I commend the amendment to the House.

Mary Nelis (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh. Let us be realistic about this motion. The harder the DUP tries to convince itself and others that the RUC is a normal, acceptable police body like other police bodies throughout the world, the less people believe it. Most right-thinking people acknowledge the reality that the RUC as an organisation is the product of a failed political dispensation. RUC families have suffered as a result of this.

I wish to correct the comment made by the spokesperson on the Official Unionist Benches. Gerry Adams addressed the suffering of Const Murphy’s family at yesterday’s commemoration in honour of Tom Williams. The Good Friday Agreement was put in place to give us the new dispensation, and part of that new dispensation is a new police service acceptable to all the people on this island. I can tell you now that that will not be the existing RUC or a reformed RUC. The RUC is not acceptable in Nationalist areas. It can be argued that there is some evidence to suggest that it is not acceptable in some Loyalist areas either, in spite of the continual assertions from the Unionist camp that the RUC is their police force — not a Nationalist but a Unionist one. And this claim is part of the problem.

The abuse of the Nationalist community is well-recorded, and what body would want to claim such a record?

The RUC has been involved in a campaign of intimidation, harassment and terrorisation of people in Nationalist areas, not only in the last 30 years, but since this state was set up. The RUC has been responsible for killing women, men and children with plastic bullets, yet not one of them has ever been convicted of any of those murders.

There is growing evidence of the RUC’s collusion with Loyalist death squads that resulted in the deaths of 300 people, including two lawyers. Sinn Féin is not the only group that has flagged up the role of the RUC in murder and torture. It has been criticised by a raft of credible and prestigious human rights bodies such as Amnesty International, the United Nations’ Rapporteur on the Independence of Lawyers and Judges, the US Congressional Committee on Foreign Affairs, the British-Irish Watch, the Helsinki Watch, the Committee on the Administration of Justice, the Pat Finucane Centre and even the British Scarman and Bennett Inquiries. They all indicted the RUC over its abuse and violations of human rights — a catalogue which includes murder, torture, intimidation and threats.

The RUC has paid £2·5 million to members of the public arising out of 6,702 complaints made against them in the last four years. This year alone it has paid out £982,000. Six thousand people do not complain for the sake of it, and the RUC does not pay compensation for the sake of it — the compensation is an admission of guilt.

This is the RUC that Nigel Dodds attempts to defend and tries to convince us is a decent, good and honourable force, while all the sheep on the DUP benches say "Baa, baa". The world-renowned organisations I have mentioned, whose credentials cannot be disputed, have found that the RUC’s track record of consistently abusing human rights has resulted in the British Government’s being brought before the European Court of Human Rights 23 times during the last 25 years. It can be argued that the RUC has contributed to and prolonged the conflict in this island and that it is the greatest threat to its peaceful resolution.

If we are to start from scratch, as Patten suggested, we should do so urgently because daily in our communities we can see the results of a policing vacuum. We should take the Patten Report’s recommendations on human rights, culture and community policing as a positive template.

The Human Rights Commission has a key role to play in a number of areas relating to policing. Two of its key actions should be to weed out those RUC personnel guilty of human rights abuses and to press for an end to the suppression of reports on the RUC, including those by Stalker and Stevens. The RUC has never diligently or with any distinction served the whole community, as this motion states.

Patten recognised that, because he consulted with the community and heard the truth about the RUC. In fact, there is an article in this morning’s Independent which states — and this has been suspected for a long time — that

"the inquiry into claims that RUC and Army officers colluded in the [Pat Finucane] murder is understood to have found material to support allegations made by two informers that the authorities ignored a series of tip-offs"

that he was to be murdered by the UDA. In fact, Mr Stobie, an RUC informer who is now on bail, was arrested in 1991 on a charge of murdering Pat Finucane and admitted to his involvement in the murder. He also admitted to being a registered informant of the RUC Special Branch and that he had informed his handlers on the night of the murder that Pat Finucane was going to be murdered and that they ignored it.

It is obvious from these disclosures that the RUC wanted Pat Finucane dead. It is a known fact that RUC members threatened Pat Finucane’s life just as they threatened the life of Rosemary Nelson. The RUC have known for 11 years who murdered Pat Finucane. They knew that their paid informers were acting to their agenda, were involved in that murder and supplied arms for the murder. Yet this is the police force that Nigel Dodds wants us to try to defend and wants the Nationalist community to support — this so-called law enforcement agency that conspires in the murder of lawyers who were attempting to uphold their clients’ rights and uphold justice.

In saying this, I am reminded that policing is one of the most important issues that lies at the heart of conflict resolution. To ensure the success of the Good Friday Agreement — something I am sure most Members want — it is crucial that a proper democratically accountable police service be established. This is a touchstone issue for Nationalists and Republicans.

Sinn Féin has called for the RUC to be disbanded. In common with the other participants of the Good Friday Agreement, we believe that a police service should be one which is professional, effective and efficient, fair and impartial, free from partisan political control and accountable, both under the law for its actions, and to the community it serves. It should be representative of the community it polices and should operate within a coherent and co-operative criminal justice system which conforms with human rights.

In essence, the RUC cannot deliver on any of the above, as it is an integral part of a failed political dispensation. For young people in Nationalist areas the word "police" has become synonomous with the word "sectarianism", with repression, with all-invasive surveillance of their everyday lives, with harassment and brutality meted out with total impunity, with daily humiliation at the hands of an armed force which has shown total contempt for the political and religious beliefs of the people in this community.

I have a cutting from a paper which states that an Omagh student successfully sued the RUC for damages for assault. One of the officers commented to another policeman that there was nothing like beating a few Fenians on a Friday night. It is no wonder young people have no respect for this brutal force. Yet, in spite of their myriad negative experiences at the hands of the RUC, Nationalists and Republicans still want a policing service.

Our community is implacably opposed to the RUC, but it is not anti-police per se. Nationalists and Republicans, like all sections of society, want and, indeed, deserve a policing service they can trust and respect, one which they can feel confident of joining or recommending to others as a possible career option.

We were promised a new beginning in policing. Our task at present is to assess whether this report and its implementation hold the potential to create that new beginning. Pending the establishment of an all-Ireland policing service, Sinn Féin wants to see the establishment of a police service that can attract the widespread support that is necessary and is seen as an integral part of the whole community. We remain to be convinced that the Patten Report provides the potential to bring this about. However, we could be convinced if there were clear evidence that the British Government have the political will to see such a service established.

Nationalists and Republicans, like all sections of society, want and deserve that policing service. I do not believe that anyone from any community will accept being policed by a force whose members sit by in a Land Rover while a young Catholic is kicked to death by a Loyalist mob, by a force whose security files on Nationalists are routinely passed on to Loyalist death squads, by a force that acts with total impunity — [Interruption]

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Order.

Mary Nelis (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh.

It is even confident of issuing death threats against solicitors, whether because of their fight to uncover the truth or because of the identity of their clients. Such a force must go — and go for ever.

The Patten Commission has said that human rights abusers must be dealt with, but the British Government have yet to make it clear how this will be done. The nightmare that was the RUC must now be a thing of the past as we move forward to create a new future for all our people.

Let us stop pretending. The composition of the RUC never reflected the Nationalist Catholic community prior to 1969. With a new police service, we may now have the opportunity to redress this imbalance. Sinn Féin will reserve judgement on that until it sees the colour of Peter Mandelson’s eyes.

I oppose the motion. Go raibh míle maith agat.

Patrick Roche (NIUP, Lagan Valley)

The destruction of the RUC is a core requirement of the Belfast Agreement. The Belfast Agreement requires there to be a new beginning in policing in Northern Ireland — a requirement based on the understanding, on the part of those who negotiated the Belfast Agreement that

"it is essential that policing structures and arrangements are such that the police service is professional, effective and efficient, fair and impartial, free from partisan political control; [and] accountable, ... under the law, for its actions".

Those words from the agreement are a radical denigration of the operational efficiency, legal accountability and professional integrity of the entire RUC.

The negotiators of the Belfast Agreement, which, of course, included the leadership of the Ulster Unionist —

Cedric Wilson (NIUP, Strangford)

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You called for order when there was a great deal of noise coming from Assembly Members. Is there something you are not aware of?

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Continue, Mr Roche.

Patrick Roche (NIUP, Lagan Valley)

The negotiators of the Belfast Agreement, which included the leadership of the UUP, obviously considered that the RUC was so deficient that a new beginning to policing was imperative for Northern Ireland. The Patten Report incorporates the letter and spirit of this section of the Belfast Agreement and is, in short, a blueprint for the destruction of the RUC. The content of the Patten Report, in keeping with the terms of reference for the Patten Commission in the Belfast Agreement, was determined by the fundamental perspective set out in paragraph 1·8.

This paragraph states that the so-called reform of policing in Northern Ireland

"should not be a cluster of unconnected adjustments…that can be bolted or soldered onto the organisation that already exists".

The "organisation that already exists"is the RUC. This means that the fundamental perspective of the Patten Report is that the implementation of the recommendations of the report is entirely incompatible with the continued existence of the RUC. In fact, the so-called new police service for Northern Ireland, recommended in the Patten Report, which the Government are now committed to implementing, will be radically different from the RUC in terms of symbolic identity, basis of allegiance, organisational structure and, over a relatively short period, personnel. Not even the name will remain.

At an even more fundamental level, the imperative of the Patten Report to destroy the RUC is based on an unbelievable inversion of reality. For the members of the Patten Commission, terrorism is not central to the intractability of political conflict in Northern Ireland. The Patten Report makes the RUC the cause of the persistence of political instability and terrorism in Northern Ireland. The Patten Report presents the RUC as being at the

"heart of … the problems that politicians have been unable to resolve in Northern Ireland".

The logic of the report is that the effective destruction of the RUC must be central to a process that the report claims is required to restore the

"values of liberty, the rule of law and mutual respect"

and to

"reorient policing in Northern Ireland onto an approach based on upholding human rights and respecting human dignity".

The authors of the report obviously consider that these values are absent from policing in Northern Ireland and that the restoration and maintenance of these values is incompatible with the continuing existence of the RUC. The report explicitly states

"by means of a fresh start for policing, our aim is to help ensure that past tragedies are not repeated in the future".

The clear implication in this statement is that the destruction of the RUC is required to prevent a repetition of the tragedies of the past. This means that the RUC must, in the minds of the authors of the Patten Report, have been, in some unspecified way, responsible for these tragedies. This is a gross and offensive insult to the memory of the 302 RUC and RUCR officers who were murdered and almost 10,000 who were maimed in defence of liberty and the rule of law during 30 years of Sinn Féin/IRA terrorism.

In keeping with this inversion of reality, the Patten Report deploys the tactic of demonising the RUC. This tactic has been central to Sinn Féin/IRA and SDLP strategy for 30 years. The tactic involves relentless denigratory propaganda. What is the political motivation behind this tactic of demonisation? The political motivation is to remove every security barrier to the SDLP and Sinn Féin/IRA goal of the political unification of the island of Ireland.

The Sinn Féin/IRA and SDLP strategy of demonisation directed against the RUC has the unqualified support of the Clinton Administration and the US House of Representatives. On 22 July 1999 the House of Representatives unanimously accepted a report on the RUC by the Committee on International Relations. In this report the RUC is presented, as the enforcement arm of the dominant Unionist majority and as a Gestapo-type organisation which is rotten to its core. Needless to say, there is not a shred of evidence in the report to back any one of these absolutely outrageous claims. Both Sinn Féin/IRA and the SDLP propaganda feed these outrageous sentiments.

Mr Mallon is a vociferous anti-RUC propagandist, and I want to repeat what I said to one of the SDLP members earlier. At the Brehon Law Society ‘Irishman of the Year’ award ceremony in Philadelphia on 24 April 1999, the then Deputy First Minister (Designate) took the opportunity to inform his United States audience that in the North of Ireland the RUC had reduced the rule of law to little more than the rule of the jungle. This is precisely the understanding of the role of the RUC that determined the conclusion of the report by the House of Representatives Committee on International Affairs.

The report concluded that the RUC had been at the core of — indeed, had given rise to — the human rights abuses and civil unrest that has plagued Northern Ireland for the last 30 years. The position of the Committee on International Relations is that terrorism in Northern Ireland is driven not by Sinn Féin/IRA but by the RUC.

This inversion of reality is not confined to the rigid Nationalism that directs the Northern Ireland policy of the Clinton Administration. The Patten Report fully incorporates this entire mindset. The core logic of the Patten Report is that what it refers to as "the return of hope, healing and peace" to Northern Ireland requires the effective destruction of the RUC and the incorporation of Republicans into a so-called Northern Ireland Police Service.

The Patten Report claims that the consent required right across the community in any liberal democracy for effective policing has been absent from the RUC. This claim is the ostensible basis for the effective destruction of the RUC recommended by the report, but it is demonstrably false. In reality, the statistics used in the report, along with the results of annual community attitude surveys since the mid-1990s, almost certainly demonstrate a level of cross-community support for the RUC unmatched by that for any other police force in the United Kingdom.

What is the real reason for the effective destruction of the RUC? The real reason is that the destruction of the RUC is a core demand of Sinn Féin/IRA, backed by the SDLP. Sinn Féin/IRA knows that without the destruction of the RUC, the terrorist war cannot be won. The SDLP is equally tied into the demands and objectives of Irish Nationalism. The position is set out in their 1995 policy document ‘Policing in Northern Ireland’. This document claims that what it calls "the problem of policing in Northern Ireland" is incapable of resolution in the absence of a so-called political settlement agreeable to Nationalists.

The SDLP objection to the RUC is fundamentally a political objection that it shares with Sinn Féin/IRA, based on the demands of Irish Nationalism. This means that no amount of so-called reform of the RUC could make it acceptable to the SDLP. The real strategy of the SDLP is to use the concocted claim that the RUC is radically unacceptable to Catholics as a powerful lever for constitutional change in Northern Ireland in the direction of Irish unity.

The Patten Report meets the core requirements of Sinn Féin/IRA and the SDLP in respect of the destruction of the RUC, but that is not the final appeasement of terrorism. The report further recommends the replacement of the RUC with a Northern Ireland police service. Sinn Féin/IRA is guaranteed a central role in the political control and operational structure of the so-called new police dispensation in Northern Ireland. Recruitment from the Republican movement is a reiterated requirement of the report. The report states that the police service in Northern Ireland needs to include appropriately large numbers of Nationalists, including Republicans, if it is to be fully effective. The inclusion of Republicans — individuals committed to IRA terrorism — in policing in Northern Ireland would also be accommodated by the recommendation in the report that police support services should be contracted out by district councils and paid for from local rates. There is no doubt that in Nationalist districts of Northern Ireland these support services would be provided by members of the IRA.

