Northern Ireland Assembly, 27 February 2001

130 contributions from 35 members. The official report.

Care for the Elderly

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Before the motion is moved, I will advise the House how I intend to conduct the debate. Given that the first two motions on the Order Paper refer to the same fields of endeavour, I propose to take both in the context of one debate. The first motion will be moved, and when the proposers of the second motion are here, it will be moved. When it comes to the vote, each will be taken seriatim — the Minister having had an opportunity to respond.

John Kelly (Sinn Féin, Mid Ulster)

On a point of order, a Cheann Comhairle. Can you give us some guidance on the second motion, which notes the decision of the Scottish Parliament to provide the elderly with free nursing and personal care? Technically that is not correct. We have since been informed that, while Scotland has agreed to pay for the nursing aspect, it has decided to set up a working group to consider the personal care element. We are in favour of debating the motion, but, technically, the second part is not correct.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

That sounds like excellent content for a speech in the debate. While motions may be competent, some of their content may not, in fact, be correct. That may be what the Member is suggesting in this case. I will leave it to be decided in the debate and for the Minister to respond to.

Kieran McCarthy (Alliance, Strangford)

I beg to move

That this Assembly calls on the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety to implement in full in Northern Ireland the recommendations contained in the report by the Royal Commission on Long-Term Care published in March 1999.

The following motion stood in the Order Paper:

That this Assembly notes the decision of the Scottish Parliament to provide the elderly with free nursing and personal care and calls on the Executive Committee to make similar provision for the elderly in Northern Ireland and to promote the greater well-being of the elderly in this part of the United Kingdom. — [Mr Dodds]

Kieran McCarthy (Alliance, Strangford)

I am sure that we are all grateful to be here this morning given the traffic conditions — I certainly had difficulty in getting here. I seek the support of the Assembly for this motion and, indeed, for the next motion entitled ‘Care for the Elderly’ brought to the Assembly by our Colleague, Mr Nigel Dodds.

In relation to old age, the Royal Commission’s report on long-term care is a very thorough and detailed document, with some 196 pages of very relevant information. It contains some 24 recommendations. The Commission concludes:

"we urge the Government to implement as many of our proposals as possible."

It makes it clear that the need for change is pressing, and I hope that the Assembly will give its full blessing to those sentiments today. I am grateful that the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety is present this morning to listen to the debate. I was encouraged by her response to my question on the Floor of this House on 15 January 2001, when she said:

"I will be looking at ways in which we can help to meet the needs and reduce the uncertainty and distress of older people." — [Vol 8, No 5, p215].

That was a very positive response by a caring and sympathetic Health Minister, which we must all welcome.

The Westminster Government have responded reasonably positively to many of the recommendations in the Royal Commission’s report, including free National Health Service nursing care from October 2001. However, they have not embraced the recommendation that personal care should also be freely available, determined only by need. The report states:

"Personal care should be available after an assessment, according to need and paid for from general taxation".

This must surely be unfair, and it will lead to inequalities if the Government make this division. However, let us give some credit to the Government for what is called "Care in the Community", even though, like for so many other things, funding for it falls far short. At least "care in the community" provides care that allows elderly people to remain in their own homes and with their families for as long as is humanly possible.

Unfortunately, the time comes — for one reason or another — when care in either residential or nursing accommodation is required. At that time, the question of who will pay for the service becomes apparent. Growing old should not mean growing in fear — worried about how one will pay the cost of needing to live the rest of one’s life in dignity.

For many years, elderly members of society have been afraid that, with ageing, they will be forced to sell their homes and all their possessions, and that they will have to use their savings to provide for the basic needs of old age.

The Royal Commission’s report admits that many old people find the current system of provision unfair and feel that it is failing to meet their reasonable expectations. Many believe that they have paid into a system, through the National Insurance scheme, which they were led to believe would look after them in later life, whatever their needs would be.

At a key point in their lives, people find that they are expected to pay, out of the assets that they have accumulated over a lifetime, for care that they had expected previously to be free. This must surely result in a sense of betrayal. The Assembly must therefore ask for the provision of nursing and personal care that will be provided on the basis of need and nothing else.

As I have said before, in many ways the problems that elderly people face are part of the larger problem of an inadequately- funded care in the community programme. The Treasury has not provided the resources necessary to allow people to be cared for in their homes — be that because they are disabled, mentally ill or elderly. As the money has not been provided, the Government have declared that the needs brought on by age do not entitle somebody to the basic help required to live a dignified life. This approach means that they do not have to fund it. That is wrong and immoral.

As Age Concern stated recently

"The loss of the ability to care for oneself is distressing enough without the added indignity of being means-tested and charged for services which one would rather not have to use at all."

We should not make the lives of elderly people more difficult by denying them their basic rights to the care that they need. However, this is what we are doing. Indeed, as the Scottish health boards’ network reported in September 2000

"There is still a tendency to fit people into services rather than fitting services around people".

That is simply not good enough. We must stop providing for the elderly on the basis of what is available or what we want to pay for, and start to provide on the basis of what the elderly need. We should stop putting people in nursing homes because there are insufficient resources to support them in their own homes. In the final analysis, if a nursing home is required it should be funded entirely from taxation.

The Government’s response to the Royal Commission’s idea of providing care on the basis of need is to argue that although the Government have the money to do this, making personal care universally free is not the best use of resources. They prefer not to spend money on ensuring that the elderly can live lives that are as independent and fulfilling as possible. This response is unfair.

Take, for example, the case of someone suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, a medical condition that leads to increasing levels of disability and the inability to care for oneself. Dementia is also one of its symptoms. Sufferers’ needs may not be assessed as being health needs. The funding system does not view a high level of nursing care as one of their requirements. Therefore dementia sufferers might receive little or no NHS funding. The Government are refusing to fund the care needed to alleviate this symptom. This is in complete contrast to the Government’s treatment of the symptoms and consequences of any other disease. Surely something is wrong with that analysis.

The Government’s response is to say that they do not need to provide for old people’s personal care requirements because the elderly can provide that for themselves. I say to Westminster that that is wrong. I hope that our Health Minister will accept my argument and act accordingly.

We must also treat the elderly with respect, dignity and fairness as well. We must provide for their needs. Scotland reached that very conclusion after examining the problem. Its Parliament, not its Executive, decided that more resources should be spent on providing personal care, not just for the elderly, but for all those who need it. I understand that Wales would like to do the same thing. We in Northern Ireland owe our constituents the same concern and action. We must implement the Royal Commission’s report, provide free personal care, and support the elderly and those who care for them. Put simply, the essence of the commission’s many recommendations is a question of equality for everyone and privilege for none.

We thank the Royal Commission for its work. I hope that the Assembly will support both this morning’s motions. All elderly people will benefit. We should remember that we will all be elderly some day.

The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said before the last election that he did not want to live in a country where the only way pensioners could get long-term care was by having to sell their homes. I hope that he will ensure that that cannot happen before the next election.

The motto of the author of the report is:

"The moral test of Government is how that Government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life — the sick, the needy and the handicapped."

I hope that the Health Minister accepts this noble motto and that we can advance the findings of the Royal Commission. I trust that Members will support the motion.

Nigel Dodds (DUP, Belfast North)

I am sorry that I was not here for the early part of Mr McCarthy’s speech. However, I endorse everything that I did hear. This is a very important debate. The long-term care of the elderly is one of the issues that should be at the top of the agenda for the Assembly and the Executive. Many people will be aware of the importance that the Scottish Parliament placed on this subject and of the fact that, to a large extent, it has dominated the politics of that region for some time.

When myself and my Colleague Mr Paisley Jnr tabled the motion, one of the issues that we wanted to address — as, I am sure, did Mr McCarthy — was the fact that, although the Royal Commission report was published in 1999 and the United Kingdom Government responded in July 2000, it is now February 2001 and a spokeswoman for the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety is telling us that it is still working on "a detailed response to the Royal Commission’s long-term care for the elderly." I presume that that means its report.

In the ‘Belfast Telegraph’ of 26 January 2001 that spokeswoman went on to say

"That response will include the introduction of free nursing care in all settings including nursing homes and changes in capital limits in assessing the ability of residents to contribute to costs of residential care."

I welcome that commitment in so far as it goes, but I hope that the Minister will give some firm proposals today or at least give us an idea when that may be expected. The elderly and those who are in need of care in Northern Ireland are entitled by now to know exactly the direction in which we intend to go as far as the Royal Commission’s report is concerned. Some of the issues that were outlined have already been prominent in the debate.

A growing proportion of the Province’s population is elderly, and, according to Help the Aged in Northern Ireland, the vast majority who are in need of long-term care are older people. About four per cent of those in need of long- term care are over 65, and 16% of those over 85 are likely to need some form of support. The issue for elected representatives is simple. Many, if not all, elderly people have contributed through taxes and National Insurance to what they believed would be a system that would ensure that when they were old and in need of help due to disease or disability, the state would be there to help them.

We found that in many cases where care is needed they have been asked to pay for that and, in effect, to pay twice. As an Assembly of elected representatives, we have a duty to address that. The prospect of having to use up all their savings and sell the family home to pay for what, in many cases, they rightly regard as care that should flow from their particular condition, disease or disability has caused great distress and anxiety amongst older people and their families.

Mr McCarthy has already mentioned people with Alzheimer’s disease. That is a classic example. Under the proposals in the response issued by Tony Blair’s Government to the Royal Commission’s report, care provided by nurses in certain conditions will be given free of charge. However, the sort of care that people suffering from Alzheimer’s need as a result of their condition may not be covered. That is simply unacceptable. We have to address that as a matter of urgency.

Like the Royal Commission, we recognize that there are certain costs that we can reasonably expect people to meet. The Royal Commission divided the issue of care into a number of categories. It said that living and accommodation costs were the sort of costs that you could reasonably expect people to contribute to. However, when it came to nursing and personal care, the Royal Commission said that those costs should be met out of general taxation. There may be different views about the way to pay for this care. Should it be paid for from general taxation or through some sort of voluntary or compulsory insurance scheme? I believe that general taxation is the right approach. Whatever approach one has the fact is that elderly people in need of nursing and personal care should not be expected to pay for it.

We have seen a lengthy debate in Scotland on this issue. The Scottish Executive, having come under considerable pressure not least from within its own coalition where the Liberal Democrats exerted considerable pressure on the Labour Party, were forced into a position where they had to recognise that simply allowing free nursing care without free personal care would be running away from the recommendations of the Sutherland Report and the obligations that society has to our old people in need of care.

They have now set up a working group and have importantly, gone further by saying that they accept, in principle, the obligation to meet the cost of personal care. That is the way the Assembly should go. We should accept, in principle, that this is the right approach. We are not saying that we should set down timetables and deadlines today. We are saying to the Minister that she should accept that this is the will of the Assembly. We are saying that we as the Northern Ireland Assembly, on behalf of Northern Ireland and the people we represent, believe that people are entitled to free nursing and free personal care if they are elderly and in need of that care. It used to be a great saying in the Labour Party — I do not know whether it still believes it in England and Wales in light of the response to the Royal Commission’s report — that health needs should be met from the cradle to the grave and that they should be free at the point of use to all.

It seems to me that that principle has been abandoned. We in Northern Ireland need to address the issue, and that is why I welcome the debate.

I hope that we can concentrate on the principle at issue. Some Members may trot out excuses and arguments about why we should not go down this line; that would be to let our elderly population down. We are not saying "Let us spend more, more, more", without considering the finances. We recognise that all such things have costs. We recognise, for instance, that treating people who have cancer, heart disease or other health problems costs money. Is anyone seriously suggesting that we should look at the matter in terms of people’s wealth or of the cost? Of course, we must address that issue, but the health needs of the population are the most important thing, and we have a duty to meet those needs as far as possible. No Member would ever argue that, because cancer treatment was becoming more and more expensive, we ought not to treat people. It will take time and hard work, but we must address the issues.

We could say many things about the Royal Commission’s report. The report does not deal only with nursing and personal care; there are many other proposals in it that, I hope, the Minister will also address. My motion concentrates on the issue of free care because that is a matter of particular concern to many elderly people in the Province. I welcome the proposal that, for the first three months, people will not be forced into making a decision that means that they must sell the family home and that there will be a period during which they can change their minds. That is an important recommendation, although the capital limits should be increased to make the idea more realistic. In Northern Ireland, the current limit beyond which people are asked to pay in full for care is £16,000 in savings or the value of their homes. That figure is far too low and should be increased considerably if people are to avoid being forced to sell the family home.

There is also the suggestion, included in the Royal Commission’s proposals, that there should be a national care commission. In other jurisdictions it has been agreed that a commission to set standards and monitor developments should be set up. That is an important proposal, and we should give priority to it in Northern Ireland.

Today’s debate is, essentially, about principles. It is about whether the Assembly will set out the direction in which it wants the Department and the Minister to go. If we were to adopt a different course from that followed by the Scottish Parliament, our senior citizens would have every right to ask why they were being treated differently from their Scottish counterparts. They are entitled to receive the same, not as a handout but as a birthright.

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

Since the debate began, I have received a number of requests to speak. Given that the debate has a time limit, Members should restrict their comments to six minutes.

Even then, all Members will not get a chance to speak. However, I must restrict the time for speaking, particularly as some Members have made quite a struggle to get here this morning.