Patten puts the incorporation of Sinn Féin/IRA into the heart of policing in Northern Ireland and in an all-Ireland framework; the report clearly envisages the development of an all-Ireland police structure. This structure would initially be based on the recruitment of members of the Gardaí into the police service of Northern Ireland and a programme of long-term personnel exchanges between the Northern Ireland police and the Gardaí. The location of the new Northern Ireland police service in an all-Ireland structure would provide the Republic with a developing role in the policing of Northern Ireland.

The Republic of Ireland, to which the Patten report gives this developing role in policing in Northern Ireland, has effectively been a safe haven for the IRA and other Republican terrorists since 1970. Members of Jack Lynch’s Fianna Fáil Government established the Provisional IRA in the early 1970s. The status of the Republic as a safe haven for Republican terrorists is beyond dispute. This is due to the maintenance of Sinn Féin’s headquarters in Dublin; the failure of successive Governments in the Republic, over a 30-year period, to extradite republican terrorists to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom; and the storage and ease of movement of a hugh arsenal of IRA arms in the Republic.

These considerations mean that for 30 years the Republic of Ireland has been responsible for what was, in effect, state-sponsored terrorism directed against the Protestant and Unionist community in Northern Ireland. The implementation of the Patten Report will establish the policing of law-abiding citizens in Northern Ireland by IRA terrorists within a developing all-Ireland structure involving the country — the Republic of Ireland — that initiated and sustained IRA terrorism in Northern Ireland.

The Patten Report rewards 30 years of Sinn Féin/IRA terrorism by incorporating both the terrorists and the Republic of Ireland — the state which sponsored them — into the policing of the society against which that terrorism was directed. The ‘Daily Telegraph’ of 28 September 1999 described this scenario as an "insane project". That is true, but it is not the whole truth. The implementation of the Patten Report will destroy the rule of law in Northern Ireland that the officers of the RUC fought and died to defend, and it will incorporate the terrorist organisation responsible for their murder into the policing of Northern Ireland. The Patten Report exemplifies not mere insanity but wickedness in respect of any civilised understanding of the requirements of public morality.

Finally, every one of the recommendations of the Patten Report is in keeping with the requirements of the Belfast Agreement. The agreement requires that the new so-called police service must

"recognise the full and equal legitimacy and worth of the identities, senses of allegiance and ethos of all sections of the community in Northern Ireland."

This means that the agreement requires that policing in Northern Ireland must be based on recognition of the legitimacy and worth of the Irish Republican tradition that spawned and has sustained 30 years of IRA terrorism in Northern Ireland.

However, these considerations have not prevented the UUP leadership — again I make the distinction made by Mr Dodds, I am talking about the UUP leadership — that delivered the Belfast Agreement from insulting the intelligence and political integrity of the Unionist electorate by attempting now to present themselves as the champions of the RUC. In fact, they fought the referendum and Assembly elections on the claim that they had actually saved the RUC by signing up to the Belfast Agreement. There is only one honourable course of action left to the leadership of the RUC — and I address this point to Mr Trimble — and that is to resign immediately from the Executive and collapse this edifice that he has constructed to replace the police in Northern Ireland with terrorists.

David Ervine (PUP, Belfast East)

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. For Mr Roche’s own sake, he may well wish to say "the leadership of the Ulster Unionist Party" rather than "the leadership of the RUC".

Patrick Roche (NIUP, Lagan Valley)

I thank the Member for that correction. I meant the leadership of the UUP.

Denis Watson (UUAP, Upper Bann)

I too must express my disgust and abhorrence at the Secretary of State’s announced decision to implement the vast majority of the Patten Commission’s Report. This announcement has further demoralised the Royal Ulster Constabulary, and it gives Loyalist and Republican paramilitaries every hope that they can infiltrate and corrupt the police force that they hate. Society in the rest of the United Kingdom does not aspire to have a police force that is acceptable to anarchists, so why do the people of Northern Ireland have to be subjected to this? For many years the reputation of the RUC has been successfully demonised at home and abroad by Sinn Fein/IRA. They have classed the RUC as sectarian, yet people know that the overwhelming reason why Roman Catholics represent only 8% of the force is due to Republican murder and intimidation. The intimidation is such as was witnessed in Carrickmore against Msgr Faul.

We have seen little recognition for a force that over the last 30 years, through its vigilance and intelligence work, has prevented Northern Ireland from descending into anarchy. We will not forget the 302 officers who were murdered or the 9,000 injured — some horrifically — as a direct result of terrorism. The courage and suffering of the members of the force has been ignored.

It is particularly painful to see how their tormentors are to be rewarded by the changing of the RUC’s name and adopting new insignia. Little of the ethos of the RUC will remain, and Republicans are rubbing their hands in glee. They know that they are now perfectly placed to decide on suitable recruits for the new force. Though it has been confirmed that convicted terrorists cannot join the police, there are hundreds of terrorists who have never been charged. The new force will not be able to keep out these enemies of the state, as recruitment will be handed over to civilians.

The political representatives of the IRA, who have murdered members of the RUC, will have a share in the management of the district policing partnership boards. A police board will include two frontmen for the IRA, so an organisation that has yet to give up a single bullet or an ounce of Semtex, an organisation that is still murdering and mutilating its own people with virtual impunity, will oversee these boards.

There is no reason for implementing any of these controversial recommendations unless it is the British Government’s intention to hand over parts of this Province to Republican and Loyalist fascists. The British taxpayer already subsidises many of these volunteers — I hope that he will not give them a uniform and a salary. The latest concession, like all the others made to the Irish Republicans by an Administration which, tragically, goes under the name of Her Majesty’s Government, is aimed at weakening Northern Ireland’s position as part of the United Kingdom, and it is sad that some Unionists have yet to waken up to this fact.

Unionists who voted in favour of the Belfast Agreement should remember what their endorsement has meant so far. Republican and Loyalist prisoners convicted of the most heinous crimes against innocent people are being released after serving a few years of their sentence. A Northern Ireland Executive was set up on a fifty-fifty Unionist/Nationalist basis — conveniently ignoring the fact that Unionists account for 60% of the total Assembly membership. Sinn Féin members hold ministerial positions, without any decommissioning of IRA weapons. Indeed, dropping "Northern Ireland" from the title of their Departments and banning the flying of the Union flag from departmental buildings were among the first things they did.

North/South institutions were set up to legitimise the direct influence of the Republic of Ireland in the day-to-day affairs of the Province. Vital security installations were scaled down in areas where Republican paramilitaries still hold considerable sway. Finally, the RUC has been emasculated and effectively disbanded, with plans to recruit officers to a new force on a fifty-fifty Protestant/Roman Catholic basis — in clear breach of fair employment legislation. What further enticements will there be to convince the Provos to make the move that may save the so-called peace process?

The leader of the SDLP, in a response in the House of Commons, would not call on Roman Catholics to join the new force. The First Minister showed his displeasure at the Patten announcement. This confirmed what many of us had thought — that he had been shafted once again.

The majority of the Unionist family will not forgive or forget what some of their representatives have done, and they will show their disgust when they next get their chance at the polls. Since last Wednesday I have been inundated by calls from Unionists who had supported the agreement but are now expressing their total disgust at this latest treachery. They wish that they could turn back the clock. They were well warned by the anti-agreement lobby, but, sadly, they were misled into ignoring that warning.

I am proud to have served in the Royal Ulster Constabulary Reserve, and I count myself part of the greater family of the RUC. Religion was never mentioned, either among my Colleagues or by the people that we served and protected. Sadly, the reformed force will remain as unacceptable to Sinn Féin/IRA as the existing one is.

We should not forget that Queen Victoria bestowed the "Royal" designation to the RUC’s predecessor, the Royal Irish Constabulary, in 1867. It was carried forward to the new force on its inception in 1922. In 1867 the words of the Inspector General encapsulated the depth of feeling at that time:

"It will, I am persuaded, be gratifying to the Force to find that the loyalty and courage displayed by them during the late unhappy disturbances and their efficiency at all times (which have elicited admiration throughout the United Kingdom, and been noticed in both Houses of Parliament) have now been recognised in a quarter so illustrious."

Whatever the circumstances that prevailed in the unhappy disturbances at the time, they surely pale into insignificance when compared to the terrorist onslaught endured by the RUC over the last 30 years. We continue to be blitzed with the view that this peace process is all about parity of esteem. Surely the RUC badge encapsulates that with the crown, the harp and the shamrock. Unfortunately, the change in its title and badge are for nothing more than political expediency. The RUC longs for peace more than any other section of the community, and it is happy with modernising reforms and the encouragement of more Roman Catholic recruits.

In conclusion, the Patten proposals are the most odious manifestation of this obnoxious peace process — they stink of continuing appeasement of the IRA.

I support the motion.

David Ervine (PUP, Belfast East)

The people in my community know hurt, anger, frustration and annoyance. There are many reasons, not least that things are happening that people do not fully understand. They get very simplistic responses when they ask about what is going on in this society. For instance, the last Member who spoke mentioned the polls and talked about what will happen at the next election. Perhaps some in our constituency will be looking at people like that who make such threats to their political partners in this Assembly.

I know what is going on in the rooms of those who are defending the RUC but are anti-agreement. They are angry, and they have every right to be angry and upset. They have every right to share the sense of hurt that this community feels, but this is the bit that no one hears. One will say "Isn’t it terrible what they are doing to the RUC?", and one of the clever ones will say "Aye, I know. Shout loudly, for it will not do us any harm in the long run." That is a truth.

We also need to look at those who have lumped Republicanism and Loyalism together, and the last Member who spoke said that Loyalists hate the RUC. I do not know how he would know. Nevertheless, just to put it on public record, my Colleague and I have been kept alive on numerous occasions only because of the efforts of the RUC.

The area from which I come — for those who really want to know — is the Braniel estate, about two miles from here, as the crow flies. The police drive through there without any difficulty, and if anybody wants to make a phone call because there is trouble in his street, or his house has been broken into, or his car has been damaged, or whatever, he phones the RUC.

I have never seen anybody being molested where I live, which is in a solidly working-class, Loyalist area. So this very simplistic notion of the RUC being hated by Loyalists is quite incredible. But then you cannot have a go at the Provos without lumping the bad Prod people in as well. That is because people are moralists and have to lump all us bad people together.

What is happening to the RUC is shameful, and it is wrong. It is bad enough that the British Secretary of State said what he did last week, but he said it against a backdrop of some very interesting things. When we created the baby, the Good Friday Agreement, we were very quick to realise that we required a visit from the marriage-guidance counsellor, George Mitchell, to put us straight on how the new family might best look after the agreement. While he managed to create the circumstances where there was a movement forward — or an impetus that suggested a movement forward — I am afraid that we are in need of great assistance from marriage-guidance counsellors again.

Against a backdrop of what I am about to say, the Secretary of State made his determination on the future of the RUC.

If someone had told Angelo Fusco 10 years ago that he would go North and appear in front of a judge who, because of the Good Friday Agreement, would release him on bail and that, when the case was heard, he would be sentenced and serve probably one month or six weeks in prison, he would have said "Where do I sign on?". That is not what we have heard from the Provos; that is not what we have heard from Sinn Féin — disgusting, arrogant, dishonourable Sinn Féin. What we have heard is the agitation that has again sent a tremor into the Unionist community and compounded the difficulty of moderate Unionism by the narrowing of the ground even further.

This was followed by an incident involving "he who visits Europe and speaks in strange languages", Barry McElduff, who went to Carrickmore with a bunch of lunatics to attack those who wanted to deal with the circumstances of a crime — an issue about which everyone in this community should worry. This was another awful message to send to the people who want the Good Friday Agreement to work but who are worried about the implacable in-your-face politics of Sinn Féin.

Of course, the SDLP could not be outdone, because when the Provos are showing their greenness, the SDLP must respond. So we had Downpatrick, where the flag became an issue. It is to be replaced with St Patrick’s flag. Within the confines of Down District Council the SDLP has the right to do such a thing. The tragedy is that it did so without worrying about or giving consideration to the consequences of its actions.

Last week we heard about Bairbre de Brún and her very simplistic decision on the Union flag, a decision which flies in the face of the recognition that Northern Ireland shall remain part of the United Kingdom for so long as it is the wish of the greater number of people so to do. It thus flew in the face of the Good Friday Agreement.

Enter the treatment of the Duchess of Abercorn in Pomeroy, treatment which was pathetic and arrogant in the extreme. It was good that Assembly Member Denis Haughey was on hand to put the SDLP’s position on record — but he is the only one I have heard speaking on the issue then or since.

All of these things have been happening in a rush, and they have all been hitting the Unionist community like Exocets. They have all been destabilising factors, not only in the Unionist community but, especially from a Sinn Féin perspective, for their partners in this process. Is this the new dispensation that Mary Nelis almost knew what she was talking about when she spoke?

Mary Nelis talked about the bad peelers and about how we have to root out those RUC officers who have performed badly on human rights. She did not mention the IRA. We can all go to Ronnie Flanagan and ask for the overtime sheets and find out who was stationed where and who did this, but such sheets do not exist for the Provos, or the UVF, or the UDA, or the INLA, or for a whole lot of other people who have broken the laws of this society. But Mary Nelis wishes to go back to deal with the RUC.

Whatever happened to the new dispensation? Whatever happened to the fact that we are to leave our pasts behind us? Whatever happened to the argument that we too advocated that people have the right to change, that this society has the right to change and that all elements within this society, because of the polluted circumstances and difficulties under which we have lived, under a new dispensation, have the right to change? Everybody that is except the RUC.

I listened to that doyen of intellectual prowess, Mick Murphy, on the radio this morning. He was addressing a crowd of people in Carrickmore — 200 "Shinners", or whatever they were — and his cry was for disbandment. Mary Nelis was a wee bit more polite today, but really what they are saying is this: "Let us offer no prize for Unionist pain."

I am reminded of listening to the Chief Constable when the Patten Report was published. The Progressive Unionist Party took its line from his, for he said something extremely pertinent and sensible. He said that he wished to live in a pluralist society where policing is about the protection of people and property, rather than being the political football which it has tragically had to be in this divided society. He said the important question was whether the prize fitted the pain.

The truth of the matter — as shown by the commentaries I have heard today from the SDLP and Sinn Féin — is that the prize does not fit the pain. Alex Attwood said "if" it has the potential and "maybe". Sinn Féin was not even as open as that. Mick Murphy was certainly not open when he spoke yesterday evening. All of Sinn Féin’s utterances have been pathetic and extremely arrogant. Each one of them has further narrowed the ground on which moderate Unionism, the partner in the Good Friday Agreement, can walk.