Joe Hendron (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Belfast West)

I endorse what Kieran McCarthy and Nigel Dodds have said. My Committee hopes that the Minister — together with the support of the Executive Committee — will implement fully the findings of the Royal Commission on Long Term Care for the Elderly. If we cannot look after our own folk then we should not be here. I am reminded of the words of an anonymous poet as regards an elderly person living in a small cottage in a rural area:

"For age of pace comes at last to all and the lone house filled with the cricket squall."

Our senior citizens need two things above all else. One is to retain their independence, particularly because of pride and self-esteem, and the second is to remain living in their own community. The Assembly will surely support both those things.

There are some important points as regards helping elderly people remain independent. For example, how many elderly people are wearing spectacles that they have had for years? How many of them have not had eye tests? How many elderly people have defective hearing? Sometimes it can be caused by something simple such as a plug of wax, which is easily dealt with. Ill-fitting dentures can also be a major problem, and there may be a need for chiropody services.

How many elderly people live alone and do not eat proper foodstuffs? They need at least one proper meal per day. Urinary tract infections are most common in the elderly, as is incontinence. Diabetes is also a problem, and some people say that if you live long enough you will get diabetes. It is something that must be detected in elderly people.

In the home, an extra banister on the stairs would help some people, and they should not have to wait two years for an occupational therapist to make such a recommendation.

Any two of the points I have made — for example, failing eyesight and defective hearing — can lead to confusion in people. There is also the situation as regards the carer — often an unmarried son or daughter — who is trying to do their best to look after the elderly person. As situations develop we enter the stage of crisis management, in which the emphasis can lie in getting the elderly person to move into some form of institutional care. Carers must be looked after also.

The Royal Commission on Long Term Care for the Elderly reported in March 1999. It had been set up by the Government to recommend a sustainable and affordable system for funding long-term care, and it spent slightly more than one year considering the matter.

The report identified the current funding system as a source of considerable grievance among elderly people and their relatives and that there were many inequalities. There were 24 recommendations. The two major recommendations were that personal care following assessment should be free of charge and that a National Care Commission should be established to monitor trends and set standards.

The Scottish Parliament voted to accept the Commission’s recommendations and has since set up a working party to consider how they can be implemented. None of the Royal Commission’s 24 recommendations have been implemented in Northern Ireland. With its unique integrated health and social services, Northern Ireland has an ideal opportunity to ensure that nursing and social care should be regarded as a seamless continuum, all free at the point of delivery.

I realise that time is running out. Concerning home care, much greater investment is needed to help elderly people to stay mobile and independent. Home care is a crucial service. It needs to be funded to a level that enables the elderly person to be comfortable and secure, and to have a decent quality of life.

My final point is that an effective primary care service is essential to promote the health, well-being and independence of older people. There is currently a major debate on the future of primary care. As an integral part of that, and in relation to the Minister’s document ‘Building the Way Forward In Primary Care’, it is important that we have a bottom-up approach — a primary-care-led Health Service. That way we can have what we want — a first-class service for elderly people. If it can be done in Scotland, we should be able to do it in Northern Ireland.

Tommy Gallagher (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Fermanagh and South Tyrone)

I support the motion and most of what has been said. I will draw attention to some of the recommendations, which should, with one possible exception, be accepted. I will come to that. The most important recommendation deals with making personal care available after an assessment. Nobody could object to that, provided that we can find the funds to cover both the medical and personal care. We have to do that in the context of a finite budget, and some consideration must be given to where the money will be found. It is still unclear how much money will be required for the personal care element.

A case can be made for the costs of medical care to be paid by the National Health Service for elderly people in residential care, because if they were in hospital the medical care would be free.

The Scottish Executive — not without reservation — have agreed to the payment of personal care for all. They have agreed from October 2001 to free National Health Service nursing care. In implementing a wider package of measures, the Scottish Executive are hoping to bring the maximum benefit to the greatest number of people. As some Members know, the Scottish Executive have decided to set up a working group to look at the implementation of the personal care proposals. That group will report in August.

I would like the Northern Ireland Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety to set up a working group here to consider the details of the Scottish proposals for personal care and to look at the implications for our budget of such proposals being implemented in Northern Ireland. The Royal Commission’s recommendation is that the Government should ascertain precisely how much money goes towards supporting older people in residential settings and in their homes. Undertaking that is quite a complex task. We must give some thought to devising a community care policy that will help as many elderly people as possible to stay in their own homes. The value of an individual’s home was referred to earlier, and the recommendation in the Royal Commission’s report is reasonable and should be accepted here.

There can be no argument with other measures that refer to bringing about increased efficiency and improved quality in the system, including emphasis on a more client-centred approach.

The majority of the recommendations have been broadly accepted by the Government in London and by the Scottish Parliament. There is therefore no case for their not being accepted and implemented in Northern Ireland. The exception to which I referred is recommendation 7, which calls for the resources that underpin the residential allowance in income support to be transferred to local authorities. I am not sure about the implications of that for our centralised social services system. There may well be no need to implement that recommendation in Northern Ireland.

Robert Coulter (UUP, North Antrim)

I thank the Members in whose names these motions stand for giving us an opportunity to debate this important issue. We are dealing with one of the most vulnerable sections of society. We have already talked about children, now we are talking about the elderly. No one wishes to deny the elderly the care that they deserve in the twilight of their lives. Mr Dodds laid the foundation for our debate when he said that we were debating the principle. There are financial issues, but it is imperative that we consider seriously the principle of caring for the elderly.

It is an indictment of this generation that the elderly have to sell their possessions to pay for care, especially when we recall that they were given the assurance of free care when they reached the twilight of life. The Assembly should take on board the principle that our generation can do something about the problems of the elderly.

I am glad that the Care Standards Act 2000 has brought into being the National Care Standards Commission. Will all of that Act apply to Northern Ireland? If not, the Minister should give priority to such a measure for Northern Ireland. If we wanted, we could follow the establishment of the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care by putting in place a structure that would allow us to address the problems that we are debating.

The Care Standards Act 2000 will allow for the publication of statutory guidance on fairer charging arrangements for services provided at home. As we consider the care needs of the elderly, we must remember that they need two types of care, either away from home — in a hospital or in a nursing home — or in their own home. I am sure that all of us are largely happy with the way in which our elderly people are cared for in nursing homes. However, there are many questions about the care of the elderly in the community. I am glad that Dr Hendron has introduced the idea that meeting the needs of the elderly should be enshrined not only in community care but in primary care, which is where most of the elderly first have their needs considered. Has the Department examined the financial implications of adopting the Scottish model? What areas would be deprived of finance, if we were to go ahead with the proposal that free care be given to the elderly?

I am glad that we have been given this opportunity. Those who are in charge of community care should consider ways of providing further help to old people who live at home, perhaps by increasing the amount of time during which home helps would be available. Then we should consider the establishment of a commission to examine all the needs of the elderly.

John Kelly (Sinn Féin, Mid Ulster)

Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. I thank Mr Dodds and Mr McCarthy for giving us the opportunity to debate the matter. I met an old friend recently and asked him how he was. He said that he was "walking slow and going fast". That is the plight of many of our older generation. Nigel Dodds is quite right to point out that the principle of socialism "from the cradle to the grave" has been jettisoned, by and large, by the Labour Party. However, that should not hinder us from adopting that very worthy socialist principle in the House. Care for the elderly should be the prime objective of any caring society. Indeed, it is the hallmark of a caring society.

Again, I congratulate Nigel Dodds for setting down very realistic parameters within which we can achieve a proper scheme for caring for the elderly that is financially viable and worked out. It is sad in many ways that we have to talk in such terms when we talk about care for the elderly.

Today, there will be a seminar about bonded slaves. In many ways, our old people are bonded slaves because they are expected to give up their state pension and their private pension. Their houses are put at risk — it is not just their own house but also that of their spouse — and can be taken from them to pay for the care that they are entitled to in a nursing home or in some other form of residential care.

We know that we are reaching a very high age profile in our society because of the medical care available. We should be thankful for the medical care, which is providing us with an older generation. However, that brings with it the responsibilities we owe to those who are growing old because of the medical care they have received. However, when they get older and are expecting to enjoy their retirement or old age, many are unfortunately afflicted with illnesses. A man who reaches 75 will spend seven years in illness — a woman, 11 years. We have to factor in all of that when the Assembly is considering its attitude to the care of older people.

As we have said, we accept the principle of caring for our old people. We also accept that it is going to cost money and that we have to find the money to care for those who have given so much to our society. They have contributed not just in their own way but have given children to this society. Those children have made this society and are still in their own ways trying to create a better society.

I support the motion. I again thank Kieran McCarthy and Nigel Dodds for giving us the opportunity to debate the essential issue of caring for the elderly. I ask the Minister to look sympathetically at the issue and treat it urgently within the parameters we have set down.

Paul Berry (DUP, Newry and Armagh)

I commend Mr Dodds and Mr McCarthy for putting down these motions. They are very important motions, and it is most important that we debate the issue of care for the elderly.

I am sure that we are all aware that the majority in need of long-term care are older people. About four per cent of those aged over 65 and 16% of those aged over 85 are likely to be in need of some form of support and care. With an ageing population, it is expected that the number of people who need support will rise substantially over the next 30 years before levelling off.

When I was researching this very important subject I noticed a presentation by the Healthy Life Expectancy programme to the Royal Commission on Long-Term Care, in which it said that it was:

"working in an international community, to establish the changes in patterns of health through the presentation and the present demographic transition, and with their consequences for health policies."

It continued

"Many future estimates of the need for long-term care tend to be pessimistic.

They tend to assume that current age-specific rates of disability will continue."

It further said:

"There are considerable variations between areas of the UK. The empirical evidence from the UK remains slight, though it is supported by corresponding results in other developed countries. There is an urgent need for a national survey of health and disability, particularly for elderly people, which will establish the incidence rates of ill-health and recovery, and allow us to project the future need for long-term care with much greater certainty."

It was also very interesting to note that the National Association of British Steel Pensioners recommended changes in care for the elderly. Its view is that good health is necessary to the enjoyment of retired life and that the elderly should have equal access to high-quality health-care and freedom from the worry of having to pay for long-term health-care. Among the association’s recommendations — and this point was also made by the Chairperson of the Health and Social Services Committee — is that NHS spectacles, frames and lenses be provided free for older people. I trust that the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety will take this and all the other recommendations on board. The association also called for the provision of free dental treatment for the elderly; NHS treatment according to clinical need; and the outlawing of age discrimination.

Many of the recommendations of organisations such as this should be taken on board as soon as possible. The Royal Commission on Long-Term Care has outlined three key principles, the first of which is as follows:

"Responsibility for provision now and in the future should be shared between the state and individuals — the aim is to find a division affordable for both and one which people can understand and accept as fair and logical."

The Commission also concluded that

"doing nothing with respect to the current system is not an option."

It is incumbent upon all Members, the Department and the Minister to take note of this very important debate. We must examine all of the issues raised and make the right decisions for the elderly here. Elderly people across Northern Ireland have been the rock and the steadfast element of this Province for many years. It is most important that we look after them. After all, they have looked after us.

I commend once again the Members who moved these motions and trust that all of these issues will be taken on board by the Department and the Executive.

Ian Adamson (UUP, Belfast East)

There is no doubt that our elderly citizens are not getting the attention they deserve from the Health Service in Northern Ireland. We need to address their needs rather than short-change them. However, we should not underestimate the excellence of geriatric services, generally, in Northern Ireland.

The elderly care department of the Ulster Hospital is at the centre of the development of stroke services in the Province, particularly through the Northern Ireland Multi-disciplinary Association for Stroke Teams (NIMAST). The new treatment of thrombolysis for acute ischaemic stroke, if licensed, will provide a catalyst for a major change in the way that acute stoke patients are treated both in hospital and in the community.

A recent Stroke Association survey and Royal College of Physicians national stroke audit indicated that Northern Ireland has the highest percentage of organised stroke unit care in the United Kingdom and that standards of care for strokes are extremely high. The recently published Royal College of Physicians of London guidelines for strokes will further challenge both purchasers and providers in Northern Ireland and, I hope, result in further improvement in standards. NIMAST is committed to working closely with the Royal College to try to ensure regional implementation of those guidelines, so that the older people of Northern Ireland have the best possible chance not just to survive a stroke but to avoid permanent disability and institutionalisation as a result. Furthermore, the osteoporosis unit in Belfast City Hospital’s Wakehurst unit is the best in Ireland, and its personnel are world-class. Modern developments in treatment are having, significant effect on the well-being of all elderly people here.

Dementia — a serious condition which affects older people — has already been mentioned. The most common form of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease, followed by vascular dementia and Lewy body disease. There are others that I have forgotten; my memory is not what it was. Frequently patients display features of two or more of these types of dementia at the same time. The diagnosis and management of dementia has always been a priority of the Department of Geriatric Medicine at Queen’s University, Belfast, and the availability of new treatments for new forms of dementia means that early diagnosis and distinction between types is now much more important.

The elderly people of Northern Ireland who have received such expert care in geriatric hospitals should receive the same standard of care in the community. We need to look closely at a more effective integration of health and social care services.

Monica McWilliams (NIWC, Belfast South)

I have some difficulty with one of the motions in particular, because I have read the report of the very contentious and heated debate on this in the Scottish Parliament. A Committee held an inquiry into how those recommendations would fit with Scotland and came up with recommendations very similar to the Royal Commission’s report, yet the Executive did not accept the Committee’s report. Would that ever happen here? I recall that exactly that happened here with another Committee’s report, so there is a parallel to be drawn with the decision of the Scottish Executive on the Royal Commission’s report. It could not budget for this particular recommendation.