The consequences have been such that this political process is in serious danger. It is in trouble for many reasons: the attitude of Sinn Féin; its implacability as perceived by the Unionist community; and the potential that this implacability will continue in the form of in-your-face politics. It does not allow us to deal with practical issues, but simply challenges Unionism consistently and tries to put it on the back foot. It has in its ranks those who want to take over Unionism, those who frankly enjoy the difficulties moderate Unionism faces. While saying it has entered a new dispensation, by its actions Sinn Féin offers fuel to those who do not like the Good Friday Agreement, who are not involved in the marriage. Indeed, as regards the Good Friday Agreement and relationships with Members in this House, it might well be carrying on outside the marriage. Essentially, it is working to the benefit of those who do not advocate the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, wishing to see its destruction instead. And they are making a good job of it. One has to ask oneself what its long-term strategy is, and what gain might be derived from it.

Several Members mentioned the decommissioning issue. They might not all have used the word, although some certainly did, but one said that already, without a single bullet or ounce of explosives being handed in, the RUC has gone. They do not realise what they have been doing. The Secretary of State has seen the in-your-face agitation on the part of Sinn Féin and recognised the demand coming not just from David Trimble, who undoubtedly needs it, but from every Unionist in this Chamber, that decommissioning take place. Not only must it take place, but it must do so before 12 February 2000.

I fear that the cause célèbre that decommissioning has become has created in the mind of the Secretary of State the need to pander to Mr Adams while Sinn Féin pursues its in-your-face politics. He does this in the hope that he can exact a price from Mr Adams to deliver Mr Trimble. Perhaps without realising it, they have created the circumstances where there is now a trade-off. Indeed, I certainly would not expect some elements in the House to realise this, since any argument against those who support the agreement will do, and any hurdle they can create is justified. As a result of this trade-off, we have lost the very thing we did not want to lose.

The name of the RUC, the oath and, potentially, the flag are to go, to some extent because we did not create a fierce enough battle to retain them. We must all accept responsibility for this. It happened against the backdrop of what was needed in the future, and who was in a comfortable position at the moment, for that is how the British Government play the game. I believe Mr Mandelson felt he had to pander to Mr Adams in order to bolster him, enabling him to make the move to assist Mr Trimble.

If he does assist Trimble what are the DUP, the UKUP, the UUAP and the NIUP going to do? Are they going to applaud Sinn Féin for having delivered on decommissioning? Are they going to think that they can make it easier for people when the police service of Northern Ireland takes its place amidst the sense of anger, hurt and frustration that will exist in the Unionist community? Will a token gesture of decommissioning do it? Will it be 1% or 5%? How much do you need to feel comfortable that you allowed the trade-off to take place? Because allow the trade-off to take place, you did — believe me, you did.

You tried it with prisoners; that did not work. The next two big issues — the only two big issues — on the agenda were the RUC and decommissioning, and you walked right into it. All the clever, exalted people walked right into it.

However, I want to make an appeal — if it can be heard, for I cannot guarantee that UTV or BBC will broadcast it. The ordinary people in the streets including, there is evidence to suggest, the vast majority of the Catholic people want the process of the Good Friday Agreement to work. I personally, as a representative of the PUP, am being sucked out of the process by Sinn Féin’s actions.

The Nationalist and Catholic community will have to make a decision. Is the in-your-face street politics of Sinn Féin acceptable, or does this new dispensation get the opportunity to carry on? The question and decision is for them. I do not mean that as a threat in any way; I am basing it on an analysis of where we are. If the IRA and Sinn Féin do not move to assist this new dispensation, it will fall. It will fall, and Sinn Féin might do all right out of it, but there are those waiting in the wings for them to say "I told you so." However, be assured that those waiting in the wings for moderate Unionism are many; in fact they are in here, and they are joyous at the thought of what might not happen between now and 12 February. We have but a short time to find out if Sinn Féin is serious about the new dispensation. The deadline was once May 2000, but I fear that Gerry Adams has also made a blunder from his own perspective, because the deadline now, like it or not, is 12 February.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

I would like to comment on the conduct of the debate. I did not impose a time limit for two reasons. The first was that I had not been informed by all the parties how many people wanted to speak, and that made it impossible. Secondly, if I were to have imposed a short time limit it would have been impossible for Members to develop their argument. Some Members have pushed the boat out regarding this, resulting in the fact that their Colleagues have had a shorter time to speak. I have been giving parties an opportunity to voice their views in respect of the report, and we will continue with that.

Another two Members wish to speak, Ms Monica McWilliams, and Mr Robert McCartney. That will end the debate for this morning — the morning having passed. We will resume at 2.30 pm with questions, as Standing Orders require. From 4 o’clock until 6 o’clock, by leave of the Assembly, there will be a time limit of five minutes on all speeches so that as many Members as possible who are on the list may have their say. We will then proceed to the winding-up and the vote. That is the best compromise I can make. To have put a limit on at the beginning would have been unrealistic and unworkable.

Maurice Morrow (DUP, Fermanagh and South Tyrone)

Perhaps you would clarify a point for me, Mr Speaker. You have a list of Members who wish to speak and a considerable number are from my party, but they are not here yet.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

That is the problem. It is impossible for me to judge times, if the names of Members who wish to speak are not given in advance. It is also impossible to impose a time limit on people when other Members have been able to speak for a considerable time.

Robert McCartney (UKUP, North Down)

As you said, Mr Speaker, since Members who have already spoken had no time limit placed on them, remaining Members should not have one either. I understood, upon enquiry, that the House was rising at 1.30 pm. That was the information I was given. From what you say that does not appear to have been entirely accurate.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

At an earlier stage, my intention was that we would rise at 1.30 pm. I fondly hoped that we might have got through the run by then. Clearly we will not rise at 1.30 pm if both you and Ms McWilliams are to have the opportunity to speak. We will continue until you have spoken, and then we will rise, but we must resume at 2.30 pm.

Robert McCartney (UKUP, North Down)

But that will put a time limit on the Members yet to speak. If we are going to rise before 2.30 pm, and two Members have to speak before then, that will put a time limit on them.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Mr McCartney is quite correct, but there is a problem. If everybody wants to speak and time limits are put on us, we cannot function. I am simply doing the best I can. If Mr McCartney wishes, we can certainly allow Ms McWilliams to speak and then rise. There will then be an opportunity for Mr McCartney to speak, but he will have to appreciate that that will eat out of the period between 4.00 pm and the vote at 6.00 pm and that fewer Members will have an opportunity to speak then. I am doing my best to accommodate everyone.

Robert McCartney (UKUP, North Down)

With the greatest respect, Mr Speaker, all I ask is that my party be given exactly the same privileges as the other parties have been given to date. I ask for no special privileges — simply for the same amount of time that has been offered to every other party.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Mr McCartney, that is impossible. Since all the others operated without a time limit, theoretically you could speak — and I know from experience that you have the capacity — from now until 6.00 pm and then claim that you wanted more time. We are using up time, and there are only two possibilities. Either we rise after Ms McWilliams has spoken and you speak after 4.00 pm, or we do our best to see that you both get an opportunity to speak before lunch. I am going to rule now that we will go on for as long as is physically possible and that you will get time to speak. We are wasting time.

Robert McCartney (UKUP, North Down)

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

I am not taking any more points of order on this issue. We are only wasting time.

Robert McCartney (UKUP, North Down)

Mr Speaker, that I want to understand what you are saying. If I opt to speak at 4.00 pm will I be restricted by the five-minute rule or will I have the same opportunity that has been afforded to everyone else? That is all I want to know.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

If we do that, it will reduce the time that is available to the other Members, and I will have to consider that. That is not the proposition that I was putting to the Assembly. I said that we would complete this, that we would break for lunch and that when the debate resumed, there would be five minutes for each Member. That was the proposition I put. If that is not acceptable, I will have to reconsider it, and we will have to make a decision before we resume at 4.00 pm.

Robert McCartney (UKUP, North Down)

With respect, Mr Speaker, and I stand on the record. That, if I may say so, is not what you said. You said that if I chose to speak at 4.00 pm and took up a certain amount of time it might limit other Members. You never ruled that if I chose to speak at 4.00 pm I would be confined to the five-minute rule, which would be manifestly unfair.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Order. I have not ruled so. I have said that if we are going to continue on, I will not rule on that issue until 4.00 pm. Then we will see what happens. I am quite clear about that. At this point I want to call Ms McWilliams. Then I will call you to speak, you will speak as you choose, and we will take things subsequently.

Monica McWilliams (NIWC, Belfast South)

The debate has reflected the difficulties that we faced during the negotiations when the issue of policing was being discussed. Therefore, we made the right decision when we suggested that an independent international commission be established to review policing in Northern Ireland. We have not heard anything we have not heard before about the divisions that exist with regard to how we want to be policed in the future. Patten and his commissioners faced a number of questions, as, indeed, the Secretary of State does now. It is a unique opportunity to devise a new form of policing for a modern society. How many people in any country have that opportunity? It is one that should be welcomed. However, it was not just policing for a modern society that Patten was addressing. He was also addressing the issue of policing in a divided society.

We are now having a different kind of discussion than we had prior to the Belfast Agreement. The discussion is now about the unacknowledged nature of the war. People are referring to the troubles, or the 30 years of conflict as a war. The unacknowledged nature of that war also led to a discussion as to what should happen to prisoners. We hear too from the whole range of victims about what did or did not happen in relation to resources and services for them.

Likewise we face the issue of policing. I always find it interesting to see how many Members are prepared to declare that they were members of the RUC. It reflects the nature of the debate in the Chamber. There are those who served in the RUC and therefore have a lot to add to the debate, and there are those who have no knowledge of the RUC and make judgements based on cases that appeared before the courts or the European courts. It would have been surprising if the police had not been made accountable. That is what happens in other countries. Cases of infringements of human rights exist elsewhere — for instance, in the United States and western European countries including the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

On top of that, there has been the 30 years of conflict. We should acknowledge that the police serving on the ground were operating in a quasi-military fashion because of the nature of that conflict which we are now beginning to acknowledge was a war, and we should also acknowledge those who were operating in a quasi-service oriented role.

I taught the police for 20 years at the University of Ulster. When the bomb went off and killed three police officers, the staff and the police standards moved to the new police college at Garnerville. I remember having to take cognizance at that time of the fact that in front of me was a group of students who were no more homogeneous than students in any of my other classes. I had as much difficulty informing and educating that group of students about social policy, about the current ways of dealing with crime and about the changing social trends in relation to the family. In that group there were some who did not believe in changing attitudes or trends, and there were others who were prepared to understand the need for that and the need to be educated and trained in the workings of modern society.

There seems to be some idea in the House that the police service is somehow homogeneous and that police officers are antagonistic to the changes that are taking place, as recommended by Patten. That is not the case. We know from listening to police officers and to the Chief Constable that when a society makes the transition from war to peace, reorientation will have to take place. That applies to our police service and to any police force that operates in a society that was full of conflict.

I take issue with those who say that Patten did not research his work. He took an enormous amount of submissions from people in Northern Ireland, and he visited police forces elsewhere and heard from experts in the field. He took on board 95% of the Police Federation’s recommendations. That has not been emphasised sufficiently. I have carried out research on issues such as rape, domestic violence and child abuse, and I was always unable to get figures from the RUC on the number of cases that occurred in any particular year, on how many of them went forward for prosecution or on how many of them fell or were withdrawn. That is the kind of simple information that ought to drive any police service anywhere in the world. If we do not know the extent of the problem, we do not know how resources should be deployed to deal with it.

Patten’s investigations made him realise the amount of work that would be needed to create a police service for a modern society. Many resources were diverted into dealing with political terrorism and, often as a result of attitudes in the police service, it could not or would not deal with crime such as domestic terrorism, as those who are the victims of such crime would call it. It is right for him to draw on good practice elsewhere and that we have the most modern computerised system and information technology available.

Patten also talks about changing the culture, the ethos and the operational structures so that policing is based less on that quasi-military function of the past or on the drilling that took up so much time in training. There must be more emphasis on a problem-solving approach.

I am a little concerned about the recommendations that suggest that all education should take place in the police college. From what I hear and know of police officers lives, I am aware of the fact that those who talk only to other police officers and who live beside them, do not have the life education that is required. Such education should take place both in university and in the police college.

I was surprised to find that there was little debate this morning on the name change. Much has been made of this in the media; it has led to an enormous amount of discussion and caused a great deal of pain for those in the Unionist community. In the 1920’s the name was changed from Royal Irish Constabulary to Royal Ulster Constabulary. That is a precedent, and no doubt the change then was as painful as this one it will be. In acknowledging that, Patten and the Secretary of State have concluded that to service a divided community a new name was required. Inasmuch as symbolic change may be required, organisational, structural and policy changes must also be a prerogative of any part of the legislation.

I have a major criticism of the part of the report which deals with the composition of the new police service. It should, according to the report, be fair, impartial and representative. It never ceases to surprise me that in Northern Ireland the focus, in respect of impartial representation, is on Catholics and Protestants. Monitoring figures are based on religion and denomination, but the representation of women, about 15%, is lower than in police services elsewhere. Now we have an opportunity to correct that. It is difficult to attract women into police services elsewhere, but here we have an enormous difficulty.

I take issue with Nigel Dodds, Sean Neeson, Denis Watson and, probably, Paddy Roche who said that the Patten recommendations, in seeking to promote the idea that there should be more Catholics in the new police service, go against the legislation.

This question has come up also in relation to gender. The Equality Commission has looked at this. I attended a seminar organised by the Committee for the Administration of Justice, and it asked some of the commissioners why they felt it was so difficult to deal with the issue of the representation of women in the police service. The commissioners said that it could be ruled as being outside the current law. Fortunately a member of the Equality Commission was there and said that it was not outside of the European Equal Treatment Directive of 1976.

Indeed, if domestic law goes further than the text of that directive, but has the same purpose, then it may be possible to interpret its outcome as being in keeping with the spirit of that directive. In the treaty of Amsterdam, Article 13 covers this issue. It is inside the purpose of that legislation to include targets and timetables, not just in relation to religion but also in relation to gender.

Alban Maginness (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Belfast North)

Is it not a fact that Patten went out of his way to try to attract more women into the new police service by recommending career breaks, part-time working and other measures?

Monica McWilliams (NIWC, Belfast South)

We supported the recommendation not to disband the entire Reserve, because we were concerned that it would obviously detract from the number of females who were currently in the RUC, and he took up the recommendation that the part-time Reserve should be retained.

I agree that the civilianisation of the new police service will increase the number of women, and it was useful for him to see that as a way of attracting recruits. They may come in as civilians and then move on to being full members of the police service. Different jobs will obviously be done by police officers and civilians, but potentially, this may increase the number of women.