Nigel Dodds (DUP, Belfast North)

I realise that, for obvious reasons, the Member was not here at the start, but I made a point then about what the Scottish Executive had done. I quote from Mr Chisholm, the Deputy Minister for Health and Community Care in Scotland:

"In the Scottish Parliament we shall draw proposals for the implementation of free personal care for all. We accept the principle of Sutherland".

There is no doubt that the Scottish Executive have committed themselves to that principle, as the Minister said himself. That is what a lot of the earlier debate focused on.

Monica McWilliams (NIWC, Belfast South)

I apologise for coming late to the debate — I was attending the conference of the Registered Homes Confederation at the Waterfront Hall on this very issue. It is rare that the Assembly debates a motion on the same day as a major conference on a related subject. This one was on the lack of residential and nursing care and the ongoing crisis with that.

There was also contention about whether the Scottish debate was a take-note debate or an action debate. In the end Malcolm Chisholm would only accept it as a take-note debate. The Scottish Executive are going to wait another six months before making a decision on whether they will fund this aspect of the Royal Commission’s report

I raise this here because it is fundamental to our debate that Members understand that we are not functioning in such a way as to cover the costs of nursing and personal care. My understanding is that care for the elderly is in crisis. In the independent sector in the past two years there has been a loss of 1,500 beds because current costs could not be met and because fees have been set at such a level that many independent homes have had to close.

I am concerned that statutory homes are closing. The South and East Belfast Health and Social Services Trust has written to the appropriate Assembly Members informing them that there is a possibility that three of its homes may close following consultation over the next few months. If both statutory and independent homes are closing, perhaps the Minister will not have a problem, because she will not have to pay for the increases demanded by the Royal Commission — there will be fewer and fewer beds for elderly people seeking residential and nursing care. Homes are unable to cover costs because they inherited costs that were set by income support rates and because the increases have depended on accommodation only. The Royal Commission’s report is important because it only takes account of accommodation needs, out of which the costs of the training and development of workers who come into that sector must be paid.

I am sure that other Members have already spoken about dedication and the high levels of training that are needed to look after vulnerable people with dementia. There is no funding to cover these training costs. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that the statutory sector currently costs more than the independent sector. My understanding is that it possibly costs £100 a week per patient more than the independent sector. That clearly requires a response.

I am not suggesting that we should have one sector or the other — we need both. All our elderly cannot be cared for in independent homes, although I do support those schemes. Given the demographics of the over-75s, this sector will have to be funded in the future. The number of beds to be maintained in the independent sector is not covered in the current budget and is not, therefore, a target under public service agreements. Although there is a recommendation about fee levels, we also need to budget. Before we support this motion we need to take the current state of affairs into account.

Mervyn Carrick (DUP, Upper Bann)

I welcome the opportunity of contributing to the debate. Several fundamental questions underpin the motions. What value does society place on older people? What value does the Assembly place on older people? What value do the Executive place on older people? What value do the Minister and her Department place on older people? There has been much research on the subject, but unfortunately, inside six minutes, we will not be able to refer to the various elements of care that are required for elderly people — primary care, care in the community, acute care and residential care, all of which make an important contribution to the support of the elderly.

I want to concentrate on care in the community. We have a document from the director of social services, ‘Annual Assessment of Need 2000’, which clearly indicates, on page 65, what the projected increase in the number of older people in the Southern Board’s area will be. By the year 2013, 54,800 older people will be living in the Southern Board’s area, an increase of 29% from 1998 — just two short years ago. When we think of care in the community we have to pose the question "Are we really a caring community?" I have come to the conclusion that because of the pace of modern life, the emphasis placed on secularism and achieving one’s goals in this world, as well as the fragmentation of the extended family unit, more and more of our older people are falling into the vulnerable category. The director of social services identified two important facets in the document. Two of the biggest concerns for older people have been the need to ensure sufficient income to live on and the question of who will pay for residential care if it becomes necessary.

One of the problems with community care is the inordinate waiting time for occupational therapist assessments. In my area of Portadown, a 94-year-old person who lives alone has been waiting for up to two years to have an assessment carried out. In the Craigavon and Banbridge Community Health and Social Services Trust area, the current waiting list for occupational therapist assessment is 1,200, whereas last year it was 643. Waiting time has practically doubled, which is completely unacceptable as it gives older people a feeling of uncertainty and the sense that they are past their sell-by date. Uncertainty over when they will get an assessment leads to frustration, to a feeling of insecurity and to a feeling that they have been forgotten about. That is why the debate is both relevant and timely. I trust that every Member will support the motions before us.

Some £1 million was made available for care in the community recently, but half of that sum went towards staff costs — an extra 30 staff, 20 of whom are only for priority cases. The other half went towards the purchase of about 40 wheelchairs, according to the information that I have been provided with. That shows the immense problem that care in the community is facing through inadequate resources. In the various reports that have come before us in recent times, gaps in community care have been well identified and well documented. We need to address those gaps. If we are going to believe in the concept of care in the community, we have to find the resources and the funding to make it work, otherwise our older people will continue to feel disillusioned, disappointed and forgotten about.

I started off with the question "What value does society really place on older people?", and I will finish with the same question. I hope that Members will face up to answering that question in an open and honest way and find the necessary resources to make our older people feel valued and respected.

Esmond Birnie (UUP, Belfast South)

This debate is on a matter of great importance. As Mr Dodds put it, the elderly are a large and growing section of our population and deserve all our concern.

There are also severe inequities and injustices in the current system, and that was well put by Mr McCarthy in his proposing speech. We should take note of the Sutherland report, but alongside that there are two notes of caution.

Monica McWilliams sounded the first of these notes, which is that the Scottish Parliament’s position is not a "done deal". A cynic might point out that the announcement was made ahead of the general election and that actual implementation — if, indeed, there is to be implementation — may follow in the autumn. We will have to wait and see if that will happen. Some Members here are familiar with the technique of adopting positions ahead of elections. [Laughter]. Members may well laugh.

The second note of caution is that we need to be aware of the entire Sutherland Report. I would point to the dissident note by Joffe and Lipsey. They suggest that the main body — hence the main proposals of the Sutherland Report — have seriously underestimated the implications of their recommendations in respect of the required increase in Government spending. Joffe and Lipsey put forward two reasons for that, which seem to bear some weight.

The first reason is that the rate of cost inflation in health care is several percentage points ahead of the general rate of inflation in the economy as a whole. Secondly, when the price of any service is reduced, including that of health care or personal care, the demand for that service is not likely to stay constant. It may increase precisely because it is now cheaper. We have a marked historical precedent. When the National Health Service was set up in 1948 it was predicted at the time that the amount spent on it would eventually fall as the population became more healthy. In fact, as we now know, with straining health budgets at local and national level, the budget for the NHS has multiplied many times since 1948. I would point out to some Members that at no point since 1950 have we had free-at-the-point-of-use health care in the United Kingdom. That situation is even more the case in the Republic of Ireland.

I also suggest that we take note of Joffe and Lipsey’s point that if we go down the route of universal free personal care, that will inevitably mean that the limited pot of money that the Government have to direct towards the care of the elderly will not all be spent on the poor elderly — some will be spent on the well-off elderly.

To sum up, in the consideration of this matter it will be inevitable that hard choices will have to be made. It may be that we will decide that some of the burden for long-term care should be borne by the private sector through the use of private insurance. Therefore it is important not make premature decisions that would knock the development of such private insurance on the head. In the end this care will have to be paid for by all individuals in society either by general taxation or through private insurance, and we need to strike a judicious balance. Therefore I support the motion, subject to adequate considerations being given to the Sutherland Report in its entirety, including the crucial issue of the costings of the recommendations.

Oliver Gibson (DUP, West Tyrone)

What we are discussing this morning has often been described by other civilisations as the venerable state of the elderly. We could look at those other civilisations and see how they care for the elderly.

What we are talking about this morning is, to some extent, restoring dignity and independence to people who have reached that age and giving them the ability to enjoy an active and healthy life.

In the 1990s many expectations were raised. We had hospital charters, community charters and charters for health. All of those have had to be stripped from the hospital notice boards and from community services walls. There has been a failure to deliver and respect those who have served society.

This debate is welcome in that it is an opportunity for the Assembly to view the Sutherland Report and to listen to the concerns expressed by various agencies: the Chest, Heart and Stroke Association, Alzheimer’s Disease Society in Northern Ireland and Age Concern. All those groups have been progressively enunciating one factor, which embodied in Nigel Dodds’s proposal: you cannot distinguish effectively between nursing care and personal care.

It is an exercise that will be carried out by those who seem to hold some form of esoteric information, but I think that the two forms of care are indistinguishable. The principle that Mr Dodds enunciated is the important one to take on board as an Assembly and we say, to ourselves and to the people that we represent, that we wish to establish the principle of free care — both nursing and personal. That is the principle under discussion this morning.

We are all too aware of how community care has become a devalued phrase in our society. It was once hailed as the means of retaining people in the community and restoring to the very group of people we are discussing a better quality of life in their own homes where they would prefer to live. We have discovered, and every one of us knows, that many elderly people receive only 15 minutes care in the morning and 15 minutes in the afternoon, and after that they have to fend for themselves.

The very points mentioned earlier by Dr Hendron were crucial. The routines of care that we so freely give to the under-16s — immunisations, weekly, monthly or yearly checks — should be available at the other end of the age range. Eyesight and hearing examinations and all the normal facilities should be on an annual routine check to prevent many of the ailments that are ignored because the elderly cannot get to the doctor or do the things that the more able-bodied can do. The principle of care has got to be established, and I strongly support that.

Many people, who have a great affection for their parents, give up their jobs or take a sabbatical from their careers to care for them. However, it does not pay carers to love their parents or an elderly person. They lose whatever salary they had, and the maximum that they can get for 24 hours of tender loving care of a loved one is £66 and some odd pence. We are not a caring society. If we were we would manage our resources. There will be difficulties with resources. However, we accept the principle of free nursing and personal care.

Bairbre de Brún (Sinn Féin, Belfast West)

Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. Ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a ghabháil leis an Uasal McCarthy, leis an Uasal Dodds agus leis an Uasal Paisley as na saincheisteanna tábhachtacha seo a thabhairt go hUrlárz an Tí. D’éist mé go cúramach leis na pointí luachmhara a rinne Comhaltaí le linn na díospóireachta, agus, cosúil leo féin, is cúram domh gur chóir go mbeadh seandaoine, ag céim an-leochaileach ina saol, saor ó bhuaireamh breise agus iad ag déanamh cinntí faoina sláinte agus faoina gcúram sóisialta.

Rachaidh cinntí a rinneadh ar chúram na sean i bhfeidhm ar shaolta líon nach beag dár muintir agus a dteaghlach. Tá thart ar 14,500 duine i gcúram cónaitheach agus i gcúram tí altranais anseo. Shocraigh an RSSSP cúram do thart ar 9,500 acu agus riartar ar úsáideoirí eile faoi sholáthar leasa shóisialaigh; sin nó rinne siad a socruithe féin.

Beidh Comhaltaí eolach ar roinnt mórthionscnamh ar thug mé fúthu maidir le cúram pobail le bliain anuas. Feicim go raibh Comhaltaí inniu ag rá gur leithne an cheist í seo ná an ceann a dtugann an rún aghaidh uirthi.

D’fhógair mé aithbhreithniú ar chur i bhfeidhm polasaí cúraim phobail. Tabharfaidh feidhmeannaigh, i gcomhar le boird agus iontaobhais sláinte agus seirbhísí sóisialta agus i gcomhar le réimse leathan páirtithe leasmhara sna hearnálacha deonacha agus príobháideacha, faoi aithbhreithniú forleathan ar chúram pobail. Rachaidh seo i ngleic le maoiniú, le pleanáil agus le soláthar seirbhísí cúraim phobail agus breathnóidh sé ar chomhéadain idir an cúram príomhúil, an cúram tánaisteach agus an cúram pobail. Déanfaidh siad moltaí le haghaidh leasuithe i soláthar seirbhísí cúraim phobail. Mar mhórúsáideoirí na seirbhísí seo bheinn ag dúil go mbainfeadh ár seandaoine sochar as feabhsúcháin ar bith a d’aimseofaí agus a chuirfí i bhfeidhm.

Dáilead airgead breise ar chúram pobail. I mbliana dháil mé £11 mhilliún sa bhreis go sainiúil ar sholáthar cúraim phobail. Sa bhliain 2001/02 tá £2 mhilliún faighte agam le corradh agus 230 beart cúraim thar an soláthar beartaithe. Arís, is mór a rachas seo chun tairbhe dár seandaoine ós rud é go mbeidh tuilleadh daoine faoi chúram sa bhaile agus i dtimpeallachtaí eile pobail agus beidh laghdú ar scaoilte moillithe ón ospidéal ar ais chuig an phobal.

Tá feidhmeannaigh ag obair ar fhorbairt straitéise do chúramóirí i ndlúthchomhairle le móreagraíochtaí cúramóirí. Tuairsceoidh an grúpa sin faoi dheireadh na bliana seo le moltaí do sheirbhísí a thacóidh le cúramóirí san obair an-luachmhar a dhéanann siad ar son na sochaí seo. D’fhaomh mé cheana doiciméad comhairliúcháin ar ábhar an Carers’ and Disabled Children’s Bill arb é a chuspóir cearta cúramóirí ar réimse feabhsaithe seirbhísí tacaíochta a chur sa dlí.