It is extremely important to recruit female police officers, outreach work should be done, and potential targets and timetables should be set down. Because of his own profession, the Member will be aware of the fact that many women who are victims of certain types of crime — sexual abuse, for example — want to speak to female police officers to whom they can relate. That is currently not possible in the police service.

People need to be aware, not just in terms of Patten’s recommendations, that police officers are taking advantage of funding for retraining and rehabilitation. Over £3 million has been set aside in the Peace and Reconciliation Fund — the European Fund — and that is currently being spent. Patten has not said that so many police officers are going to be made redundant, but that is going on already. Some are choosing to move out of the police service. Many have gained degrees and post-graduate qualifications and are now in a position to move on.

Finally, there are two other points that the legislation should take up. One is that both the policing board and the district partnership policing boards are likely to be public bodies, so Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act should apply to them in that they should be looking at recruitment, the procurement of services and, indeed, public safety. These are all functions mentioned in Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act. We too will be looking at the legislation when it comes out to see if that recommendation has been taken up.

An oversight commissioner is essential, and we know that from other aspects of the agreement. If we create a vacuum and just expect that change to be implemented without its being monitored or evaluated by someone who has taken an holistic view of what is happening, justice will not be done to the amount of work that has gone into looking at how we want to be policed in the future. I am, however, concerned about the lack of focus on when that person should take up the post.

The Human Rights Commission, the Equality Commission and the Police Commission have a role to play in this debate, and the legislation should refer to there being liaison with these bodies. We have such a reference for the Assembly.

I await the outcome of the criminal justice review. It is essential that this debate does not take place in isolation. As those of us who have worked in this field know, policing is only one aspect of the matter. There is also the matter of dealing with crime and with how a society ought to operate; the prosecution of and sentencing for a particular crime are also essential. What body will do that, and how accountable will it be?

It would be very difficult to have a debate on that without knowing what the recommendations of the Criminal Justice Review Body’s report will be.

I also take issue with David Ervine’s comment that the only difficult issues in the Belfast Agreement were the issues of decommissioning and policing. There were many difficult issues in the agreement. There was the constitutional issue, and today we are dealing with an institutional one. But there were also the important issues of victims and how to create for the future a society based on tolerance.

Do these proposals promote effective and efficient policing? My answer, having reflected on the recommendations and on the comments of the Secretary of State to date, is yes.

Will they deliver fair and impartial policing, free from partisan control? Yes, they have the potential to do so.

Do they provide for accountability both to the law and to the community? Yes, potentially.

Will they make the police more representative of the society they serve? With the addendum that I have given in relation to gender representation, the answer is yes.

Will they protect and vindicate the human rights and human dignity of all? This is probably the most important question of all. If we recognise the divisions that exist and begin to acknowledge them, and if we base respect for human rights at the core of any new police service, the answer is yes.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Mr McCartney, I wish to give notice that I intend to suspend the sitting not later than 2.00 pm.

Robert McCartney (UKUP, North Down)

So you are, if I may say so, treating me differently from every other Member. No other party leader was put under any constraint. Am I to assume that if I am not finished my speech by 2.00 pm, I will not be able to resume it at 4.00 pm?

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

That is correct, and in giving you that amount of time, you will be able to speak for longer than almost any of the other Members bar the Member who moved the motion.

Robert McCartney (UKUP, North Down)

It is a matter of regret that I speak at a time when less than 10% of the Assembly is present. There are two Members from each of the major parties present, but those whom I particularly wished to address — those fronting paramilitary organisations such as Sinn Féin and the PUP — are not represented at all. That must be a matter of regret for everyone.

As Carson once said,

"There are none so loathsome as those who betray their friends to placate their enemies."

There can be no doubt that the fundamental and driving principle of British policy in Northern Ireland has been to avoid the repetition of any bombs in the City of London. While I have been reiterating this principle for some five years, it is only in recent times — over the last four months — that it has become commonly acknowledged by almost every major political commentator. What effect has that principle had on law and order in Northern Ireland and on the police in general?

Let us look at Sinn Féin, the party inextricably linked with the IRA and capable of making good the threat to bomb the City of London. What have they received under the Belfast Agreement?

Their key issues were as follows. First, the release of all the prisoners, which has been virtually accomplished. Secondly, a place in the negotiations and, ultimately, a place in the Executive Government of Northern Ireland. That has been accomplished. Thirdly, a reform of the criminal justice system, which was brought into effect to deal with their terrorism. Fourthly, the destruction of the RUC, which they clearly regarded as an abiding bulwark between the preservation of the rule of law and the success of armed violent political terrorism. All of these have been delivered under the guise of a new political dispensation in Northern Ireland.

It is alleged, in relation to the RUC, that in terms of both their name and their composition, they are unacceptable to the Northern Ireland community. History has a curious way of repeating itself. During the period from 1918 to 1921 the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) policed the whole of Ireland. No complaint was made against the RIC in respect of the discharge of their ordinary functions, in respect of what is now described as ordinary policing of ordinary crime. Certainly no critisicm was directed at the RIC in terms of its religious composition, even though nearly 70% of its constables were Roman Catholic. What it did attract — just like the RUC— was vilification and the most intense propaganda, and its officers were murdered and mutilated. That was because they were utilised by the Government of the day to oppose violent political terrorism and as a means of bringing about political change.

I have personal experience of working with the police in the administration of justice in Northern Ireland. In my experience there has never been any real complaint from the Nationalist community about the actions of the police in discharging their duties in respect of what might be called their ordinary criminal jurisdiction — the detection of rapists, child molesters, house-breakers, burglars and those guilty of common assault.

There has been little or no complaint at all from the Nationalist community. Indeed, as the opening paragraphs of the Patten Report make clear, the RUC has as good an acceptance level from the entire community as any police force on the continent of Europe — indeed better than some in many other places. Only in England and Scotland was the level of acceptance exceeded. Why, therefore, does the RUC suddenly become unacceptable? They are unacceptable because they have provided an effective police force, essentially against political terrorism.

I can draw comparisons between the police and the judiciary. The integrity, impartiality and fairness of the judiciary that, day after day, disposed of domestic law and divorces, that settled compensation claims for road accidents and factory injuries, that settled land disputes and commercial problems, was never questioned. The very same judges, when discharging their duty in dealing with crimes arising from political violence and terrorism, suddenly grew horns. Like the police, they became objects worthy of assassination, of murder and the targets for bombs.

The real issue is not one of policing. The real issue is political. The British Government have addressed that. In order to appease violent Republicanism and to keep bombs out of the City of London, they have had to come to terms with the demands of Sinn Féin/IRA. One of their demands, which still exists to this moment, is the complete destruction and removal of the RUC. Mrs Nelis made it clear that she is not interested in a reformed RUC. She wants its complete removal.

Let me move on. The British Government set up the Patten Commission within the terms of reference agreed by the Ulster Unionist leadership. Its remit was clear. Indeed, Mr Ken Maginnis, the security spokesman for the Ulster Unionist Party, claimed on television that he personally had been responsible for the inclusion of the issue of RUC reform in the agreement. Be that as it may, having provided the remit for reform, that party has now transformed itself into the defender of the RUC.

Secondly, it is plain that the anger which Mr Maginnis and Mr Trimble demonstrated in the House of Commons last Wednesday did not relate to 99·9% of the reforms. It was occasioned by the fact that the Secretary of State, Mr Mandelson, did not even leave them the fig leaf of a cap badge to cover their nakedness. They were left with nothing to take back to the grass-roots Unionists who will ultimately judge them for what they have done.

Mr Trimble and Mr Maginnis signed the agreement. Mr Maginnis has, apparently, been a very strong defender of the RUC throughout. Yet, in a revealing response to the assumed anger of Mr Maginness in the House of Commons Mr Mandelson pointed out what everyone knows. He said "What you, Mr Maginnis, are saying in a rhetorical fashion for the benefit of your listeners is quite different from what you tell me in private." He was making it quite clear, as Matthew Parris observed in the columns of ‘The Times’, that the Mr Maginnis who talked behind closed doors about the future of the RUC was very different from the one who beat his chest and rent his garments on the Floor of the House of Commons.

Let me move on to some of the remarks made by Mr Ervine. He said, in a very interesting speech, that the "in your face" behaviour of Sinn Féin in rubbing salt in the sensitivities and wounds of the Unionist community did not augur well for the success of this new dispensation. One of the salt-rubbing exercises is Sinn Féin’s failure to deliver one ounce of Semtex or a single bullet. Mr Ervine berated Sinn Féin. However, who has given Sinn Féin its best excuse for not decommissioning, if not the paramilitary groups that Mr Ervine fronts? They have made it clear that even if Sinn Féin were to decommission, they will not.

I was also interested by Mr Ervine’s statement that he and his Colleague are alive today only because of the RUC. That is an interesting paradox. Many other people would not be alive today if the RUC had not intercepted Mr Ervine carrying a huge bomb which was presumably destined for some Nationalist area or premises.

We have to be thankful to the RUC for a number of mercies — not only for preserving Mr Ervine for posterity but also for preserving the lives that he might have taken at an earlier date had it not been for its assiduous discharge of its duties.

I have much experience of the RUC and the security forces in general. For over 20 years I acted for members of the RUC and the military in relation to their claims for criminal compensation. That experience carved on my mind some factors which make it impossible for me to have anything whatever to do with Sinn Féin while it is inextricably linked with the IRA.

I have memories of bombs being thrown over a wall where some Army dog handlers were working — of a young man in his twenties without legs or genitals screaming to his colleagues to shoot him. I have memories of many of those young men in their teens who were in the bus that was blown up on the way to the Omagh depot — men without legs, arms and eyes, maimed for the rest of their lives.

I have an even more vivid memory of the bomb that went off at the bus station on "bloody Friday" — I was then a barrister practising in the law courts — when RUC men shovelled up the remains of human beings, including those of the teenage son of the clergyman Mr Parker, and put them in plastic bags. Mr Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Féin — I wish he were here today — was the commandant of the Belfast brigade at the time of the "bloody Friday" massacre.

I think of those at Whitecross and Teebane. They were innocent workmen — not partisans, not people involved in any way in terrorism — sent to their untimely ends by Sinn Féin, an organisation which the British Prime Minister and his Ministers state is still inextricably linked with the IRA. "Inextricably linked" means that they can never be separated, and yet Mr Trimble has sent a round-robin letter to some MPs protesting that because they are unreconstructed terrorists, Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness should not be afforded the facilities of the House of Commons. That allows Sinn Féin to make the riposte "Well, why in those circumstances are you sitting with us in the Northern Ireland Executive?" Those are matters which the leadership of the Ulster Unionist Party will have to resolve.

Decommissioning is intimately connected to the issue of policing. Calls have been made for a civilian, unarmed police force. Certainly that is an aspiration of many. But can there be such a police force while vast arsenals of weapons of destruction — weapons that have been used to murder over 2,000 of the 3,000-plus people who have been killed in these troubles — are still in the hands of those who carried out those executions? Since the alleged ceasefire, these people have continued to commit acts of murder. They are attempting to murder people like Martin McGartland, and they murdered Charles Bennett and Mr Kearney. They are beating, intimidating and murdering — and we talk about recruitment.

In its comments on the Patten proposals the Police Authority for Northern Ireland, which is composed of Catholics and Protestants and has a Catholic Chairman, made it absolutely clear that, in its view, the change of name would make virtually no difference to recruitment.

Everyone knows the reason for the low percentage of Roman Catholics in both the RUC and the UDR. Roman Catholics who joined were put in danger of death, and those in the Nationalist communities who talked about joining were intimidated and threatened, and this extended not just to those people themselves but to their families who were boycotted and sent to Coventry.

The debate was suspended.

The sitting was, by leave, suspended at 2.00 pm.

On resuming —

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

I remind Members that there is a limit to the length of the debate, which must end at 6.00 pm. The winding-up speeches for the amendment and motion have to be completed before that. Then there is the vote — and I expect that there will be one. I asked the leave of the House in the later part of this morning to put a time limit of five minutes on all speeches to try to get through as many as possible. Members from all parties will have a chance to speak at some length.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

The House gave leave when the matter was put before lunch.

John Gorman (UUP, North Down)

During last week’s discussion, I was struck by the words of Bishop Mehaffey, the Church of Ireland Bishop of Derry. I agree with him that many elements in the Nationalist tradition have failed to appreciate the sense of hurt and loss felt in Unionist circles over the Government’s decision to implement, almost in full, the Patten Report. Nor do they understand the Protestant — and I use the word advisedly — sense of policing which differs from the concept of policing held by most Nationalists.

The first duty of the police is to uphold law and order; its purpose is not to be owned by any section of the community — by the Unionist tradition any more than by the Nationalist tradition.

When I spoke in the Ulster Hall in support of the RUC, I made the point that the name of the force was hated by those who had reason to fear retribution for their murderous activities. It would be a shame if the SDLP were to find common cause with them today — I hope this does not occur.

Since that rally, there has been a new factor in the equation. The most cherished award for civilian bravery — the George Cross — has been awarded to the Royal Ulster Constabulary. The designation "Royal" was also vouchsafed by the sovereign. Neither award can be removed by political sleight of hand. Would it be right for the RUC to be treated in the same fashion as the traitor Anthony Blunt? The presentation of the George Cross will be an extraordinary occasion.

But will the present plan proceed? Even in its attenuated state, the Lords threw out the jury Bill last week. I know that some will say that Blair has a 170-seat majority, but if the Lords show the same virility over Patten’s plan and reject its worst features, will the Government want yet another battle with them? We shall have to wait and see.

Surely even Patten’s power, which we have already seen has had the effect of reprieving his dogs Whiskey and Soda from quarantine, must not be invulnerable to the persuasive power of those who see the injustice and obeisance to hatred which the name change represents.

The two DUP Ministers have been calling on the UUP to withdraw from the Executive. If they feel so strongly about this and believe it will do any good, why do they not have the courage of their convictions and take the lead?

Ian Paisley Jnr (DUP, North Antrim)

Will the Member give way?

John Gorman (UUP, North Down)

No; I have only two minutes left.

They insist this battle be fought not here but at Westminster. Has no one in the "No surrender" party learned the lessons for Unionism of repeated boycotts? If anyone in the DUP dares to suggest that the UUP is not prepared to fight on this issue, he will have me to deal with — [Interruption]

John Gorman (UUP, North Down)

I will face wherever I want.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Order.

John Gorman (UUP, North Down)

I challenge anyone on their Benches to match my credentials on this issue.