Rinneadh cuid mhór cheana le seirbhísí sláinte agus cúraim shóisialta a fheabhsú, ach tá cuid mhór eile le déanamh go fóill. Thug tuairisc an Choimisiúin ar Chúram Fadtéarmach na Sean anailís chuimsitheach ar na dúshláin atá fúinn. Tugann sí deis dúinn díríú ar na saincheisteanna a bhaineas le cúram na sean, agus is mór mo mheas ar an obair atá déanta ag an choimisiún.

I thank Mr McCarthy, Mr Dodds and Mr Paisley Jnr for bringing those important issues to the Floor of the House. I have listened carefully to valuable points made by Members in the debate, and I share their concern that the elderly, at a very vulnerable stage of their lives, should be spared from additional worry when making decisions about their health and social care.

Decisions taken on care for the elderly will impact on the lives of many people and their families. There are about 14,500 people in residential and nursing home care here, and health and personal social services has arranged the care for about 9,500 of those people. The others are provided for by social security or have made their own arrangements.

During the debate, Members stressed the point that the question goes beyond the specifics of the issues raised in today’s motions and have mentioned care of the elderly and, in a wider context, care in the community. I have taken several significant initiatives in the area of community care over the past year.

I have announced a review of the implementation of community care policy. That means that a wide-ranging review of community care will be carried out by officials in association with the health and social services boards and trusts and in consultation with a range of interested parties in the voluntary and private sectors. I am sure that Members will welcome it. The review will address the funding, planning and delivery of community care services. It will study the interfaces between primary and secondary community care. The review will make recommendations for improvements in the delivery of community care services. I expect that the elderly — as major users of the services — will benefit from the improvements identified and implemented.

Members referred to the financing of community care. Additional moneys have been allocated to community care. In the current year, I have allocated an additional £11 million to community care provision. In the year 2001–02 an additional £2 million has been secured to facilitate the delivery of an additional 230 care packages. The elderly will gain substantially from the extra money. More people will be cared for at home and in other community settings, and there will be reductions in the number of delayed discharges from hospital.

Members have stressed the importance of carers. I also pay tribute to the work of carers. Officials are working in close consultation with a major carer’s organisation on the development of a strategy for carers. This group will report to me by the end of the calendar year with recommendations for services to support carers in the valuable work that they carry out in society. I have approved a consultation document on the content of the Carer’s and Disabled Children Bill. The intention is to enshrine in law the rights of carers to an enhanced range of support services. A lot has already been done to improve health and social care services; but much more needs to be done.

The Royal Commission’s report has provided us with a comprehensive analysis of the challenges we face. It presents us with an opportunity to focus on the issues around care for the elderly, and I appreciate the Royal Commission’s work.

The Commission has brought forward a number of recommendations. There are two main recommendations. A National Care Commission should be established to monitor trends — including demography and spending — and ensure transparency and accountability in the system, represent the interests of consumers and set national benchmarks now and in the future. Secondly, the costs of long-term care should be split between living costs, housing costs and personal care. Personal care should be available after assessment, according to need and paid for from general taxation. The rest should be subject to a co-payment according to means.

I will clarify the responses elsewhere to the recommendations and outline the actions that I will take. The recommendation to establish a Care Standards Commission has been accepted by the British Labour Government and implemented by the establishment of the National Care Standards Commission. I will bring proposals to the Executive to set, monitor and enforce standards here.

The responses by England, Wales and the Scottish Executive to the recommendation on the costs of long- term care are similar in a number of the less controversial areas. Therefore I will deal with those first. In England, Wales and Scotland, changes will be made to three aspects of the charging regulations. People will be less pressurised to sell their homes when entering care. From April 2001 the capital limits used in means testing will increase from £10,000 and £16,000 to £11,500 and £18,500 respectively. The rates will be kept under review. From April 2001 the value of a resident’s home will be disregarded in means testing for the first three months of their stay. From October 2001, local authorities will be given a ring-fenced grant to help with schemes to defer some of the costs of care for people who would otherwise have to sell their homes at an earlier stage.

12.00

In line with England, Wales and Scotland, I am taking steps to introduce amending regulations to increase the capital limits from April this year. The Budget has made provision for this in 2001-02. This will mean that, where a care home resident has capital — including, in certain circumstances, the value of his home — of between £11,500 and £18,500, he will be required to meet a proportion of his care costs. Capital and assets valued at less than £11,500 will not be taken into account in the assessment of needs. Those with assets of over £18,500 will be required to meet the full costs of their care.

I am also considering making proposals to exclude the value of a resident’s home from the means assessment test during his first three months in a care home, whether his stay is temporary or permanent. This will depend on the provision of additional resources.

On the subject of the ring-fenced grant proposal that was referred to, a different funding structure exists between my Department and the health and social service’s boards and trusts, but I will consider the need for a similar scheme here.

There will also be legislation to end both the preserved rights of residents and the residential allowance for new residents in independent homes. One Member queried if that was necessary here. Those in residential care or nursing homes prior to the introduction of the community care changes in 1993 were given preserved rights to the special rates of income support to meet the costs of their care. However, they were not brought into the new health and social services care management arrangements at that time. The decision to bring those residents into the care management arrangements, along with the transfer of related funding from the Social Security Agency, is intended to help and reassure former preserved-rights residents.

The payment of the residential allowance to those in independent accommodation who received state assistance with their costs creates a perverse incentive to place people in care rather than keep them at home. This allowance will no longer apply to new residents, but present recipients will continue to benefit from it, and it will also involve a funding transfer from the Social Security Agency. The consultation on both these issues, which was carried out by my Department last year, revealed strong general support for this change.

The ending of this perverse incentive and the transfer of Social Security Agency funds to the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety should give boards greater flexibility in meeting people’s care needs. Therefore, I expect to see the provision of more domiciliary care packages through these changes in the funding arrangements.

The Royal Commission on Long-Term Care for the Elderly made many recommendations, the most difficult and sensitive of which is the provision of free personal care. The Royal Commission recommended that personal care be free of charge in residential and nursing-home settings, but the response by the NHS in England and Wales was to limit free provision to nursing care only.

Therefore, from October 2001, the NHS in England and Wales will meet the cost of registered nurses’ time spent on providing, supervising or delegating care in a nursing-home setting. Those who are assessed to need such care will no longer have to meet either the costs of the registered nursing staff involved in their care or the cost of any specialist equipment used by staff.

The Departments of Health in England and Scotland are developing standard assessment procedures to determine the level of nursing care needed in individual cases. This will ensure that the cost of this care can be calculated and paid for by health authorities, giving people a realistic assessment of the level of care needed. Members raised that issue this morning.

As some Members have pointed out, the Scottish Executive are establishing an expert development group, chaired by their Minister for Health and Community Care. It will consider the practicalities, the costs and the implications of providing free personal care. The group will report by August 2001 with proposals that will inform Executive expenditure decisions for 2002-03 and beyond.

They are piloting a nationwide single needs assessment for the care of older people — a move that will support the extension of free nursing care to many more people. They are also examining the current sources of public funding for long-term care in Scotland, making it a top priority for additional resources and bringing forward a long-term care Bill to make the necessary legislative changes. Significantly diverging from the planned timetable in England, where free nursing care will be introduced by 1 October 2001, free nursing care will be introduced in Scotland in April 2002 — at the same time as the implementation of a new system of assessment.

Members asked if costing has been undertaken here. Any decision to extend free care for the elderly will bring major budgetary considerations for the Executive as a whole — not merely for my Department. Early estimates indicate that the provision of free personal care could add at least £25 million extra to the annual costs of the health and social services boards. The provision of free personal care is a sensitive and emotive issue, and we are all committed to providing the best we possibly can for those in our society who face these needs.

There are concerns about how care is defined and how the level of care can be assessed in a fair, open and transparent manner. Both England and Scotland are presently developing a standardised method of assessing the level of nursing care needed by an individual. During the debate Members reminded us that we should try to make the most of our integrated service. I intend to establish a working group, chaired by the chief nursing officer, to examine how the need for nursing care can be assessed professionally, in a manner clearly understood by the general public and adding minimum additional bureaucracy. The group will report to me with recommendations in sufficient time to allow the necessary consultation and allow me to introduce legislation to implement the agreed recommendations by April 2002.

The proposals I have outlined will bring about important changes in the care system. There will be changes in legislation to pave the way for free nursing care in all settings: the development of a new system of care needs assessment, improvements in the charging system for care; an end to the income support preserved rights and residential allowance schemes, and additional funding to meet people’s care needs better in old age. These proposals are already underpinned by an appropriate funding allocation for 2001-02.

As Members have stated in the debate, we all want to provide the best we can for those who need it in our society. That is how we have approached this question. Any decision to go further than has been allowed for to date in the provision of free care will require the Executive to secure significant additional resources. I am sure that we will return to this point in the future.

Kieran McCarthy (Alliance, Strangford)

First, I want to thank everyone for their contribution, particularly Nigel Dodds, who, as usual, made his case concisely. He brought out the principles of both motions together, which is very important. He made the point that many elderly people are now paying twice for the service they are entitled to. I hope that we can agree and go along with what we are both saying on this.

I welcome Dr Hendron’s and the Health Committee’s support. The Deputy Chairperson, Mr Gallagher, had some queries, and he suggested a working group. The Minister suggested that that is what she is now going to do in order to look into the Scottish methods and what they propose by way of funding.

I thank and welcome the support of Rev Robert Coulter, Mr John Kelly, Mr Berry and Dr Adamson. I welcome Ms McWilliams’s support, although I am slightly worried about her concerns. She told us that in her constituency, there are possible home closures. I am not so sure what the main reason for that is. Questions obviously have to be asked, but I accept Ms McWilliams’s concern about training for this work as being a very important aspect of care for the elderly.

I agree entirely with Mr Carrick as regards care in the community. It is currently grossly underfunded. If there were more funding for care in the community — and I think that the Minister mentioned this — there would be less concern at the other end.

I accept Mr Birnie’s concern. He mentioned private insurance, and that is probably fair enough. However, there may well be people out there who might not be able to afford private insurance, and we would be left with an inequality. Some people could afford it; others could not. That is a very important issue, for we are trying to avoid inequality.

I thank Mr Gibson for his support and his contribution. The Minister started very well and shared the concerns raised — indeed, the review of the community care policy is very welcome. However, I was somewhat disappointed when she spoke of a means-testing system for some of the elderly. That would cause them concern.

The Minister also talked about what we all know is a big problem. Elderly people come to a point in their lives when they need care, but they do not have to make a decision, since the decision is already made for them. They have to sell their home, their only asset — something that they have worked and lived for or that has been in the family for generations. There is something wrong with a system that expects people at that point in their life to dispose of their assets to pay for care. I am disappointed with the Minister’s response.

She mentioned the budgetary Estimates and adding an extra £25 million. That would be nice, although a report produced not so long ago mentioned £65 million that had got lost in the system somewhere — and that is in respect of one Department only. There needs to be efficiency right across all Departments. The Assembly is here to ensure that there is efficiency and that money can be spent on providing what we have been talking about this morning.

I thank all the Members for their support and, indeed, the Minister, who is doing a very difficult job with limited resources.

I want to make one final point. I think we should all pay tribute to the carers, the people who are involved. Everyone in the Assembly knows people who are involved in looking after the elderly. I am sure that they are out this morning, despite the atrocious weather, trying to get to those whom they look after.

Members of the Assembly and other groups outside will be coming to the Minister’s door and looking for further improvements.

Nigel Dodds (DUP, Belfast North)

Would the Member care to comment on the statement that the Minister made in relation to setting up a working group? There may be some misapprehension or some argument that somehow this working group will be looking at the issue of whether free personal care should be made available.

It seems to me — and some clarification may be necessary — that this working group is going to be very limited in its scope as regards dealing with nursing care and the definition thereof. Would it not have been better to have a working group set up to look at the issue that is the crux of the motion before the House today — the provision of free personal care?

Kieran McCarthy (Alliance, Strangford)

I thank Mr Dodds; he is spot on. I hope that the Minister will take note of what he said. The working group should investigate that; it is exactly what we need.

I hope that the Assembly will support both motions and take these matters seriously. It would be a shame if people who required residential or other forms of care were denied such help unless they paid for essential care. Equality is top of our agenda. It was said that we value elderly people, and that is paramount. The Assembly can make a difference. Let us do it now.

Question put and agreed.

Resolved:

That this Assembly calls on the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety to implement in full in Northern Ireland the recommendations contained in the report by the Royal Commission on Long-Term Care published in March 1999.

Resolved:

That this Assembly notes the decision of the Scottish Parliament to provide the elderly with free nursing and personal care and calls on the Executive Committee to make similar provision for the elderly in Northern Ireland and to promote greater well-being of the elderly in this part of the United Kingdom. — [Mr Dodds]

John (Speaker, Belfast East)

I remind Members to pay attention to the annunciators as some private-notice questions may be coming before the House.

The sitting was suspended at 12.16 pm.

On resuming (Madam Deputy Speaker [Ms Morrice] in the Chair) —

Electricity Supply

John Kelly (Sinn Féin, Mid Ulster)

asked the Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Investment, in light of today’s failure of the electricity supply of 50,000 people in Northern Ireland, to explain what steps are in place to avoid a recurrence of this situation; and to make a statement.

Reg Empey (UUP, Belfast East)

I have spoken to Northern Ireland Electricity (NIE) this morning. The company has implemented its emergency procedures and is taking steps to communicate with and restore part power to all consumers as soon as possible. The worst affected areas include Holywood, Lisburn, Downpatrick, Carryduff, Ballyclare, Larne and Ballymena.

NIE has advised that its engineers and linesmen have worked through the night restoring power to thousands of customers throughout Northern Ireland, and the incident management centre at Craigavon has been open since Monday evening. Hundreds of engineers, call handlers and administrative staff have been mobilised to deal with the situation. However, the treacherous driving conditions are hampering staff, particularly call handlers, from getting to where they are needed.

The statutory responsibility for the protection of the interests of electricity consumers in respect of the continuity of supply and quality of supply services provided rests with the independent director general of the electricity supply. Following the December 1998 storms, he sought a full report on the December supply problems from NIE. Subsequently NIE put in place a comprehensive range of measures aimed at dealing with these situations.

The company advises that it has managed to reduce the number of persons off supply from some 70,000 to currently around 60,000, and it advises us that it anticipates that by the end of the evening, most consumers will be back on supply. As a matter of interest, some 30,000 consumers are currently off supply in the Irish Republic. Notwithstanding, I hope that the vast majority of people who are currently in difficulty will find themselves back on supply later this evening.

John Kelly (Sinn Féin, Mid Ulster)

Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. I thank the Minister for coming in to answer the question. When I tabled it this morning there were 50,000 people off supply; then there were 70,000, and I understand that the figure is now 60,000.

I raised the question because of the anger, frustration and disappointment that people feel with NIE. We all remember what happened when we had the storms three years ago and that NIE’s response at that time was that it would not happen again.

The employees visited Magherafelt District Council on a charm offensive this month and told us that these things would not happen again. They assured us that in the event of a emergency breakdown, people would have someone at the end of a phone line to answer their queries and questions.

There is also the question of the 9% increase — three times above the rate of inflation — at a time when NIE was making £80 to £90 million in that year. We were told that the money was going back into the infrastructure and into replacing old capital equipment like poles and lines that were susceptible to high winds and to storms. We have to ask how much money has been put back into the infrastructure, and, if it has, why do we still have a system that cannot cope with adverse weather conditions, particularly in the case of a storm that was comparatively mild? Why do we have a system that puts 70,000 people off supply?

We had a debate this morning about the care of the elderly, and the people who are most affected by this situation are the elderly, the young, mothers who are looking after young families, newborn children — [Interruption].

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

The question has been put.

Reg Empey (UUP, Belfast East)

I understand the Member’s frustration at the situation — all sympathise with that. We are all in remote areas — particularly elderly people, who are left in a very vulnerable position. Against the background of today’s debate, that is entirely understandable.

We were all deeply upset about the 1998 situation. Since then NIE has embarked upon an investment campaign. Last year over £80 million was spent on refurbishing 3,500 miles, or approximately 10%, of the electricity network. However, with a rurally-based network there are some difficulties, such as fallen trees. I spoke to the chief executive this morning and, as I understand it, a combination of strong winds and driving wet snow froze on the insulators on the pylons thus turning the insulators into conductors. That resulted in flashovers which caused the fuses to trip out in substations. Many engineers were unable to get to these stations because of the road conditions. When they reached the stations and restored the supply, many of the fuses tripped out again due to the continuing winds and wet snow.

Since 1998, some £10 million was invested in telephone call handling systems and information management technology to improve response times. However, some operatives have been unable to reach the incident centers, which has resulted in longer delays than expected. When this emergency is over, we need to sit down with the company and examine the situation because there is a statutory obligation on the company to ensure effective supplies of electricity, and we need to be satisfied that an appropriate and acceptable response has been made.

Regardless of the criticisms that may be made about the interruption to supply, no criticism is being aimed at the engineers who are driving through the snow and the rain to repair the system. They are operating under great stress, over great distances and, in some cases, in not inconsiderable danger. I am sure that the Member will accept and acknowledge that. We must have a post-mortem on this event, just as we had after 1998. It is fair to say that, just as there is no such thing as an unsinkable ship, there is no such thing as a supply system of electricity in rural areas that does not break down from time to time.

Security Forces: Alleged Collusion with Loyalist Paramilitaries

Mary Nelis (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

I beg to move

That this Assembly calls on the Secretary of State to initiate an independent public inquiry into allegations of collusion between the Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Branch, British Military Intelligence and Loyalist paramilitaries in the planning and murder of Catholics.

Alex Maskey (Sinn Féin, Belfast West)

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is my interpretation that the amendment to the motion is a direct negative of the motion itself. Is it a competent amendment?

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

It is a competent amendment.

Alex Maskey (Sinn Féin, Belfast West)

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Will you explain the rationale of that decision?

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

The amendment deals with the same issue, but it moves on to congratulate the security forces. That is the difference.

Mary Nelis (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

Go raibh maith agat a LeasCheann Comhairle. For more than 30 years the British Government have been at the centre of allegations of collusion in what has been variously described as state killings, political murders, shoot to kill and sectarian assassinations.

Regardless of the terminology, the motion seeks to put the allegations to rest. It seeks to establish the truth about Britain’s dirty war in Ireland; that is what has been going on in the past thirty years. Members on the Benches opposite would know all about that; they were involved heavily in it.

Nigel Dodds (DUP, Belfast North)

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Before she really got into her speech, the Member started to make wild allegations against other Members that are untrue and have no foundation whatsoever. Can you use your powers to get her to rein in her wild allegations? As a supporter of IRA/Sinn Féin, she is prepared to turn a blind eye to the murders that they have carried out but continues to make wild, unsubstantiated and untrue allegations against other Members, some of whom have borne the brunt of IRA attacks. I appeal to you to take action.

Mitchel McLaughlin (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I remind the Member of the role that his party leadership played in setting up Ulster Resistance, a group that imported —

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

That is not a point of order. I shall respond to the original point of order. No specific allegation was made about any Member of the House, but I would remind all participants in the debate to exercise caution and respect the dignity of the House at all times.

Mary Nelis (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

Britain’s dirty war involved people in the highest echelons of Government, the British Army, the intelligence services and the RUC — in effect, the state. The guilt or innocence of that state in the planning and execution of the murder of 400 Nationalists — and some members of the Protestant and Unionist community, if that community would only acknowledge it — must be established. To establish the truth of the allegations, the Government should grasp the nettle and initiate the inquiry that the motion calls for.

There have been inquiries before. There was Stalker, whose inquiry was instructed by the RUC; there was the Sampson report, which was watered down and then suppressed by Paddy Mayhew for reasons of national security. Then there was Stevens. All those reports were about allegations of state murder.

The allegations of collusion and state involvement go back as far as the 1970s, when British Army intelligence, under the name "Military Reaction Force", recruited gangs — the UDA — to assassinate Republicans. The UDA gangs’ tactics were predicated on the idea that any Catholic would do. They benefited from a policy of disinformation euphemistically named ‘Clockwork Orange’, in which military intelligence provided them with the information that they needed to assassinate Catholics and Nationalists.

There is a widespread belief that those involved in the Miami Showband killings, the killings at Silver Bridge in south Armagh, the Dublin and Monaghan bombings in 1974 and many more atrocities were working directly for RUC Special Branch and British military intelligence. It has taken the Dublin Government 26 years to set up an inquiry into the circumstances of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings; perhaps, the British should take a leaf out of the Dublin Government’s book.

It is also widely believed that people in the British Government, through MI5 and MI6, their secret intelligence networks, must have known what was going on then and must know what is going on now.

I believe that there are those in the British Government who know who murdered Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson and continue to cover the activities of Loyalist death squads. The British Government have consistently refused to answer questions on the role of the intelligence services and the activities of the death squads. What have they got to hide?

Questions have been put to them over the years by eminently renowned organisations such as Amnesty International — whose report criticising the British Government is widely available — the Helsinki Watch, United Nations rapporteurs, the United States Government’s Human Rights Committee, the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ), Relatives for Justice and the Pat Finucane Centre. All these creditable organisations are convinced that there is direct or indirect involvement of the British Government — through the intelligence services — with Loyalist death squads in the murder of Nationalists.

There is also mounting evidence that members of the British Government have, over the years, not only protected death squad operators but collaborated with high-ranking officials in the Northern Ireland Office, with the Chief Constable and with prominent Unionist politicians in the extensive cover-up of such activities. The deadly hand of collusion reaches far into the establishment. The assassins are protected by cosmetic investigations, non-prosecutions and curbing of inquests while the families and friends of those murdered have been subjected to harassment and intimidation by the RUC and the British Army. The victims of the death squads, even in death, are treated as less than equal.

The public face of the death squads, Brian Nelson, and his involvement with the British Force Research Unit — or "FRU", as it has become known — is well recorded by eminent journalists at the ‘Daily Telegraph’ and has been the subject of many documentaries. Nelson was involved in the South African arms shipment in 1988, which netted a huge haul of weapons including rifles, grenades and rocket launchers. The weapons were divided between the UDA, the UVF and Ulster Resistance — the organisation set up by the DUP.

In the six years prior to the arrival of the weapons, Loyalist paramilitaries murdered 71 Nationalists. In the six years following that delivery — from January 1988 until September 1994 — Loyalists murdered 229 Catholics, most of whom were innocent. Those killings were carried out in a brutal and sectarian manner.

Nelson was arrested by the Stevens inquiry — another cosmetic exercise by the British Government to quieten public outrage. Stevens "mark 1" was a spectacular failure, leaving Amnesty International to conclude in 1990 that

"it is obvious from all the evidence available that collusion remains a fact of life and the [British] Government is not prepared to confront it."

Stevens "mark II", which is inquiring into the assassination of Rosemary Nelson for doing her job as a lawyer and defending her clients, does not promise to deliver results either. It is clear that those who subverted Stalker and Sampson and all the other inquiries set up by the British Government to prevent the truth from emerging have a vested interest in subverting Stevens. The role of the death squads, the agencies behind them and the vested interests of the "securicrats" behind them must be made known.

According to the ‘Irish News’ today, 500 Republicans have been informed by the RUC that their lives are under threat after their personal details were found in the hands of Loyalists.

These documents, along with a quantity of firearms and ammunition, were recovered in searches in Loyalist areas. The documents could have come only from the same source that Nelson and the UDA got their documents from — namely, the intelligence services. It does not matter what name they use — whether it be the Force Research Unit (FRU) or the pseudo-gangs — these intelligence services are providing for and colluding with Loyalist paramilitaries in the assassinations of innocent people. There is further evidence of collusion and further evidence that Britain’s dirty war in Ireland continues unabated. Collusion is not abstract; it is real. It has filled the graveyards with our young and our old, with our mothers and our children. The British Government must speak the truth. They must tell us what the relationship is between the British Government and the FRU — [Interruption]

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

Order.

Mary Nelis (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

What is the relationship between the FRU and the RUC? What is the relationship between the FRU and the British Army? What is the relationship between the FRU and some Members in this Chamber?

Sammy Wilson (DUP, Belfast East)

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

"rejects allegations of collusion between the RUC Special Branch, British Military Intelligence and Loyalist Paramilitaries and congratulates the security forces, who have striven to uphold law and order in Northern Ireland in the face of a sectarian campaign of murder directed by IRA/Sinn Féin in collusion with others."

I put down the amendment to ensure that the wild imaginations of Sinn Féin — in their attempts to blacken the security forces in Northern Ireland — do not go unanswered. Furthermore, I want to ensure that it is put on public record that if a party in Northern Ireland can be rightfully accused of collusion in sectarian murders, it is the party opposite.

By tabling the motion, Sinn Féin has to a certain extent, shot itself in the foot — although some people may prefer it politically shot itself in other ways.

At the beginning of the debate, Sinn Féin tried to have the amendment ruled out of order — out of embarrassment obviously, as it knew what would come after Mary Nelis’s speech. Sinn Féin knew that putting the motion down was a mistake, because it would give both a platform and an opportunity to put the spotlight on the real guilty parties in Northern Ireland — those who really have been involved in colluding in murder across the Province, those who, unfortunately, because of present political circumstances, have now been elevated to a situation in which they are allowed to sit in the Assembly.

Anybody who listens to the imaginative outpourings of Mary Nelis — who makes Walter Mitty sound rather dull — can only be astounded at her degree of ingenuity. In her usual bitter and twisted way, she spits out the words like machine-gun bullets. She uses phrases like "the British Government’s collusion in sectarian murder" and "the British Government’s dirty war in Ireland". Unfortunately, that is an almost weekly diet of poison that is put into the system in Northern Ireland by the Member opposite and her party.

It is little wonder that in Nationalist areas in Northern Ireland the job of policing is made more difficult when that kind of poison is injected into our society. That poison is based on nothing other than the vivid imagination of members of IRA/Sinn Féin, backed up by the pseudo-legal groups that they gather around them. Then they talk about credible witnesses.

I want to deal today with the question of collusion in sectarian murder. I want to ensure that the finger of accusation is properly pointed at those who sit in the Assembly and who have been guilty of a bitter sectarian campaign over the last 30 years. I am not going to rely on my own views, or even on the views of Unionist commentators, but on the admissions of their fellow travellers and on the admissions of some people who are sitting in the House today. Their own people have pointed the finger of accusation at the sectarian nature of the organisation that IRA/ Sinn Féin so proudly represent. Indeed, Members of the House have served prison sentences for their activities in that organisation.