While I support the spirit of today’s motion, we must understand what it represents is an attempt to rend asunder the middle ground in this Assembly, to create a split between the UUP and the SDLP and to undermine confidence in the new arrangements. I urge the SDLP not to fall into that trap but instead to heed the advice of the Catholic bishops and show some generosity of spirit. It can best do this by addressing Msgr Faul’s suggestion of a dual name — a name that both traditions can feel comfortable with and identify with. Any lack of confidence in the police on the part of Nationalists should not be replaced by a lack of confidence in another section of the community.

As it stands, the Patten Report in its entirety has not received cross-community approval. That should be no less of a concern than if the situation were reversed. It would be folly for constitutional Nationalists to forget that the agreement talks of a police service acceptable to all — Unionists as well as Nationalists. We on these Benches have taken on board the need for police reform and a changed security environment.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Order. I must ask you to bring your remarks to a close.

John Gorman (UUP, North Down)

It is time for those on the Benches opposite to take seriously what the Unionist Party is saying.

Alban Maginness (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Belfast North)

I assure Sir John Gorman that the SDLP has never had common cause with paramilitaries of any kind, nor will it in the future.

The debate has been disappointing. I was dismayed by some of the remarks by Unionist Members, particularly among the DUP. Perhaps that is not surprising. The reality is that there seems to be a blind failure by the DUP and the general body of Unionism to realise that police reform is essential to our future. The DUP made no attempt to admit that there was something wrong with the way in which the RUC was constituted, that it was not representative and that it was far from being an effective policing service.

The criticisms of the SDLP and, indeed, of Seamus Mallon who acted for many years as our justice spokesman, were unwarranted. The SDLP has given consistent leadership on the policing debate. It has consistently criticised the RUC and policing in Northern Ireland. It has highlighted the inadequacy of the RUC as a policing service and its failure to provide effective and representative policing in Northern Ireland. That case has been consistently put over the past 25 years. The Patten Report vindicated our position because it recognised the inadequacy of the RUC.

Our position has nothing to do with Sinn Féin, which has adopted an unrealistic stance in calling for the disbandment of the RUC. We want to see a transformation of policing in Northern Ireland through the implementation of the radical policing reforms which Patten represents. Patten provides an opportunity and a challenge for all Members. Our reputations as politicians could be determined by how we respond to this issue.

Naturally, we are divided in the Assembly and have different political points of view. But I suspect that we are united by a common vision of creating a police service that would naturally attract and enjoy, rather than command, the loyalty and support of the widest possible spectrum of our society.

Much has been said today about the gardaí. It is useful to look at the history of the gardaí which was formed in the midst of a civil war in the Irish Free State. It managed successfully to establish itself as a legitimate police service despite the political turmoil of the early 1920s. Part of its success was due to the decision to abandon guns for normal duties and to create a truly civilian police service for the whole community. As Commissioner Staines, the first Commissioner of the gardaí, said

"The civic guard will succeed not by force of arms, or numbers, but on their moral authority as servants of the people."

I hope that the new policing service will learn that lesson and create a moral authority as servants of all the people of Northern Ireland, irrespective of their political viewpoints.

There is little doubt that throughout its history the RUC was not acceptable to the Nationalist community, and the Hunt report illustrated that. At its highest, Catholic membership of the RUC was at 11%, very little different from the level during the course of the troubles.

May I end by saying that an American police expert who visited me recently was of the opinion that Patten was a blueprint for the policing of any society in today’s world. That is a great tribute to Commissioner Patten and his esteemed colleagues such as Senator Maurice Hayes, Miss Kathleen O’Toole and Mr Peter Smith QC. These are men and women of learning and wisdom to whom we owe a great debt of gratitude.

William McCrea (DUP, Mid Ulster)

The 19 January 2000 was a dark day for the people of Ulster. On that day the gravy train of concessions to the IRA continued firmly on the Belfast Agreement track, and the gallant members of the RUC and the RUCR were bundled together to be led as lambs to the slaughter. The Secretary of State had the audacity to tell the House of Commons

"In the last 30 years, the Royal Ulster Constabulary has faced demands completely unlike those faced by any other force in the United Kingdom or, indeed, elsewhere in the developed world. I would like to place on record the Government’s deep admiration for the courage, resilience and professionalism with which the RUC has met these challenges. The accounts that I have heard of personal tragedy, pain and loss in the RUC family are profoundly moving and humbling. Three hundred and two officers have been killed, and many thousands injured. We all owe the RUC a huge debt of gratitude."

This all sounds wonderful, and with such a recommendation one would have expected a different announcement from the one that followed that statement by the Secretary of State. He said that, in spite of its professionalism, courage and resilience, it had to go. And not only did it have to go, but every vestige of it had to go too — the badge and every other recognisable RUC symbol.

One must ask this question: how did we ever get ourselves into this mess? The answer lies with those yes-men of the Belfast Agreement. Mr Ken Maginnis claimed that he had achieved an outstanding success in getting the police issue on to the agenda — it was not there, but he got it on. Now, having got it on and having read the Patten Report, he tells us that he is totally dismayed because the RUC has been degraded, demeaned and denigrated by the Secretary of State.

That is interesting. Did the Secretary of State not say in the House of Commons that the security spokesman for the UUP was using rhetoric in the House and that his remarks were more hostile in public than those he made in private. In other words, he says one thing in public and another thing in private. That was an interesting confession by the Secretary of State.

Then Mr Trimble was asked about the RUC. He referred to the police controversy as

"a very difficult issue that is bound to cause problems."

He said

"Many people feel — and I share the feelings myself — that we did not get the mixture just right yesterday."

What is he talking about? Whom does he think he is talking about? They "did not get the mixture just right". But he says that he will continue to work at it — put a little more salt into the wounds of those who are already hurting. Concerning the "mixture" that Mr Trimble says "we did not get just right yesterday", an RUC member whose legs were blown off in a booby-trap bomb said

"The dirty tramps. They paid no heed to our feelings, but then I always suspected they would get their way. It has been concession after concession after concession. It seems that the bomb and the bullet win every time."

We call this a peace process, but in reality what is it? It is a piece-by-piece process on the road to Dublin, a process that will destroy not only the United Kingdom but everything that is recognised as being good and decent in our society, such as the RUC and the RUCR.

We should not be surprised when Sir John Gorman tells us that the Ulster Unionists are going to take a stand for the RUC. That will be interesting. What about the stand they took for the Ulster Special Constabulary? What about the stand they took for the Ulster Defence Regiment? Is this the type of stand that is going to be taken for the RUC?

I heard others talking pious words today. It was interesting to hear Sinn Féin talking —indeed, the Member for Foyle spoke. What she did not tell us, when she said that the RUC must go, was that her son was sentenced to imprisonment for trying to murder an RUC man. The gun did not fire. Also, she did not say that her husband was a member of the UDR. We ought to be proud of the RUC. It is time for Ministers to do the decent thing and resign. The First Minister should give the lead — his resignation would really mean something.

Gerry Kelly (Sinn Féin, Belfast North)

A Chathaoirligh, I see they are calling for resignations again.

It is no surprise that the DUP is defending the RUC — it is a Unionist force and has been since partition. It was put in as an armed political force to represent Unionism and to be used against Nationalists and Republicans. There is a myth — and the DUP and other Unionists are in denial of this — that the RUC served the whole community in the North. I would like to know where that myth came from. From the inception of partition the make-up has been 90% Protestant.

There is another myth which says that Catholics were intimidated out of the RUC, or were intimidated from joining it. Again, I refer to the statistics. Well before the last 30 years that people keep referring to, the figures were very consistent. From the inception of this statelet the make-up of the RUC has been 90% Protestant.

It used emergency laws during the whole of that time. Incidentally, one of the South African Presidents, before the end of apartheid, said that he would give up all of his past laws, and emergency law, for one clause in the Northern Ireland Emergency Provisions Act. That is the type of emergency law and paramilitary policing that we have been faced with over the past 80 years.

The DUP and the Ulster Unionists deny this. They have never even admitted doing anything wrong politically, never mind the RUC. They have come through a series of organisations including the RUC Reserve and the UDR, all of which were sectarian in their make-up. They were looked upon by Nationalists — and there is a lot of evidence to support this view — as a very political police force over that time. The DUP and Ulster Unionists are in denial because they do not think that anything ever went wrong here, so why should they want the RUC done away with?

The RUC has been criticised and condemned by many reputable human rights groups, and we cannot ignore that. Whatever I may say about it, why ignore those groups? They are the European Court of Human Rights, the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the United Nations Committee on Torture, the United Nations Special Rapporteur, the European Parliament’s International Relations Committee, the International Relations Committee of the US Congress and Amnesty International, among others.

There is a strong desire, as shown by the Good Friday Agreement, for a real policing service that will serve the whole community. That desire — and I have listened to the DUP — is greater in the Nationalist heartland because they are the people who have suffered its lack. The desire for a policing service is very genuine and important. It was an essential part of the Good Friday Agreement that we all signed up to — except the DUP, of course. The litmus test for any police service that may emerge lies not with me or with anybody sitting on these Benches. The litmus test is whether young people in Ardoyne, or Ballymurphy, or the Bogside, or South Armagh believe that this is a policing service that they can join.

Why did Catholic youth not join the RUC? Because the combined force of the RUC and the British Army has been directly involved in 360 deaths, half of them civilians. No member of the RUC has ever been convicted of murder in all that time.

There is evidence of collusion between the RUC and Loyalist death squads, and the sheer volume of personal details that have been released can only be guessed at. We have documentation that proves collusion through a number of informers and agents such as Brian Nelson, who is probably the best-known of them. The Pat Finucane killing; the Robert Hamill killing; and the Rosemary Nelson killing all show the depth and extent of the collusion. The famous wall of silence within the RUC in the face of belated inquiries shows again what type of organisation it has been and why Catholics do not join it.

There are all sorts of reasons why the RUC is not acceptable and why Nationalists should not join it. Through the Stalker and Sampson inquiries we learned that the RUC was trained by the SAS.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Please bring your remarks to a close.

Gerry Kelly (Sinn Féin, Belfast North)

I will come to my conclusion very quickly. I am opposing the motion, not because I support the Patten Report, which falls short of what is needed —

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Order.

Gerry Kelly (Sinn Féin, Belfast North)

Sinn Féin will wait for the legislation. Let me finally say this. The policing service is not a concession to anyone. Either we need a policing service or we do not. Let us have a proper policing service.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

All Members need to hold to time, otherwise they just call back and forwards to each other across the Chamber. Particularly during a debate about law and order outside the Chamber, Members should remember to preserve law and order inside.

Esmond Birnie (UUP, Belfast South)

Many of the original 175 Patten Report proposals make sense. That is not surprising, since roughly 160 of them were anticipated by previous studies, such as the RUC’s own fundamental review. However, there are two basic flaws in both the Patten Report and the Secretary of State’s recent statement.

First, there is the assertion that the proposals follow on from the terms of the Belfast Agreement. Secondly, there is the idea that the changes now proposed are either necessary or sufficient to engineer the wider community acceptance of policing that all of us here wish for.

I will deal initially with the relationship between the Belfast Agreement and the Patten Report. It has been asserted that there is a strong link between the two, but the Belfast Agreement simply laid down the terms of reference for the Commission. The final recommendations do not follow inexorably or necessarily from the agreement.

In this debate we have witnessed an unholy alliance between Chris Patten — who has argued that the Belfast Agreement is the cover, as it were, for his recommendations — and those people who represent the "No" side of Unionism and who will use the Patten and Mandelson reforms as further ammunition to hurl against the structure of the Belfast Agreement. All this is rank hypocrisy from members of a party who have often hurled verbal abuse, or worse, against the same RUC whose best defenders they now claim to be. I noted earlier the strong rhetoric from the Minister for Social Development, among others, but if the DUP really felt so strongly about the Mandelson statement, why were its MPs not present in the Commons when he made it? The image of the DUP as the guardian of the future of the RUC brings to mind the idea of Charles Manson endorsing Barnardo’s.

Secondly, on the acceptability of the police, my argument is that the proposals from Patten and the statement by the Secretary of State are not logical, given the evidence in the Patten Commission’s report. I quote from paragraph 3·14. In a random sample survey

"77% of Protestants and 69% of Catholics expressed overall satisfaction with the way they had been treated"

by the police.

Paragraph 3.11 states that 70% of Catholics in the same survey

"cited intimidation ... as the main reason why Catholics were deterred from entering the police".

Sadly, that spirit of intimidation still stalks the land, as in Carrickmore. I would argue, in the light of such evidence coming directly from Patten, that it is misguided to make suggestions about a change of name and badge. The Mandelson changes will, if implemented, massively alienate the Unionist section of the population, yet they will never be enough to win over those who have the Republicans’ objection to the police. For such persons the real objection to the RUC is not its name, oath, or human rights record —

Alban Maginness (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Belfast North)

Will the Member give way?

Esmond Birnie (UUP, Belfast South)

Sorry, I am running out of time.

The fundamental objection is that the RUC is involved in policing United Kingdom law within a part of the United Kingdom. The Belfast Agreement has confirmed Northern Ireland’s position as part of the United Kingdom, subject to the consent principle. Given this, the Patten/Mandelsonian tinkering with the RUC is worse than gratuitous appeasement — it is futile appeasement.

Let us imagine that the name "Royal" really is the problem. In due course will there be campaigns against the Royal Victoria Hospital, the Royal Mail, Royal & Sun Alliance, the Royal National Institute for the Blind, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the five Royal schools in the Province?

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Order. The Member has now had his five minutes.

Esmond Birnie (UUP, Belfast South)

I support the motion.

John Dallat (Social Democratic and Labour Party, East Londonderry)

When a political party puts down a motion for debate it is assumed that all of its members feel sincerely about it. It was interesting to note that for most of the morning there were no more than three members of the DUP present in the Chamber. Once again it could be claimed that the RUC is being used and abused for political purposes. But what is new? Reference was made to the fact that the first policeman to die in the present troubles was murdered by Loyalists. In the days before his death, the Paisley bandwagon was screaming "sell-out" following the publication of the Hunt report, which the Rev Dr William McCrea referred to earlier. That policeman died in a riot that followed a rally organised by that same party. It made the balls, and when its members went home safely to their homes the police were left to take the brunt as the balls were thrown at them.

The gardaí were criticised this morning, and that merits comment. May I remind the same politicians that while they were safely in their beds and protected by the RUC in the North, members of the gardaí were manning police stations along the border and protecting people on both sides of it.

Many of them were far away from their families for long periods, working in conditions that were far from favourable. Indeed, the Republic spent more per head of population on border security than the British. Surely Peter Robinson must bear testament to that tight security, given his little sortie to Clontibret.

Thirty years later and things have not changed much. In the last few years people have still been be wound up to hate by the same people who were responsible for the death of the first policeman.