We often hear that the campaign of murder waged by the IRA over the last 30 years is not directed at their Protestant neighbours. We get the nauseating outpourings from members of Sinn Féin. I remember one occasion when the leader of Sinn Féin looked across to this side of the House and said "I want to be your friend." That is the way in which they try to hide their sordid sectarian past. Yet some of their own activists, sickened by the way that their organisation behaved, have pulled the lid off the kind of picture of themselves that they like to present — that they were fighting a war against British imperialism, but they never really meant to hurt Protestants. They were never really engaging in a campaign against other people who were their neighbours on this island. Let me quote from one who served on the Army Council of the IRA, and who was for a long time active along the Tyrone border. He was engaged in acts of terrorism, including murder, and he talks about his experience with those who carried out those acts. He said

"Inevitably the conversations I had with local IRA men and sympathisers ‘the Prods’ or ‘the Orangies’ centred around and it was becoming clear to me that Provisional IRA were in reality representatives of the Catholic ‘defender’ tradition. Irish Nationalism and Irish Catholicism was deep and complex. There was a deep and ugly hatred, centuries old, behind it all. The local IRA men would rather shoot a Protestant neighbour who was in the UDR or the police reserve."

He went on to say that when he went to the camp to be trained as a terrorist he was driven to a hotel called Carrigart

"Where we were awaited by Pat Doherty".

He nicknamed him "Smiler". We have seen the smiling face of Pat Doherty on many occasions in the House.

He says

"The darker side of the character can be judged from his other nickname, ‘Papa Doc’, after Papa Doc Duvallier, the infamous Haitian dictator".

What was his role in that training camp? According to Sean O’Callaghan, at that stage he was the quartermaster for the IRA in Donegal where he was responsible for training camps and bomb factories. What were the bombs used for? Were they used for fireworks displays or for making bangs to scare people? These bombs were planted around towns, houses and roads in Northern Ireland to do what? To murder Protestants.

Yet we have the audacity of IRA/Sinn Féin today pointing the finger of accusation at the British Government, when in reality their own "smiling" members were involved in a campaign that led to hundreds of Protestants being killed along the border. That is not according to the view of Sammy Wilson, or even the RUC, but one of their own colleagues. We will always hear the argument that those who were killed, even if they were Protestants, were only killed because they were policemen or UDR men.

An interesting book on the involvement of the IRA in south Armagh is called "Bandit Country: The IRA and South Armagh" by Toby Harnden. I will refer to some of the people who sit in the House and who were involved with people in south Armagh. Unfortunately one of them has fled — gone on the run from the debate — and I would like to have quoted a few words to him.

In that book, commentary is made on the Tullyvallen and Kingsmills massacres, which were an embarrassment to those who claimed that their motives were not sectarian. They claimed that the massacres were the action of a splinter group — the Catholic Reaction Force. How often have we heard that since 1998? Let us look at the evidence. Eleven people were killed at Kingsmills and five at Tullyvallen. An IRA man from Cullyhanna was caught for the Tullyvallen massacre and he admitted his involvement. It was not the South Armagh Republican Action Force, but the Provisional IRA. One of their own people was caught and convicted.

The forensic analysis of the ballistics showed that several of the weapons used at Kingsmills had also been used at Tullyvallen, in a series of previous IRA operations, and in IRA operations for two decades afterwards. They may try to say that it was the work of a splinter group and nothing to with them because they do not involve themselves and collude in sectarian campaigns. However, the act was authorised by Séamus Twomey and was carried out by Provisional IRA activists.

Here is an odd thing. One would think that those in IRA/Sinn Féin would love to distance themselves from that incident. What do we find when there was some dissatisfaction among the very people in Cullyhanna who were unhappy about IRA/Sinn Féin’s involvement in the so-called peace process?

None other than Mr Molloy went down to reassure them. What was his message to them? Do not forget that these are people who had been involved in a sordid, murdering sectarian campaign in south Armagh. What was his assurance to them?

"This phase of negotiations may fall apart, it may not succeed. And whenever that does happen —"

Did they distance themselves from all the acts in Kingsmills, Tullyvallen and Mountain Lodge? No.

"And whenever that does happen, then we simply go back to what we know best."

There is not even embarrassment about what they did in their sordid campaign. The collusion goes beyond the collusion between members of the party opposite and those who carried out these sordid acts. We find that they also had the help of the gardaí in the Irish Republic. The most notorious example of that was the murder of Ch Supt Breen. Members of the gardaí admitted that they were ashamed because he had been set up by one of their own people in Dundalk.

Lest we think that only individual members of the authorities in the Irish Republic were involved in that, I will show that the collusion went even deeper.

I am glad to see Mr John Kelly —

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

Will the Member consider bringing his remarks to a close?

Sammy Wilson (DUP, Belfast East)

I am finishing. I am glad to see Mr Kelly here. He could not return to Northern Ireland for 15 years. Why? He could not return because he was involved in importing arms. According to ‘Magill’ magazine, Mr Kelly freely acknowledged his involvement in the attempted gunrunning. His defence was that he believed that the operation had been officially sanctioned. Again we find that there was collusion in the killing of Protestants not just at the lower reaches of the gardaí but at the highest echelons of the Irish Government. The importing of arms was not so that people could walk about Northern Ireland being macho men. Those guns were brought into Northern Ireland to carry out the sectarian killings to which I referred.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I am going to finish now. It is little wonder that Alex Maskey tried to have the amendment stopped today, because IRA/Sinn Féin does not like the spotlight of scrutiny to be placed upon the collusion between terrorists, gardaí and the Irish Government in a campaign that led to thousands of Protestants being killed in Northern Ireland. The police force, over those 30 years, has done a sterling job in seeking to protect the community. It is a scandal that we now have people elevated to the House — elevated to the Government — who can spew out that kind of vile propaganda.

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

Given the number of Members who have indicated that they wish to speak in the debate, which has been allocated two hours, I advise Members to restrict their contributions to five minutes.

Michael McGimpsey (UUP, Belfast South)

It is fair to say, having listened to Mrs Nelis — and not for the first time — that Sinn Féin continues to be a keen practitioner of the art of black propaganda. As the old proverb goes, "Truth is the first casualty in war." That has certainly been clear over the past 25 years as we have listened to Sinn Féin excusing the actions of the Republican organisation, the Provisional IRA.

This is a mischievous motion. It is deliberately misleading propaganda. The evidence being given is based on hearsay and is made up of a series of allegations masquerading as fact. I totally reject Mrs Nelis’s contention. I have heard nothing from Mrs Nelis to alter my opinion that we are dealing with a series of inventions from an organisation that has a shameful responsibility for the deaths of over 2,000 people in the past 25 years.

Two thirds of those who have died over the past 25 years were killed at the hands of the Provisional movement; and among those were some 500 Catholics. Over the past 25 years, more Catholics died at the hands of the IRA than at the hands of any other organisation. Although the motion appears to have been moved out of concern for the Catholic community, innocent Catholics also died at the hands of Republicans. The so-called protectors of the Catholic community have been among its greatest tormentors.

The motion alleges collusion. I will not pretend that I can answer for every individual in the security forces over the past 25 years. I know, for example, that there was collusion between the IRA and the gardaí in the murder of two senior RUC officers, Breen and Buchanan, as they returned back across the border from Dundalk. I also know that collusion between the IRA and a prison officer resulted in the murder of a prison governor.

The suggestion that, over the past 30 years, there was collusion on a stronger scale than that, or that there was official collusion, is simply nonsense, demonstrable nonsense. I completely reject that suggestion. If that is the case, how is it, for example, that the number of Loyalists convicted of serious crimes, including murder, far outstripped the number of Republicans who faced the judicial process. The number of Loyalists who have gone to prison as a result of that process was many times greater than the number of Republicans who paid the price in the courts.

If official collusion had taken place, how does one explain these facts? If there was collusion, why were Loyalists terrorists made accountable at all? If there was collusion, why, when they were made accountable, did Loyalists not spill the beans in response to an arrest that they would have seen as a double-cross? It is clear that there were no such incidences of collusion, in spite of the allegations.

These are easy allegations to make, but if the state organisations had decided to practise collusion or to take direct action, they had the skills and capacity simply to eradicate all terrorists. Republicans fail to appreciate that individuals in organisations, such as the RUC, are personally bound by the rule of law. The rule of law is paramount to them, and Republicans seem to fail to appreciate that there are people in this society who will not step over that line. Unlike the IRA and such organisations in many other countries, individuals in state organisations — for example, the RUC — are bound by law. If it had been otherwise, many Members of the House, who have been at the top of the IRA at various times, would not have survived.

Mrs Nelis stated that the RUC has today issued 500 warnings to people who are on a Loyalist death list — [Interruption].

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

Five minutes.

Michael McGimpsey (UUP, Belfast South)

I will finish in two seconds. This is an important point.

The Member suggests that that information came from a usual source and that it is evidence of collusion.

That list of people was downloaded from a Republican prisoners organisation by the Loyalist organisation concerned. I have seen the list. The Republican prisoner’s organisation listed their prisoners’ names, dates of birth, towns of origin and dates of release and asked Americans to give them support. Now, that is an example of the fallacy and fictious nature of the so-called evidence of collusion.

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

Listening to some of these comments, I am reminded of these words from the gospel:

"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"

We should bear that in mind when debating the motion and the amendment today.

The motion and the amendment are symptomatic of the selective view of our recent history that prevails in society and indeed in the Assembly. Both motion and amendment are selective in nature and partisan, and both are concerned with shaping one version of our history. Our history is in fact complex, and no one side in our conflict is without blame. Both traditions share the blame for the conflict that has caused so much death and injury in such a small part of western Europe. Of course, there are good grounds for suspecting that there was collusion between the security forces and Loyalist paramilitaries in a number of incidents. The murder of solicitor Pat Finucane is one example, and we as a party have striven hard to try to find a public forum for an inquiry into the circumstances of his murder. The public good would be served by a public inquiry to establish the truth, to establish whether there was collusion, and that would be a service to all.

The motion is not concerned with the truth, but with establishing a version of the truth. The truth is that 3,600 people lost their lives in the troubles. The truth is that 1,065 Protestants and 1,548 Catholics died, and 1,000 of unknown religious affiliation died as well. Republican paramilitaries were responsible for 2,000 of those deaths. Loyalist paramilitaries were responsible for about 1,000 deaths. The British Army was responsible for 318 deaths, and the RUC for 53 deaths. Loyalist paramilitaries were responsible for the deaths of 735 Catholics. The British Army was responsible for the death of 266 Catholics. The RUC was responsible for the deaths of 43 Catholics, and Republican paramilitaries were responsible for the deaths of 381 Catholics. Tell me: who is to blame? Is it the RUC? Is it the UDA? Is it the IRA? Who is to blame?

What is required is that we abandon our subjective versions of our common history and attempt to create a wider understanding of what befell our long suffering community. We must learn the lessons of our bloody history. We must learn the lesson that violence cannot achieve anything positive and that violence must be firmly placed in the past by both traditions, not just by one. Both traditions in our society must share the blame.

We should examine our history, both individually as citizens and legislators and collectively as a society. Perhaps in the future when our politics have matured we can find some way of establishing the objective truth of our history and use that to heal the divisions and to bind the wounds in our society rather than use history to create more divisions and more wounds.

Jim Shannon (DUP, Strangford)

I support the DUP amendment and reject the allegation of collusion made by IRA/Sinn Féin. Instead, I wish to throw the focus back on IRA/Sinn Féin and its campaign of sectarian hatred that has resulted in the death of over 3,000 people in the Province. Mr Maginness gave a breakdown of who killed whom. The fact of the matter is that the IRA campaign led to the killing of more than 3,000 people. Lay the blame where it should lie: with the perpetrators of a murder campaign that has resulted in heartache and sorrow for so many families.

One must also record, as other Members have, that the IRA was responsible for the murder of some of its co-religionists. Indeed, it was responsible for the murder of most of them. That speaks volumes, given today’s motion. Moreover, IRA/Sinn Féin has expelled people from the Province. The families asked if they could return, and when they come back, IRA/Sinn Féin became involved in their demise. As a result of standing up to the godfathers they were murdered. Roman Catholics who have served in the security forces have also been murdered. The campaign that the IRA has been involved in has been very direct.

We must salute the sacrifice made by the RUC, the most maligned police force in Europe. It was thrust into the forefront of a terrorist campaign orchestrated by the IRA who murdered its officers, both male and female, of both religions. The RUC’s Special Branch played an important and significant role against terrorism from both sides in the Province. That IRA/Sinn Féin is so intent on its removal speaks volumes about the success that it had against IRA terrorism.

A story in ‘The Observer’ at the weekend referred to MI5’s taking over the special role that Special Branch once had. If that is the case we would welcome it, so long as the Government do not interfere in the strategy or overall policy pursued by MI5.

Can we also recognise the excellent work that those in the UDR and the RIR have done as well, whether in a part-time or full-time role? The British Army — our army — has been involved in policing the Province. Little or no evidence has been given today to show that any collusion occurred. Many inside and outside the Chamber who have served in the British Army were proud to wear that uniform, and they feel especially aggrieved that such an allegation should be made.

Other investigations into collusion have taken place and have never at any stage been able to prove the allegations. They have been very costly. We should also deny the slur and the innuendo that have been made and fermented by IRA/Sinn Féin. We must consider the sectarian campaign that IRA/Sinn Féin carried out along the border. It targeted the eldest sons of Protestant families, shot the fathers, burned the farms, bombed the houses and intimidated them to leave. That was a direct sectarian campaign, and many of us who lost loved ones know all about it.

Yes, the IRA has colluded with others to carry out the campaign and has specifically targeted Protestants and their families. Yet, as I mentioned earlier, the IRA has killed so many of its fellow religionists. The motion that Danny Kennedy moved a short time ago related to the collusion between the gardaí and some Republicans. We should commit that to our memory because it is important. It has been well documented, and we are still demanding and waiting for the investigation, which will show that there was collusion at the highest level.

IRA/Sinn Féin has been involved in a most horrific campaign of murder. It has been blatantly sectarian, as the facts and figures, all the evidence, all the history and all the heartache and pain of all those families testify.

The security forces — the RUC, Special Branch, British military intelligence — deserve our sincere gratitude. They have been a bulwark between law-abiding citizens and the anarchy that Sinn Féin/IRA thrives on and relishes. The security forces deserve our thanks, and we reject totally any spurious allegations of collusion that have not been, and cannot be, proven. There is no substance whatsoever to the motion put forward by Sinn Féin today.

I urge Members to support the DUP amendment.

Mitchel McLaughlin (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

A LeasCheann Comhairle, two issues face us today. I remind the Assembly that a few weeks ago we debated a motion that was proposed by the Ulster Unionist Party, which called for an inquiry into alleged collusion between the Garda Síochána and the IRA. The Assembly decided to support that motion. Unless Members are openly approaching this issue from the perspective of partisan and sectarian logic, the Assembly must support the motion proposed by my Colleague Mrs Nelis for the sake of consistency alone.

There is a second issue. The amendment cannot be supported simply on the basis of the volume of evidence, some of it emanating from the British Government and British Government operatives, that there was collusion, that it was institutionalised, and that it resulted in members of this society’s being murdered by Loyalist sectarian gangs.

That may not matter to some people in the Assembly. We listened to the titters of the DUP/Ulster Resistance when Mary Nelis outlined some of the horrendous consequences of that collusion. They thought that it was funny, but the murder of Nationalists is not funny, and it is certainly not for the DUP to belittle it and to humiliate the relatives of those who were cruelly murdered by Loyalist sectarian murder gangs, over whom, given court testimony, they have had considerable influence over the years. Do not just take my word for it; listen to those who have ended up in court, regretting that they listened to the words of DUP leaders.

Logically, the amendment cannot be supported, and I regret Michael McGimpsey’s comments; I expected more of him. He knows that the information that sustains the demands for inquiries into the formal involvement of British Army regiments and units in the murder of people in this society is irrefutable. It cannot be denied. Evidence of collusion will emerge eventually. It cannot be suppressed.

However, Mr McGimpsey knows that the British Government have been forced to resort to Public Immunity Certificates. He knows that because Loyalist paramilitaries confessed that the RUC Special Branch concealed the evidence in the case of William Stobie for ten years. When the evidence finally emerged, what did they do? They immediately arrested William Stobie in an attempt to intimidate him. Those people have much evidence to share with us about the role of the RUC Special Branch and the role of British military intelligence. Fair-minded people in the Assembly listening to the debate know that you cannot deny what is undeniable. The collusion happened. It was in an institutionalised form —

Michael McGimpsey (UUP, Belfast South)

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Member appears to be directing many of his comments to me. He is alleging that I know something that he cannot prove, which I deny. For him to stand here and say that I know is nonsense, and I ask him to use a different form of rhetoric. Perhaps he will revert to — [Interruption].

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

That is not a point of order.

Mitchel McLaughlin (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

Perhaps Michael McGimpsey should have chosen his words more carefully and with more certainty because he did, in fact, deny the undeniable. I regret that, and I prefaced my comments on that basis. I expected more from you, some even-handedness. We know that the information that has emerged about collusion is simply —

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

Will the Member please address his remarks through the Chair.

Mitchel McLaughlin (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

I thought that I was doing that.

Members of the Assembly know that the information that has surfaced on collusion is simply the tip of the iceberg. When the full story comes to light — and it most certainly will — I urge people to choose their comments very carefully.

The information cannot be suppressed indefinitely, and when it emerges it will be a huge story.

We know that the then British Attorney-General, Sir Patrick Mayhew, who later became the Secretary of State here, secured a deal with Brian Nelson so that Nelson did not have to take the witness stand during his trial. Why? It was because Nelson would have testified about his recruitment by British Intelligence while he was a member of the British Army. He was recruited to become a member of the Loyalist paramilitaries. He would have then testified about his role — under the direction of British Intelligence — in directing murder.

Colonel J, or, to give him his correct name and title, Col Gordon Kerr — who has been recognised and rewarded by the British Government — was noticeably silent, when he gave evidence at that trial, about Nelson’s direct involvement in many murders. Nelson had originally been charged with 10 murders and involvement in 16 attempted murders. All of those charges were mysteriously dropped.

Ulster Resistance was founded by the DUP. We all remember the red berets. Ian Paisley, Peter Robinson, and Gregory Campbell — a Minister in the Assembly — were associated with that. No one disputes that Ulster Resistance imported weapons from South Africa that were subsequently used to murder innocent Catholics in the community. Those are the facts. That evidence is there — like it or not.

There are people in the Assembly who have had roles in the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) and who could tell us many stories. They could perhaps tell us who murdered Patrick Kelly in County Tyrone. Which UDR patrol was it? There are people here who know that information, and they should share it with us.

All that has fanned the flames of insurrection, violence and conflict. That selective approach will not work — the truth will come out. I urge the Assembly to support the motion and to reject the lie that the amendment will perpetuate.

Patrick Roche (NIUP, Lagan Valley)

I oppose the motion and support the amendment. One of the things that the debate has clearly established on behalf of those who have proposed the motion, is that the demand for independent inquiries is based on nothing more than empty allegations and unsubstantiated claims. In the short time available, I want to substantiate the point that I have just made, in relation to the demand for an independent inquiry into the murder of Rosemary Nelson.

That demand was based on two fundamental claims about the RUC. First, that the RUC lacks the professional competence to properly investigate that crime. However, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) legal attaché and Colin Port, who is the person responsible for the overall investigation, went to the trouble, on 12 April 1999, of making a public statement to categorically refute any possibility that there should be an independent inquiry based on the professional incompetence of the RUC. They said that without the involvement of the RUC there was no hope of the investigation being successfully pursued.

Also, when the FBI legal attaché, with his team of FBI experts, became involved with the members of the RUC who were undertaking the investigation, he said that the FBI had no expertise that it could offer to the RUC. The statement by those two leading experts was, of course, met with an hysterical outburst from the SDLP, which claimed that it was appalled by that declaration.

A second, even more serious, consideration is that there should be an independent inquiry into the death of Rosemary Nelson because the RUC has, in some way, colluded in her murder. That claim of collusion is based on allegations that RUC officers made threats against Rosemary Nelson. Those allegations were made by clients of Rosemary Nelson who were being investigated by the RUC.

The UN rapporteur, Param Cumaraswamy, gave unqualified credibility to those claims. He said, in his report of 5 March 1998, that he was satisfied that there had been harassment and intimidation of defence lawyers by RUC officers, as had been described. He was also satisfied that the harassment and intimidation were consistent and systematic.

There are two fundamental problems with that claim by the UN rapporteur. The first is that Sir Louis Blom-Cooper, the Independent Commissioner for the holding centres, in a report on 31 March 1999, categorically rejected the claim. Sir Louis Blom-Cooper is a human rights lawyer of international repute.

Sir Louis Blom-Cooper said

"We note that the Special Rapporteur has concluded that there has been police harassment of the few members of the legal profession who provide their services at the Holding Centres; but we know, and have recorded one instance in our Fifth Annual Report, where an allegation of harassment was positively not substantiated. We cannot, therefore, endorse the Special Rapporteur’s conclusion".

Blom-Cooper was saying that that claim and endorsement by the UN rapporteur contained allegations that were known to be untrue and, therefore, he could not endorse the report. These allegations were also a matter of investigation by Cdr Mulvihill of the Metropolitan Police.

The details of the report and the investigation by Mulvihill were made public on 30 March 1999. The conclusion of the Mulvihill inquiry was

" I am confident that the facts of the case(s)" —

cases about allegations of threats to Rosemary Nelson —

"have not only now been established … but were established during the original inquiry(ies)"

by the RUC.

Mulvihill was conducting an inquiry into the way in which the RUC had originally held inquiries on these cases and into the credibility of the threats. He said that the original inquiry had established the facts of the case.

On the basis of the Mulvihill inquiry, there was nothing that the DPP could do to proceed against the officers against whom the claims had been made. There are absolutely no grounds for an independent inquiry into the case on the basis of either professional incompetence or collusion.

Billy Hutchinson (PUP, Belfast North)

There has been a great deal of discussion, and I will try not to go over old ground. Sinn Féin must be realistic when it talks about these issues. I heard Mr McLaughlin say that there was institutionalised collusion. I think that he actually meant that all the security forces colluded with Loyalists.

I worry when I hear Sinn Féin members talk about loyalist death squads. They speak as if the IRA had never planted 13 bombs in the Shankhill and killed over 30 Protestants, and as if the people who did that could not be described as Republican death squads. Sometimes we wonder how they were able to do that and not get caught.

Patrick Roche (NIUP, Lagan Valley)

Will the Member give way?

Billy Hutchinson (PUP, Belfast North)

No. I have only five minutes — I do not have time.

Anyone who believes that paramilitary organisations did not infiltrate security forces is living in cloud cuckoo land. I speak from experience — I have been about for a long time. In the paramilitary organisations that I know of, everybody was told to join the security forces to learn what they could.

The IRA had men in the French Foreign Legion, the United States Army, the gardaí, and in the army in the Irish Republic, who brought back what they had learned. They even had men involved in a training camp in Libya. It is a nonsense that the paramilitary organisations do not use whatever they can to get information and training.

Anyone who tells me that the members of the prison service who worked for Republicans did not give them information about Brian Armour at the time that he was blown up, or that Billy Wright was killed in prison without there being collusion, is also living in cloud cuckoo land. I spent 16 years in a prison and in all that time — even in the roughest weather — I never saw a watchtower without an officer in it.

Stephen Larkin, an IRA man from Ardoyne, who tried to kill Billy Wright in a packed Shankill street in 1993, was a member of the French Foreign Legion. What did he do with his skills and the information that he gained there from British soldiers and others? He used it for the IRA. People were encouraged to do that in all paramilitary organisations, and people should be realistic about that.

I spent 16 years in prison. I was sent there by the RUC. I was beaten by the British Army. I was in a British jail, and I was tried by a British court. There was no collusion in my case. However, 13,000 Loyalist prisoners have been through the jails — there has been some collusion.

An IRA ring of British Telecom technicians was recently uncovered. Does that mean that all British Telecom employees collude with the IRA? Can we presume that every Nationalist teacher in every school colludes with the IRA? A Natural Law Party staff member, who worked in north Down, gathered information for the IRA, some of which related to Mr Ervine, a member of my party. That man was convicted, because, along with many others, he was working for the IRA. Of course there has been collusion.

The difficulty is that Republicans do not realise that Loyalists can gather information in the same way, as the Minister of Culture, Arts and Leisure pointed out. Loyalists are not thick, despite what some like to think. Loyalist paramilitaries have various means of gathering information; they do not always need to rely on the help of the security forces.

I do not dispute that a British intelligence unit did set up an organisation in the UDA in the cases of Brian Nelson and others. That was evident, over the last few weeks, from some of its activity. The aim was to get at Loyalists as much as at anyone else. We have seen how it has poisoned the Loyalist community. We recognise that, but that is an isolated incident — neither the whole of the RUC nor the whole of the British Army is involved, and that must be recognised.

There is no doubt that information gained as a result of collusion between the Garda Síochána and the IRA was used in the killings of Judge Gibson and RUC officers, Buchanan and Breen. Mr Sammy Wilson has said that that embarrassed the gardaí. It is a waste of time to discuss systematic institutionalisation, because that did not happen. We must recognise that people on both sides were involved in murder, and they used any information that they could get.

Monica McWilliams (NIWC, Belfast South)

The debate reflects what a dirty, rotten war there was. It reflects the desperate hunger for the truth about the murders that took place here over the past 30 years. Mr Billy Hutchinson said that infiltration took place on both sides, and there is no doubt that that was the case. When war comes through the door, human rights go out the window.

In response to Mr Hutchinson, I stress that both men and women were involved in paramilitary infiltration, be they from the Prison Service, the British Army, the RUC or the gardaí. These facts are now emerging, because after ceasefires are declared, that frozen watchfulness that prevents people from speaking often begins to melt. That happens either through the judicial process or when people find a safe space to say what they need to say, a space that they could not find before. That needs to happen much more.

We must move towards the stage where people begin to say sorry. People who ring me, and who feel pain daily because of their experiences, need to hear an apology. They also need to hear more than an admission that "It was wrong." They need to hear the voice of those who were responsible saying that things will be done differently in the future. Unfortunately, until some of the mess that we have created is cleared up, there will be neither remorse nor an acceptance of responsibility. We will not hear the words "We will make a difference."

Pain is caused by both sides. I was heartened when, finally, some of the truth about what happened to the families of "the disappeared" emerged. I was heartened when the list of names was published, and I believe that the families were too. There was, of course, terrible pain felt when the bodies were not recovered.