In the absence of agreed political institutions it is impossible to have a police service which is broadly based. That is not just a Northern Ireland experience; it is the experience of countries in many parts of the world. It is therefore very worrying that people like John Taylor talk about a return to direct rule. That would be a disaster for the future of policing in the North — a disaster for the North.

Never again must the police service be dependent on people who pretend that they support it and then say the most outrageous things about it when it does not follow their narrow, bigoted, sectarian views.

After the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement there was the usual cry of "Sell-out" by the DUP. And just as in the 1969 case, to which I referred earlier, the paramilitaries responded with a drilling session on a beach in Portrush. The reaction of the DUP leader was interesting. Did he send for the RUC? Certainly not. He went to the beach and had his photograph taken with the paramilitaries. He predicted more deaths, and he called the RUC prostitutes, claiming that its members were now being paid in punts. His predictions about the deaths were deadly accurate — Castlerock, Greysteel and Loughinisland pay tribute to this. No police force should have to rely on that type of support.

At a recent rally in Coleraine, organised by the DUP, 350 chairs were put out to enable people to hear how Dr Paisley and Mr Robinson were going to save the force. People will be relieved to know that most of the seats remained empty, for there is a maturity in Northern Ireland that understands that the police service cannot be the property of any political party and, most certainly, not the property of those parties that are extreme.

For the first time we have an opportunity to take policing out of the political arena where its friends were highly unreliable and unrepresentative of the whole community. The new police service must not be vulnerable to extreme elements, irrespective of where they come from. We should never again have rotten apples in the service, who, by their actions, or lack of actions, bring disgrace to it, and the new political structure will prevent that from happening.

The Patten Report’s recommendations point the way forward. For the sake of the men and women who serve in the police and for the sake of the community who will depend on them, I hope that we can move swiftly to a new era. I hope that no more people will have to die either in uniform or out of uniform.

Policing was sadly abused in the past, and there are still people who care nothing for the harm and hurt caused, not only to the people in the police, but also to the people in the two communities whom they were charged to serve. Now is the time to move on. The Patten Report is not perfect. It can be improved upon, but that can only be possible when each individual sees the police, not as my police or your police, but as our police.

Oliver Gibson (DUP, West Tyrone)

I have listened with interest to the speeches. My party has been accused of being negative, but I have never heard anything more negative or condemnatory than what has come from the SDLP Benches. I have referred to the SDLP as the Fairy Liquid party — it is green, slippery and soapy, but the scum has gone down the sink. However, by its association with and support for those who have murdered and created anarchy, it has got itself to the point where it can no longer differentiate between right and wrong. Its members are unable to condemn or distance themselves from the Provos; rather, they have piggybacked on their success. I have seen this night after night in various council chambers.

A section of this community declared from the word go that it would not accept Northern Ireland, that it would not accept anything that pertained to keeping Northern Ireland British. Yesterday Gerry Adams reminded us very forcibly of this stance in his speech at Milltown when he said that the Republican agenda or focus remains the same. Its aims and determinations have not altered one whit. People talk about this wonderful agreement and this great shrine of peace, but Sinn Féin has never been party to it. It has deliberately pretended to support it, but peace is just another conveyor belt towards Republican goals. To be fair to Sinn Féin, it has been more honest about its intentions than its political neighbours in the SDLP.

There is much hypocrisy about not accepting the police, but let me give one example. In Pomeroy, which is in the constituency next to mine, there was a large anti-RUC meeting, and on the way home from it, two of its very staunch supporters had an accident on the Inishative Road. They could not agree on who was right and who was wrong. How did they settle it? They sent for the RUC. So much for those who do not accept the RUC.

We hear a great deal of hypocrisy from members of the SDLP, some of whom sit on the Police Liaison Committee. They would be the first to say "No, I am not here" or "I am wearing another cap", but they are back-door SDLP members of the Police Liaison Committee. The truth will come out.

Take the example of the foot soldiers who are not content just to wait for the peace process to deliver the goods. There is an idea around that these foot soldiers can walk on a headmaster’s lawn and tell him that he cannot have a guest in his school, or that they can walk into a meeting and threaten and intimidate. Let us look at the civil rights issue here. There is no right to free association.

Then take the case of the parents of the policeman in Melmount in Strabane who had to be moved out on Friday night because of threats and intimidation.

When I look around the countryside in my constituency, I see 97 tombstones, put there by people whose business was anarchy and murder, people who, in their hearts and minds, were always determined to bring anarchy to this country. There was only one line of defence, and that was the RUC. The RUC defended the majority of people — both the Catholic and the Protestant communities — and we have a responsibility to defend those who defended us.

Billy Armstrong (UUP, Mid Ulster)

As some Members know, I served as a part-time reserve constable in the Royal Ulster Constabulary for 14 years, and I was proud to do so. Those of us who served in the Royal Ulster Constabulary did so to the best of our ability, no matter what our politics, religion or views, because it was an honour to serve the community.

I have a piece of information for Gerry Kelly. While patrolling in Stewartstown, Coagh, Ardboe and Coalisland in the ‘70s and ‘80s, I found that Nationalists, Unionists, Loyalists and even Republicans were very willing to avail of the RUC’s services. Even though we were shot at and bombed, we tried to help, no matter how trivial the problem, and we did so in an impartial and fair way.

I listened to comments from Sinn Féin Members today — they made much of the RUC’s failings. No one pretends that any police force is perfect, but let us not forget the reality. Sinn Féin’s sister organisation — the IRA — is responsible for 40 times the deaths that the RUC is responsible for, and every one of those RUC killings has been subject to proper investigation. Most were of terrorists on active service. What investigations have there been of IRA killings? The Republican movement demands change and wants to move the process forward, but it has not changed.

Does the Sinn Féin Member for Foyle not think that she should temper her comments about the 51 deaths that the RUC has been responsible for, bearing in mind that the IRA has killed more than 275 RUC men and women over the last 30 years? Is it not time that the Republican movement addressed not only the complete immorality of its campaign, but also its unbalanced nature? How can this overkill be justified, let alone the taking of one human life?

I would like to believe that Sinn Féin is coming into line and will support law and order in Northern Ireland. However, having listened to remarks from its Members today, I can only conclude that they seek not so much a police force as a weakened security apparatus, which will be vulnerable to some future Republican terrorist campaign when their campaign for a united Ireland fails.

That is my analysis, so I was totally disgusted with the UK Government when, having acknowledged the excellent achievements of the RUC with the award of the George Cross, they proceeded to dishonour the members of the RUC, including those thousands of injured members and, most of all, the widows and widowers of those who were killed. Instead of supporting the RUC, the Government are going so far as to remove the name of this fine force and the badge which so well represents the two traditions. It looks as though the RUC is going the same way as the Ulster Special Constabulary and the UDR.

Change is inevitable in view of a changing and peaceful Northern Ireland, but this change must take place naturally and in a way which takes into account the evolving security situation. Instead of this, the Government have dishonoured themselves by continuing along the road of appeasement. They have bowed down to the threat from terrorists who may in future emerge from the Republican movement, and it is a shame and a disgrace that the Nationalist SDLP has chosen to support this Republican position.

I support the motion.

Arthur Doherty (Social Democratic and Labour Party, East Londonderry)

The Government’s response to the Patten Report on policing is welcomed as one essential element of the complex series of processes which must be implemented together if we are to achieve the peaceful and just society which all but the most perverted long for.

Good policing and the proper administration of justice are most important in any society. How much more important are they then in a society with a sorry history of division, sectarianism and violence? It is because of that history that change is imperative and urgent. It is inevitable that it will give rise to strong emotions, and it is irresponsible and dangerous to heighten or play on those emotions either to oppose change or to demand the impossible or the unattainable.

It is not surprising that so much opposition and so many demands relate to symbols and titles and an ethos that inevitably reflect the values of those who held power in Northern Ireland from its inception. They were people whose values found expression in the slogans "A Protestant Government for a Protestant people" and "Not an inch.". They needed institutions of government — a police force in particular — to help them sustain that power. The cost was the alienation of a high proportion of the population and the creation of a gulf between the police and many of those whom they were meant to serve.

A police force of necessity reflects the ethos of those who control the Government. This was as true with Nazi Germany’s Gestapo and Stalin’s KGB as it is in more enlightened and humane times, and even the most enlightened Administration, such as the one we are trying to create, must work diligently to ensure that its police service is such that it will

"enjoy widespread support from, and is seen to be an integral part of, the community as a whole".

In a statement on 19 January 2000 the Taoiseach said

"It is in the interests of everyone in Northern Ireland that the police service be able to function fully and freely in all areas and across all communities".

People from both traditions want to be able to give their unqualified support to a police service which is unequivocally of and for the whole community. They want the law to be upheld in an atmosphere of normality and security, and policemen and policewomen to be made welcome in every home. Furthermore, a career in policing should be fully open to talented and committed people, irrespective of their political beliefs and identities.

It is a sad reflection on our society that, because those words were spoken by the Taoiseach of the Irish Republic, they will be belittled and rejected by some people of influence in our community. It is even sadder that, had they been spoken by our own First Minister, those same people would call him a traitor and demand his resignation. However, do those words not describe something worth working and making sacrifices for? The SDLP believes that all reasonable people wish to live, and see their children grow up, in a community with such a police service.

Jim Shannon (DUP, Strangford)

We live today in the twilight of law and order in Northern Ireland. The publication of Patten’s opinions on the future of policing here have confirmed the very worst of which we had warned Official Unionism. We can now read in black and white the sordid intentions of the so-called independent commission to exterminate the RUC. We all know where John Taylor stood on these issues. He was the yes-no-yes-man. He was the man who made the 40-foot bargepole disappear in seconds. He is also one of those responsible for the Patten Commission’s being here today. He is one of those who voted for the agreement and gave it his endorsement.

Two things must be said about Patten’s opinions. First, the RUC, as it stands, commands respect and support from the overwhelming majority of people in Northern Ireland — and that is cross-community support — and with no significant change in the terrorist threat it should not be reformed.

Secondly, as spawn of the Good Friday Agreement, Patten propagates its message, sacrificing the very principles of democratic society purely to appease the gunmen. When Patten seeks to create a police force which satisfies everyone, that includes the terrorists and the law-breakers. One need hardly be a brain surgeon to figure out that a force which satisfies the law-breakers would be anything but a force able to maintain the rule of law. The Patten Report is sodden with proposals which would neutralise the police’s efficiency, integrity, identity and ability to tackle violent terrorism effectively. From the very outset, it is quite clear that the basis upon which these proposals were made was not that of operational requirement or necessity. Rather, the basis was the need to make concessions to satisfy the desires of IRA/Sinn Féin and the wider pan-Nationalist agenda.

Patten’s report is founded upon the corruption of what is possibly one of the most respected and effective anti-terrorist police forces in the world. At this stage in the overall implementation of the Belfast Agreement, we have seen practically all IRA/Sinn Féin prisoners released from jail. The Maze prison should be resounding to the noise of incarcerated murderers and thugs. Instead, it lies empty. Its staff, who have seen the unrepentant spokesmen for fully armed terrorism walk unhindered into the Government of this country, their hands still dripping with the blood of 30 years of carnage, are redundant. We have a commitment to corrupt the judicial system.

An unprecedented level of cultural apartheid now exists, where the flag of this country, and all signs of British identity — and we saw this in Down Council last week — are being systematically removed and defiled while we have the violence continuing and the IRA rearming. When IRA members go to Florida it is not to visit Disneyworld or get a suntan but to buy guns. At the same time we see security bases closing constantly and troop levels decreasing. We are now witnessing the decommissioning of weapons belonging to the legitimate forces of law and order without any similar commitment from IRA/Sinn Féin.

The RUC has been most successful in strangling IRA activity in Northern Ireland, and consequently has acted as both first and last lines of defence for the UK mainland against Republican atrocities. Many of us were annoyed to see on television yesterday the large rally in West Belfast to commemorate a murderer who killed a Roman Catholic policeman a number of years ago. This flies in the face of many of the Province’s law-abiding people.

It is absolute madness in effect to disband the force which has protected this community over the past 30 years, preventing the expansion of the Republican control base and, ultimately, preventing the organisation from functioning successfully in Northern Ireland. This madness is illustrated by the fact that IRA/Sinn Féin continues to rearm, retrain and recruit, refusing to give any commitment to peaceful means or to constitutional and democratic principles. Should Patten be implemented, society will pay the price, and all those who supported the agreement and voted "Yes" to it will have to admit their responsibility.

Blair’s Administration and the NIO are quite prepared to sacrifice democracy and the rule of law in Northern Ireland to keep the bombs out of London. They are prepared not only to ignore and disregard the lives of those brave officers who have been brutally murdered and maimed while trying to maintain law and order but to insult their memory by paving the way for their murderers to become part of the new force. They have stated that police reforms are an essential part of the new democratic society in Northern Ireland, and under the Belfast Agreement they are not wrong. The agreement, as everyone knows, is a list of concessions aimed at silencing the Republican movement’s bombs in London. The findings of Patten’s Commission are an integral part of the agreement and could not be anything but pro-Republican.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Please bring your remarks to a close.

Jim Shannon (DUP, Strangford)

Patten completely ignored the police officers who were murdered during the previous 30 years and the fact that the organisations which caused the mayhem are still active —

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Order. I call Mr David Ford.

David Ford (Alliance, South Antrim)

I support the amendment proposed by my party Colleagues which acknowledges the degree of hurt among police officers and their families over the Patten reforms. Unionist spokesmen have reflected that hurt today, perhaps with a greater or lesser degree of genuine apprehension.

With regard to one of the more than 170 recommendations of Patten, I agree with Mr Dodds on the opposition to proposed recruitment quotas. However, it is not so much a case of my agreeing with Mr Dodds as of Mr Dodds’s agreeing with me, since the initial response from the DUP and other Unionists seems to be almost totally based on the issues of symbolism — the badge and the name. For Alliance, the focus of our consideration of Patten has always been on the need for an effective police service for all the people of Northern Ireland in a new and peaceful society.

In this respect it is regrettable that leaders of Nationalism have said nothing on the issue of quotas. I was disappointed to hear this morning that the Catholic bishops had issued a statement calling for what one might term accelerated Catholic recruitment into the new police service. If that means that they are encouraging members of their flock to join the police service it is welcome, but to suggest that we could achieve a 30% Catholic balance in three to five years seems to me to require direct discrimination, and that would risk losing the experience and expertise in ordinary policing within the RUC.

I want to see a fully representative police service, inclusive of every section of this society — every geographical section, both genders and all ethnic groups, and not just the two main religions. I want to see a professional police service in which every member is appointed on merit and not through some form of quota. That is the only way to ensure that people gain respect for being professional police officers rather than Catholic or Protestant policemen or — and this is another minority — policewomen.

It has already been said that quotas are illegal under fair employment law in Northern Ireland, the rest of the UK and the EU. That is one reason to oppose them. It is also quite clear that quotas are ineffective. They are intended by Patten to apply at the final appointment stage, but it has never been a problem to draw 50:50 from a pool of qualified applicants. The problem is to attract a balance in the applicants in the first place. That is another reason to oppose quotas.

If the reform is out to succeed, there is no need for quotas. A career in the police service should be an attractive option to well-qualified young men and women, whatever their community background. If that happens, there will be balance in applications because the population proportions in the age group from which recruits are largely drawn are almost even between Protestants and Catholics. And 10% decline such categorisation.

Quotas would create major problems for the officers of the service and under employment law. The Government must think again. The concerns about quotas and local policing boards which Sean Neeson mentioned are not a reason for rejecting Patten overall, but they do give us a reason for seeking amendments to his proposals.

There is a real need for policing to be transformed in style from the armed force that has been necessary for 30 years to a first-class community police service. Patten has set out how that can and should be done, building on the existing force. The police and the Police Authority are already implementing many of Patten’s proposals.

Fundamentally, what we should all be concerned about is the ethos, and Patten envisages a single unified police service for the whole of Northern Ireland. This is not about Catholics policing Catholics or Protestants policing Protestants. It is not even about a two-tier service or a regional force arrangement, which would amount to the same thing.

We must seek to produce the kind of unified service which will meet the needs of all of us in the future. Patten also stresses the need for a strong human rights ethos to be prominent in future policing. That contrasts with the minimal role that human rights have in police training at present. That is essential for this society and for the service itself. It would also be a defence against some of the more ludicrous allegations about paramilitary involvement in the police in the future.

There is every reason for welcoming this emphasis on human rights in training, in staff appraisal and in the monitoring role of the new policing board. Although the Alliance Party will wish to see amendments to some of the proposals which are being made, the report does provide an opportunity for new beginnings in policing, and there is every reason for giving the proposals broad support in the community and in the Assembly.

Norman Boyd (NIUP, South Antrim)

I support the motion in the names of Mr Peter Robinson and Mr Nigel Dodds. We have the most professional police force in the world, and it is widely recognised as such. I would remind John Dallat of the SDLP, who mocked the supposedly small attendance at the rally, that over 400,000 signatures opposing the destruction of the RUC were handed into 10 Downing Street.

The reward for the more than 300 RUC officers, who made the supreme sacrifice and laid down their lives to save others, is the destruction of the RUC. Over 9,000 RUC officers have been injured and maimed at the hands of those whom the Government are now going to untold lengths to appease. It is appalling that representatives of fully armed terrorist organisations will be in control of policing through the new policing board.

The proposal to abandon the proud name and insignia of the RUC is grossly insulting to most people in Northern Ireland. It dishonours those who have served and died so bravely over the years, bearing that name and wearing that insignia. Yet it is clear that such changes will have very little bearing on the attitude of the minority community to the police.

Roman Catholics have not joined the RUC in greater numbers because of intimidation by the IRA. Patten’s ban on the flying of the national flag on police buildings is disgraceful. The proposal that recruitment should be based, not on the "merit" principle, but on the filling of sectarian quotas, runs counter to current fair employment legislation. The abolition of the full-time Reserve is totally misconceived.

Most people in Northern Ireland are deeply angered by proposals to emasculate and destroy the RUC when terrorist organisations remain intact and fully armed.

Furthermore, at a time when the Chief Constable is warning of the seriousness of the terrorist threat, it is madness to be considering a reduction in the capabilities and resources of the RUC. The thoughts and sympathy of my party and myself are with the families of the RUC officers who, in defence of law and order, were murdered and maimed by terrorists. The Patten Report is a gratuitous insult to the professional integrity and operational efficiency of the RUC in its defence of the citizens of Northern Ireland over the years of terrorism. The Patten Report, if implemented, would achieve in a matter of months what Sinn Féin/IRA failed to achieve in 30 years — the destruction of the RUC. If the RUC means anything to the Ulster Unionist Party its leadership should resign from the Executive in protest at the actions of the Secretary of State.

The ultimate responsibility for the report rests with Mr Trimble who negotiated the terms of reference for the Patten Commission which determined the outcome of the report. The line being put out that plans were being made before the agreement was made will not wash. The finger of blame is pointed at the Ulster Unionist Party, and hundreds are phoning Glengall Street on a daily basis.

I have from its website today the Ulster Unionist Party’s security policy:

"The Ulster Unionist Party has a greater degree of experience and understanding of policing in Northern Ireland than any other United Kingdom party.

While it continues to be our primary responsibility to ensure that Government remains vigilant and ready to deal with all residual terrorism, it is equally important to guarantee the integrity of the Royal Ulster Constabulary during the period which will, we hope, bring our society along the road to peace."

The Ulster Unionist Party has failed. I quote from its referendum leaflet of May 1998:

"The RUC Has Been Saved.

Thanks to the UUP the section of the agreement was rewritten with recognition now given to the RUC with authority delegated as the Chief Constable should decide within a unitary structure. The RUC’s position has not been negotiated in the Talks and the Commission in the Agreement looks towards the adjustments which would naturally arise if terrorism ends".

I challenge anybody in the Ulster Unionist Party to say to me how — to use their words — "the RUC has been saved".

The Ulster Unionist Party has failed the Unionist people miserably. The empty words of condemnation of the report from Mr Trimble will ring hollow in the ears of the law-abiding citizens of Northern Ireland unless they are matched by his immediate withdrawal of support for the Belfast Agreement. The implementation of the agreement, in combination with the Patten Report, puts Sinn Féin/IRA in government without IRA decommissioning and places Sinn Féin/IRA at the centre of policing in Northern Ireland.

Let us look at the Alliance Party’s amendment. It is typical Alliance waffle — all things to all people. The party’s ink is on the destruction of the RUC. That cannot be denied. Sean Neeson talks of the pain and the hurt, yet his party on Belfast City Council refused last September to allow the mother of Const David Johnston, murdered by the IRA in 1997, to lay a wreath on behalf of her murdered son and all the others who made the supreme sacrifice.

I support the motion.

Boyd Douglas (UUAP, East Londonderry)

I support the motion. If implemented, the recommendations outlined by the Secretary of State last week will not only make justice in this Province a mere semblance of law and order but will render worthless the supreme sacrifice made by those members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary who gave their lives to defend law-abiding people against IRA and Loyalist terror. It stands to reason that the RUC and its Reserve, prime targets of terrorists during the so-called war, would remain so during the farcical peace process.

The RUC is internationally renowned for its intelligence service and has successfully defended this Province against terrorism and, in effect, Fascism for many years. The terrorist organisations found it impossible to defeat the RUC by butchery, torture and the most callous murders and intimidation. The Government, through Patten, have delivered the victory to them by concession and appeasement. Those on the other side of the House should remember that they did not earn the victory or defeat the RUC — they have gained that victory through a pay-off.

The RUC, in defence of democracy, has borne the brunt of those who would eradicate democracy, yet how ironic it is that it should be democracy that has signed, sealed and delivered its fate. Those Unionists who voted "Yes" would not be told or warned. They bolstered each other and convinced themselves that they could not be out-manoeuvred, that the Government would not let them down by dismantling or reforming the RUC too much. Indeed, they even boasted of being the saviours of the police. They should take to heart this harsh lesson, instead of trusting terrorists and those who seek to appease Republicanism. They should stand firm on Unionism and defend their Unionist principles, or at least those precious few that they still have left, and not put their country and its laws up for negotiation.

We will never know the true extent of lives saved by the RUC, either here or on the mainland. We must not forget the courage and bravery of its members, who every day face the prospect of death and whose families have long lived in fear of the unthinkable happening. We must never gloss over the pain suffered by those to whom the unthinkable did happen or ignore the traumas endured by those who witnessed the carnage — scenes that will remain forever in their memories.

So how are these brave officers honoured and thanked by society and the Government whom they have protected? They are insulted by the changing of the cherished and respected name of their force. They look on powerless as those they locked up are released and laugh in their faces. As the officers become further demoralised, in spite of reassurances to the contrary, they will indeed be forced to co-operate and work with those they suppose to be actively linked to terrorist organisations, since not all terrorists have been convicted. They — a legitimate force — lose their weapons and protection while the caches of illegal arms are enlarged by airmail. Worst of all, the RUC will be forced to answer to those who have murdered and maimed them and their colleagues and who have waged a relentless propaganda campaign of scurrilous lies aimed at discrediting the moral integrity of and slurring the name of a much respected constabulary.

It appears that this weak and spineless British Government is incapable of distinguishing between the two. It is time to desist from the serious folly of appeasing apologists for terror — those who pocket concession after concession and have no intention of giving anything in return. It is time to stop supporting everything which gives credence to this pathetic farce of a peace process, that has let law and order degenerate into a nonsensical game of defending murder.

It is time to recognise the real reasons for Roman Catholics’ reluctance to enlist in the RUC rather than change the RUC to allow unconvicted criminals to join and police Northern Ireland in the way they know best. Our community has been threatened enough. It does not deserve to have terrorists being legitimised and policing it.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Order. Your time is up.

James Leslie (UUP, North Antrim)

I rise to support the motion. My Colleagues have outlined most of the flaws in the course of action that the Secretary of State proposes to take. My remarks are directed to the Secretary of State, and I trust that he will read a transcript of the debate. He might get a better feeling for the views of the people in Northern Ireland from that than from what he gets from officials in the Northern Ireland Office.

In his lengthy peroration Mr Dodds failed to address the most fundamental point that Westminster is sovereign. Was that because he is still in the time warp of the referendum campaign when the DUP assured us that the repeal of section 75 of the Government of Ireland Act would mean that Westminster was not sovereign? Westminster would not be able to reform the police force, contrary to the wishes of the majority of the population, if it were not a sovereign Parliament. Nobody knows this better than Mr Dodds and his Colleague Mr S Wilson, who told us this again and again in a debate in the Chamber on 9 November 1998, with a note of triumph in his voice.

Patrick Roche (NIUP, Lagan Valley)

Will the Member give way?

James Leslie (UUP, North Antrim)

No. This side of the House did not give way to my party, and in the short time available I will not be doing so.

It is both to the benefit and burden of Unionism that Westminster is sovereign. The Secretary of State needs to take into account that we will not know for some time whether the reformed police force he envisages, at some cost, will be as effective in upholding the law. It is therefore essential in framing the legislation that provision is made to regularly review the progress of the reform to see if the police are able to uphold the law satisfactorily.

Mr Neeson made a highly relevant point about the need to link the pace of police reform to the creation of a peaceful society. This was not evident in the Secretary of State’s statement last week. I hope he will review the matter. It is not just that this society needs to be free from actual violence; it needs to be free from the threat of violence.

If the Secretary of State wants to emphasise that the police are in charge of upholding the law, perhaps he would like to address himself to the law itself. It would send the right signal if Westminster — as criminal law in Northern Ireland is a reserved matter — were to introduce a mandatory 25-year jail sentence without remission for the possession of arms and explosives. That might provide an incentive for the move towards decommissioning.

In looking at the amendment, which has received very little attention in this debate, I welcome the fact that the SDLP is going to support it and that it will be giving its full support to the proposed reformed police service and will be encouraging people to join it. I hope the SDLP will take its views to the Roman Catholic clergy, who seem to have a rather more equivocal view on the matter.

We welcome any Roman Catholic recruits to the RUC. We look forward to their coming forward and trust that they will pass the selection procedures and go through training. However, it needs to be borne in mind that it takes time to train a police officer, and it takes time for a police officer to acquire the experience to make him effective. It is simply not practical to turn over a great number of personnel in a very short period.

In conclusion, Mrs Nelis suggested that the nightmare of the RUC must be a thing of the past. For nearly all of the people of Northern Ireland, except perhaps for those who support her party and the terrorist IRA, the nightmare we want to see ending is the nightmare of the 30 years of terrorism. I support the motion.

Eamonn ONeill (Social Democratic and Labour Party, South Down)

I am glad to have the opportunity to take part in the debate, although perhaps "debate" is too generous a word. As I listened to it, here and in my office, I got the distinct impression that very few people are really listening to what others are saying. Maybe that is because it is a debate about what is really going on between two brands of Unionism rather than about the Patten Report or policing. Therefore we get this internecine squabble instead of a debate.

However, there are points to be made. Some of these have been covered by my Colleagues earlier, but it does not do any harm to repeat some of them. I would like to emphasise one or two things, because it is an opportunity for the SDLP to show quite clearly that we have been in the forefront of arguing for fair, neutral and available services to all. We have argued for a form of government that is open to all and for a form of policing that goes along with it. We have been arguing for those things for many years, and eventually we are beginning to get that argument across to those who count. For so long there has been a lack of identification with the police force. No one in the Chamber can honestly say that this is not true. If Members do, they are missing the reality of the situation, which has been there for a long time.

We want to create a policing service that is wholeheartedly supported by all sections of the community. We see that as one of the most essential and valuable goals of the whole political process because the policing problem is a deep-seated political one which goes to the very heart of the political entity that is Northern Ireland. Our analysis has shown that this issue is very deep and fundamental to the whole political approach. Political and policing problems in Northern Ireland are intertwined and interlocked. One cannot be solved without the other. If we fail to solve one, it is our fear that the other will be incapable of resolution.

We are conscious of the need to create a system of policing which commands the support of Unionist and Nationalist communities for the first time. To be meaningful, that support must be more than the verbal declarations that often pass for policing reform. Support implies people from Nationalist and Unionist areas joining a police service with a sense of pride, not guilt, and without censure from a community. It means serving and protecting the community as an indigenous part of it and, in turn, being protected by the community.

It means that Nationalists as well as Unionists will be involved in policing in a way which has not been possible since Northern Ireland was created. For Nationalists it will, for the first time, be the granting of allegiance to a system of policing with which they can identify politically and ideologically. That is an important point. That will be a quantum leap for Nationalists, and I recognise that. That is why we support the Patten Report. We believe that the Patten Report provides that opportunity, and for that reason, we welcome Peter Mandelson’s recent statement.

As a result of the agreement, there is great expectancy amongst people that we will get a peaceful, acceptable and agreeable form of government. In tandem with that, there is a great expectancy that we will have whole systems to which we can give our allegiance, including the police service. If we are not able to deliver that, then I fear for the consequences with regard to getting all our political views and all our political processes together.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

After four and a half hours of debate I still have a very substantial list of Members from a number of parties who wish to make contributions. Clearly, that is not possible. We also have to have the vote, and I have to assume that there will be a vote on the amendment as well as a vote on the substantive motion before 6.00 pm. The winding-up speeches for the amendment and the substantive motion also have to take place, and those who are winding up have to respond to some four and a half hours of debate. I therefore intend to call the Members who will be winding up on the amendment and on the substantive motion, with the intention of moving to the votes at 5.40 pm. This will give us approximately 10 minutes for each of the votes. This, I fear, will be very tight, so I must ask for your co-operation.

Seamus Close (Alliance, Lagan Valley)

The one thing that has become clear from today’s debate is that there has been, and still is, a great deal of pain throughout society. The other thing that is equally clear and obvious is that no one section of the community has a monopoly on that hurt and pain. If we all recognise those facts, then this debate will have served a useful purpose.

Another word which came through from a number of Members was the word "anger". I feel that the anger is often more painful than the injury that caused it in the first place, and I ask Members to take account of this fact.

It has to be recognised that the Patten Report has caused, in some of its recommendations, a degree of pain and hurt throughout society. However, it equally has to be recognised that there is a Patten Report because of this society’s past failures in finding an acceptable and democratic method by which to govern Northern Ireland. The point must be made that the old mentality of "Not an inch" or "No change" is exactly what got us into the mess in which we found ourselves.

Policing has been contentious, by and large, because the whole essence of politics in Northern Ireland has been contentious.

The consent principle, which is surely the effective cornerstone for policing in any democracy, has been absent. The Patten Report says that in contested space the role of those charged with keeping the peace has itself been contested.

Having listened to what has been said, I have no doubt that the areas that have caused the greatest hurt and pain, tugging hard at the heartstrings and at the emotions, are those that deal with the name and the badge. I can empathise with those who have lost relatives or friends because they were members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. I can understand the feelings of almost betrayal felt by those who have lost limbs or whose senses have suffered some terrible injury because they wore the badge and the uniform. Yes, there has been a feeling of hurt and, yes, there are memories. People can take anything else away, but they can never take away those memories. I believe that those memories, those sacrifices can be enriched and enhanced.

That would happen if all the leaders in this society did their utmost to ensure that the pain was not in vain, that the pain of some could be translated into gain for the entire community. The gain to which I refer would be a police service that has the consent of the entire community, where the police and the public work in partnership. Why? Because policing, in my opinion, is too important a job to be left to the police alone.

This can and will be achieved, not by quotas but by leadership, not by the hypocritical rantings of politicians who jump to the defence of the badge and the name of the RUC because they consider it politically expedient. Leaders who in the past, by their words and actions, physically and verbally abused the person, the individual, the man or woman who was wearing that badge and uniform simply because those individuals did not comply with their political or other agenda.

There is hurt and there is pain, but there is also the stench of hypocrisy from what I would refer to as the whited sepulchres masquerading as defenders of the police. There is also the stench of hypocrisy from those who condemn the police for, for example, alleged brutality. Leadership today is the vital catalyst that will change the pain into gain. That leadership must come from right across the entire spectrum of the community, but in a particular way. It must be seen to come from those who are regarded as the leaders and as the opinion-formers in the Catholic, Nationalist and Republican sections of the community.

The composition of the police force has been disproportionately Protestant and Unionist. This imbalance, for which there are many reasons, can only be addressed by more recruits from what is euphemistically referred to as "the other side". The type of leadership that I am calling for today can only enhance the chances of that happening, and happening quickly. Those who have been in the vanguard in calling for change have now got to put up or shut up. It is not good enough to advocate a wait-and-see policy. It is time for active, not passive, leadership.

The GAA, for example, should come off the fence and encourage its supporters and activists to enlist now. It can do that by changing rule 21. It can call a special meeting of its organisation, if necessary, to enable that to happen quickly. Republicans, who could show Oliver Twist a thing or two about asking for more, should embrace the sentiments in the motto of the city of Belfast — "Pro tanto quid retribuamus" — and ask "For so much, what return can we make to this society?"

They should stop their begrudging, stop their whingeing. It is time for generosity of spirit. It is time for give and take, not just take. It is time for the entire community to help the police emerge from their metamorphosis strengthened and improved, having the support not just of part of this community, but rather the confidence and support of the entire community. I call on the House to take the first step now.

There are two certainties. One is that the police are not going to be disbanded; the other is that the Patten Report is not going to be scrapped. Let us deal with the realities. Let us support this amendment and send out a message of hope rather than the negative messages of "No movement" and "Not an inch" that are the essence of the motion. I appeal in particular to the Ulster Unionists, who have sat here this afternoon and had the stick dragged across their backs by the Democratic Unionists, to support the amendment. The changes they want can be brought about by changes in legislation. Do not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Peter Robinson (DUP, Belfast East)

I will not be deflected by the pious preaching of the holier-than-thou, whiter-than-white Alliance Party. It is sufficient to leave on record its view that a motion to safeguard and retain the Royal Ulster Constabulary is a negative motion. We will see what its electorate has to say about its judgement on that issue.

It was wise of my Colleague Mr Dodds, when he was asked to move the motion last week, to withdraw it in favour of a fuller debate. The House has benefited from that. On top of that, of course, the recent announcement by the Secretary of State has made this issue all the more urgent and topical. If the House had not addressed the issue at a time when everyone outside was addressing it, we would have looked very foolish indeed.

This is a deep wound for the pro-British, law-abiding community in Northern Ireland. It is a self-inflicted wound. Its derivation is very clear. It comes directly and unmistakably from the Belfast Agreement. That is unquestionable. Is it any wonder that Chris Patten should cry out in exasperation "What did they expect?"? When one looks at the section of the Belfast Agreement dealing with policing, and in particular at the terms of reference for the Patten Commission, what else could one have expected?

The terms of reference are clearly defined. Let anybody who suggests that the change of the RUC’s name and badge came as a bolt out of the blue tell me what was meant by the agreement that was signed. It stated that a new police force should be designed. It dealt with issues such as policing arrangements including composition, recruitment, training, culture, ethos and symbols. What else could have been expected? Chris Patten went on to say

"I don’t say this provocatively, but it really does seem to me that we were given a very clear agenda, and I’m surprised that those who gave us that agenda did not understand what the consequences would be."

I take issue with him on only one aspect of his statement. They could not but have understood. They were told over and over and over again. They were told by all of my colleagues who were opposed to the Belfast Agreement, and this was one of the four key areas that we highlighted during the referendum campaign.

We told people very clearly that this would lead to the destruction of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Many people may well ask themselves "What advice did our politicians give us during that campaign? We did not know that this was going to happen." The advice of the Ulster Unionist Party was that it would not happen. It wrongly analysed the issue, or else it sought to deceive the people. But then deceiving the people is an interesting phenomenon. I notice that the Secretary of State had something to say about that in the House of Commons to the Member of Parliament for Fermanagh and South Tyrone, Mr Maginnis. He said

"I am surprised that he chooses to say something different in public from what he has said to me in private."

The people of Fermanagh and South Tyrone — indeed, the people of Northern Ireland and, more particularly, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, whom he is paid to represent — have a right to know what he was saying in private that is so different from what he is saying publicly.

The next day in ‘The Times’, Mathew Parris perhaps hit the nail on the head when he said

"You could feel Mr Mandelson’s anger rise. ‘I’m surprised he chooses to say these things’ he observed with cold fury. The punch which followed was hardly pulled, the implication inescapable: that behind closed doors together, Mr Maginnis had offered support to Mr Mandelson’s hopes for the RUC, but here, perhaps for show at home, he was making a display of opposition, speaking ‘differently in public from what he says in private’."

Mr Parris then observed

"Mr Maginnis looked gobsmacked, did not come back for more, and stayed gobsmacked for the rest of the session".

The people of Northern Ireland deserve an answer. What was the distinction between the private messages that the Ulster Unionist Party was giving to the Secretary of State about the acceptability of these proposals and what it was saying in public? And the synthetic anger of the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party in Westminster fools no one. He could not have been surprised. He is at least an intelligent man. He must therefore have understood what he was signing up to, and he must have understood that this was the outworking of the agreement that he had reached.

With regard to the name of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, I note also the basic principle enshrined in the Government’s argument that this will be a factor in encouraging the Catholic and Nationalist community to join the new force. Not so, according to the Police Authority, and I put on record its views from its statement on this issue:

"Our view remains that the name is arguably one of the least significant factors deterring Catholics from joining the RUC. There is no reliable evidence to show that changing the name would produce any significant increase in recruits from the Catholic community and in the absence of this we have a real fear that the proposal will alienate a large section of the community without having any appreciable impact on the problem it is designed to solve".

I ask for support for this motion. It is of critical importance not just to the Royal Ulster Constabulary but also to this Province. My Colleague, in opening this debate, challenged the House with a question. He asked if anybody conceivably thought that if all of Nationalism was united against a proposal being considered by the Government, that the Government would proceed. Everyone knows the answer. However, during the debate Nationalists have not been prepared to face up to that question.

The reality is that if Nationalists had been opposed to it — and opposed as vociferously and strongly and passionately as Unionists are — it would never have seen the light of day. The Secretary of State would never have stood up in the House of Commons to advance it. Everyone knows that that is the case.

But it is the Unionists who are against it. Have we less right to be heard and to be taken into account than Nationalists? The Assembly by its vote today can give a clear message to the Secretary of State and to the Prime Minister. If every Unionst in the Chamber votes in favour of the motion, we are putting to the Government that they do not have the support of at least this section of the Unionist community. If the Belfast Agreement meant anything when it said that widespread support was required and that there had to be greater support for the new structure than the old, the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister could not conceviably proceed with this proposal.

The Royal Ulster Constabulary has a proud record which deservedly won for the force the George Cross. No police force, especially not one serving in the circumstances that apply in Northern Ireland, could be stainless. No political party, no Church, no organisation anywhere in this Province can say that it has never made a mistake. Certainly no politician could say that. On balance, the role performed by the Royal Ulster Constabulary outshines many organisations and certainly outshines its detractors.

We must take into account not only the role that the force has performed under difficult circumstances but also its gallantry. We must remember the sacrifice by so many of its members — 302 of whom were killed defending our streets and our homes. Some 9,000 members of the RUC were maimed or mutilated. More than 400,000 people signed a petition to the Secretary of State in support of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. In UK terms that represents between 15 million and 20 million people. In those circumstances would the Secretary of State have proceeded?

Let us make the vote a clear message from the Unionist Benches and let us see whether Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson are prepared to listen to the Unionist community’s — I hope — united voice.

Question put

The Assembly divided: Ayes 28; Noes 65.

Ayes

Alex Attwood, Eileen Bell, P J Bradley, Joe Byrne, Seamus Close, John Dallat, Arthur Doherty, Mark Durkan, Sean Farren, John Fee, David Ford, Tommy Gallagher, Carmel Hanna, Denis Haughey, Joe Hendron, Patricia Lewsley, Alban Maginness, Seamus Mallon, Kieran McCarthy, Donovan McClelland, Alasdair McDonnell, Eddie McGrady, Eugene McMenamin, Monica McWilliams, Sean Neeson, Danny O’Connor, Eamonn ONeill, John Tierney.

Noes

Ian Adamson, Fraser Agnew, Billy Armstrong, Roy Beggs, Billy Bell, Tom Benson, Paul Berry, Esmond Birnie, Norman Boyd, Gregory Campbell, Mervyn Carrick, Joan Carson, Wilson Clyde, Fred Cobain, Robert Coulter, Duncan Shipley Dalton, Ivan Davis, Bairbre de Brún, Nigel Dodds, Pat Doherty, Boyd Douglas, Reg Empey, Sam Foster, Oliver Gibson, John Gorman, William Hay, David Hilditch, Derek Hussey, Gardiner Kane, Gerry Kelly, John Kelly, Danny Kennedy, James Leslie, Alex Maskey, Robert McCartney, David McClarty, William McCrea, Barry McElduff, Alan McFarland, Martin McGuinness, Gerry McHugh, Mitchel McLaughlin, Francie Molloy, Maurice Morrow, Conor Murphy, Mick Murphy, Mary Nelis, Dermot Nesbitt, Ian Paisley Jnr, Ian R K Paisley, Edwin Poots, Sue Ramsey, Iris Robinson, Ken Robinson, Mark Robinson, Peter Robinson, Patrick Roche, George Savage, Jim Shannon, Denis Watson, Peter Weir, Jim Wells, Cedric Wilson, Jim Wilson, Sammy Wilson.

Question accordingly negatived.

Main Question put.

The Assembly divided: Ayes 50; Noes 42.

Ayes

Ian Adamson, Fraser Agnew, Billy Armstrong, Roy Beggs, Billy Bell, Tom Benson, Paul Berry, Esmond Birnie, Norman Boyd, Gregory Campbell, Mervyn Carrick, Joan Carson, Wilson Clyde, Fred Cobain, Robert Coulter, Duncan Shipley Dalton, Ivan Davis, Nigel Dodds, Boyd Douglas, Sam Foster, Oliver Gibson, John Gorman, William Hay, David Hilditch, Derek Hussey, Gardiner Kane, Danny Kennedy, James Leslie, Robert McCartney, David McClarty, William McCrea, Alan McFarland, Maurice Morrow, Dermot Nesbitt, Ian Paisley Jnr, Ian R K Paisley, Edwin Poots, Iris Robinson, Ken Robinson, Mark Robinson, Peter Robinson, Patrick Roche, George Savage, Jim Shannon, Denis Watson, Peter Weir, Jim Wells, Cedric Wilson, Jim Wilson, Sammy Wilson.

Noes

Alex Attwood, Eileen Bell, P J Bradley, Joe Byrne, Seamus Close, John Dallat, Bairbre de Brún, Arthur Doherty, Pat Doherty, Mark Durkan, Sean Farren, John Fee, David Ford, Tommy Gallagher, Carmel Hanna, Denis Haughey, Joe Hendron, Gerry Kelly, John Kelly, Patricia Lewsley, Alban Maginness, Seamus Mallon, Alex Maskey, Kieran McCarthy, Donovan McClelland, Alasdair McDonnell, Barry McElduff, Eddie McGrady, Martin McGuinness, Gerry McHugh, Mitchel McLaughlin, Eugene McMenamin, Monica McWilliams, Francie Molloy, Conor Murphy, Mick Murphy, Sean Neeson, Mary Nelis, Danny O’Connor, Eamonn ONeill, Sue Ramsey, John Tierney.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Resolved:

This House rejects the Patten Commission’s report and calls upon the Secretary of State to reject proposals which would reward and elevate terrorists while demoralising and destroying the Royal Ulster Constabulary, whose members, both full-time and part-time, have diligently and with great distinction served the whole community.

The sitting was suspended at 6.10 pm.