Burying people and not telling their families where they could be found was a terrible human rights disaster. Much still needs to be done for those who were never on the list. Many families are hurting to this day and simply want to know where the bodies are buried. That is the kind of truth that I am talking about.

I remember when two of my friends were murdered during the troubles. I wanted to know three things: what happened to them; how did it happen; and who did it. In the case of one of them I still do not know. Many of us have had to pick up the pieces and get on with our lives. There are others who simply beg for a little drop of truth.

Maura Babbington from north Belfast recently contacted me. If anyone here were to meet that woman, I am sure that he would also understand the pain of being told that her husband had been shot by mistake because he happened to be wearing the overalls of the intended target. She says that she is now worried about the hierarchy of inquiries. Where is she ever going to get her truth? The IRA did admit shooting her husband. To be told that he was shot by mistake did not lessen her pain. It may have helped her to know that she could at least survive without the neighbours whispering and wondering "Was he an informer?", as often happens. She still talks about the day on which the life went out of her when they murdered him. She still waits to hear what his last words were and who was there when he lay dying on the pavement. We will never know. There have been 3,500 people murdered and, as Alban Maginness said, from both sides and all sides.

There are times when it is important to have inquiries as well as criminal investigations. I know that it is possible — the Stephen Lawrence inquiry set the precedent. It said that there was a need for a criminal investigation and that at the same time there could be a judicial inquiry. We can all learn from the mistakes made when Stephen Lawrence was murdered, given the aftermath and the fantastic recommendations that came out of that inquiry. It is in the public interest, where possible, to hold inquiries — and they do not have to hurt anyone.

Let people start talking with a little bit of remorse in their voices and start accepting some responsibility for how things will be done differently in the future.

Sam Foster (UUP, Fermanagh and South Tyrone)

I oppose the motion because it is rich coming from Mrs Nelis after what we have heard from Mr Brian Keenan in the last couple of days.

I served in the security forces for 28 years, and never once was I sent out to kill. I was sent out to protect society from the rape of terrorism. For many years now Sinn Féin/IRA and the SDLP have made allegations that security force elements were colluding with Loyalist paramilitary groups to target Catholics. I will place on record at the outset that I completely reject all forms of terrorism. Suffice it to say that it is unrealistic for Sinn Féin/IRA, the SDLP and the Irish Government to call for inquiries into allegations made against our security services, while at the same time imagining that the gardaí did not have its rotten apples.

I would like to address one specific issue. Mrs Nelis made a glaring omission in her motion. She referred to several organisations which, she says, have conspired in planning the murder of Catholics, but she has omitted one. That organisation, which according to figures quoted from the book ‘Lost Lives’ has shown itself to be to the forefront when it comes to being responsible for the deaths of Catholics, is the IRA. A total of 3,636 people are listed as having lost their lives in the troubles. Of those 2,139 — 59 % — were murdered by Republican terrorists, with the IRA responsible for 1,771 of them. That is 49% of all those killed in the troubles.

It may come as a surprise to Mrs Nelis to learn that the IRA has been responsible for the murder of 402 Catholics, including 198 described as civilians. In fact the IRA, the so-called defenders of the Catholic people, was responsible for more Catholic deaths than our Army and the RUC combined.

During the troubles, the security forces were responsible for 367 deaths — fewer than a quarter of the total number murdered by Republican terrorists. Of these 367 deaths, 138 were Catholics killed by the Army and 26 by the RUC.

However, let us not leave matters here, because the misery inflicted upon the Catholic community does not begin and end with dead Catholic civilians. To that sorry toll, we must add those Catholics who answered their country’s call by wearing the uniforms of the RUC and the UDR. These figures are conclusive proof of one thing: the IRA, far from being the defender of the Catholic community, has been the organisation that delivered the greatest misery to it. That misery is ever present in the graves and through the disappeared, the broken bodies and the exiled.

Catholic members of the security forces, Catholic civilian staff members of the RUC and UDR, the disappeared, the informers, the expelled, the victims of punishment beatings and shootings, rival drug dealers and criminal elements have all felt the force of the IRA at some time.

They, their families and thousands of others trapped in the ghettos created by the IRA’s godfathers have had to live through a nightmare. There used to be a good deal of talk about the Nationalist nightmare. The figures that I quoted prove that the nightmare was created and sustained, in no small part, by those who still like to portray themselves as the defenders of the Nationalist community.

I have a question for those who call for an inquiry into the deaths of Pat Finucane, Robert Hamill and Rosemary Nelson: why be so selective? Why are these campaigners not equally vociferous in a call for an inquiry into the deaths of the many Catholic police officers, members of the judiciary or civilians who were murdered by the IRA itself?

I am loath to name individual Catholics who were murdered by the IRA, because I do not wish to reopen the old wounds of victims’ families, but Jean McConville, Judge William Doyle, Mary Travers and many who were killed at Omagh were all Catholics. Their deaths do not, however, appear to trouble the consciences of Mrs Nelis and her party colleagues, nor indeed, I am sorry to say, the consciences of some of those on the SDLP Benches.

If Mrs Nelis and her party are really serious about finding out who was responsible for the murder and misery visited upon sections of the Catholic community in Northern Ireland, she should look for the perpetrators a little closer to home. I can guarantee that many in her party, perhaps even some on her own Benches, may not appreciate the media spotlight.

As Mrs Nelis said only yesterday, if we are to have confidence in the future, we must know the truth. I want to hear the truth throughout.

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

I will return to Mr Foster’s question, but I will begin by discussing a matter with the same theme. Mr McLaughlin, in his last remarks, criticised the selective approach taken and said that the truth will come out. I have never heard a more telling indictment of a Sinn Fein motion on the Floor of the Assembly by a Sinn Fein Member than that comment from Mr McLaughlin. His words indict the motion — it is selective in its approach, and Mr McLaughlin’s contribution and comments, did not add much to the debate. Arguably, they fuelled the conflict.

Secondly, Mrs Nelis said that there was a "dirty war" in Ireland. She blamed the state alone for the "dirty war" in Ireland. Yes, there was a dirty war in Ireland. There were elements in the British Army who were involved in that dirty war and that, latterly, became known as the work of the force research unit.

Any democratic citizen of any democratic state should be concerned when the Army of that state becomes involved in a policy of murder of innocent people to bring about a desired security outcome. All of us, regardless of our backgrounds, should acknowledge that that is not the role of any element in the British Army.

The dirty war in Ireland was not conducted by the RUC as an institution, but rather by individuals in the RUC over a long period. There was also a dirty war visited upon our community against its wishes by paramilitary organisations.

I acknowledge that in the paramilitary organisations there were people who demonstrated enormous growth, were highly motivated and who might even have been well intentioned. None the less, they were involved in a dirty war, and we should call it what it was.

I want to move on from that issue because every week, if not every day, we have a debate that is characterised by differences of opinion about the past.

It is about collusion by one side or the other, the truth of one death or another and our experience of conflict. We are defensive, divisive, adversarial and exclusive in what we say. I do not apply that to any one party in the Chamber. It is understandable, because we are trying to express our grief, pain and anger. It is necessary to talk through these things and even begin listening to each other. We will not overcome the legacy of the conflict over the past 30 years until we move away from talking at each other and start talking to each other.

Sooner or later we must move away from what I have referred to as the concept of "choosing victories and chosen victims". In Yugoslavia, the experience of the second world war was suppressed after Tito’s rise to power. People suppressed their emotions and anger about what one family and community did to another. If we suppress what we did to each other — citizen to citizen and community to community — we will not evolve and move away from conflict in a creative way. Somehow, the Assembly and the community must devise a global and inclusive mechanism to deal with the past.

We have begun to deal with the past: the Bloody Sunday inquiry; the returning of the bodies of "the disappeared"; these debates, the victims’ commissions, and many other initiatives. However, we need a broader mechanism so that instead of talking about what has happened we will begin to interpret and understand the past. That time will come sooner rather than later. Despite the divisive and adversarial nature of the debates in the Chamber, I sense that our communities are further down that road than we are. Why I believe that is captured in an ancient Greek phrase that Robert Kennedy often quoted:

"They have learned more than we have learned. In our sleep, pain, which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

They had wisdom, and we should begin to share it.

Edwin Poots (DUP, Lagan Valley)

I support the amendment. The motion brought forward by Sinn Féin/IRA is ludicrous, because if the level of collusion that is alleged to have happened had really taken place, the whole lot of them would have been wiped out years ago. That is the reality. If what these people told us was true they would have been cleared of years ago. They would not be about. The fact of life is that the level of collusion that they allege took place between the RUC, the British Army and Loyalist paramilitaries did not happen.

Yes, there were rotten apples in the barrel. Yes, there were individuals who might have been involved. However, no large-scale collusion took place between the British Army, the police and Loyalist paramilitaries. It was mentioned that 13,000 individuals from the Loyalist community were jailed. Who put them there? It was not the gardaí. It was not the French Foreign Legion. It was the RUC; they were the prosecuting officers in each of those cases. Why did they send them to jail if they were such good buddies?

A lot is being said about Pat Finucane, Rosemary Nelson and Robert Hamill. I always find the stench of hypocrisy that comes from the SDLP especially surprising. Remember years ago when Mr Hume told us that we should draw a line under the past; put everything behind us; break sweat not tears; and let us go forward together. What do they say when the opportunity to do that presents itself with the new police force? They say "We will not go into the new police force until we get an inquiry into Finucane, Hamill and all those other inquiries that happened in the past."

Of course, the Bloody Sunday inquiry is ongoing as well. How much has that cost — £30 million, £40 million, £50 million? I have not heard the latest tally, but it is believed that it will cost well in excess of £100 million. How many jobs, hospital beds and schools could be provided for by the money being buried in the Bloody Sunday inquiry?

In an effort to outdo Sinn Féin, the SDLP is insisting on more inquiries, but it told the Unionist community to draw a line under the past. It cannot go unsaid that collusion took place with the IRA by members of the RUC, by members of the British Army, by members of the Prison Service and by members of the gardaí. Equally, they were rotten apples, as were those involved in giving information to Loyalist paramilitaries.

The notion that there was widespread collusion between security forces and Loyalist paramilitaries in the Province is simply that — a notion. It has no basis in reality. We have heard nothing today from IRA/Sinn Féin to give us any serious basis for supporting the motion or for making us believe that there was widespread collusion. In the past few weeks, IRA/Sinn Féin Members threatened members of the public and members of organisations. In the last few days there has been a very high profile resignation — people know what I am talking about. A Member of the Assembly was involved in that. It is IRA/Sinn Féin who are making threats, carrying out murders and destroying our community. The motion is spurious in nature, and the allegations are spurious. I support the amendment.

Alex Maskey (Sinn Féin, Belfast West)

Go raibh maith agat, Madam Deputy Speaker. I endorse the call from Mary Nelis for an inquiry into allegations of collusion. I do not want to repeat any of the comments made earlier, but suffice it to say that I want to be consistent.

A few weeks ago I spoke on a motion tabled by Danny Kennedy of the UUP. During that debate I said that we should have inquiries into all these allegations. If people say that these things did not happen, we should have an inquiry to clear the air. They cannot have it both ways — they cannot say that this did happen or did not happen. People have been quoting selectively from one book or another. However, the evidence is clear that there is a need for an inquiry.

I oppose the DUP’s amendment, not because I am in the least bit concerned about it, contrary to some of Sammy Wilson’s comments. I am not in the least bit interested in having the matter aired or attacks on my party aired. That happens here every day of the week anyway so it is like water off a duck’s back. Sammy Wilson referred to some Sinn Féin Members being on the run from the debate. Despite the DUP’s lengthy campaign to smash Sinn Féin, we are still here, we are still very strong, and we will never be on the run from people like the DUP. Ultimately they will do more talking than anything else. The need for an inquiry is crucial.

I want to take issue with Sammy Wilson’s comments that our party surrounds itself with a lot of pseudo-legal organisations. I presume he means Amnesty International, Helsinki Watch, the US Congress Committee, the United Nations special rapporteur, Mr Cumaraswamy — to name a few of the world renowned legal organisations and human rights organisations that have laid the finger of blame, or have at least said that there is a clear case to be answered in respect of collusion in this state.

Billy Hutchinson missed the point when he talked about organisations wanting to infiltrate police or whatever else from any state. That may well be true, but I am not interested in going into that. That is a totally and utterly separate thing from a state infiltrating those organisations to pursue an agenda which involves a violation of human rights and murder.

Sammy Wilson quoted at length from a number of books. I stand here as probably the only official victim of collusion. Brian Nelson was convicted of conspiring to murder several people, including me. I do not know of anyone else here in that category.

I know that Brian Nelson and others have targeted Republicans and many of my colleagues, including those in the Chamber today. However, I am probably one of the few in the official annals because Brian Nelson was convicted of conspiring to kill me, and I was injured in one of those attacks.

Fortunately, I do not take these things personally. Nevertheless, there is a need for an inquiry. If Billy Hutchinson’s argument is logical and all these things happen despite the police’s being against them and with so many people being arrested, let us have an inquiry. Let us detail and examine the extent to which Loyalist paramilitary organisations were infiltrated and directed by the state forces here, and not only the RUC but also by the Force Research Unit (FRU) — because that happened. I know that Mr Hutchinson does not like to acknowledge that Loyalist organisations through the years have been heavily infiltrated. There have been rare occasions when there were not several agents running at one time in all the Loyalist paramilitary organisations. I have no doubt that that continues to this day. That is something that Loyalist organisations find difficult to come to terms with. What it suggests is that without the help of the RUC they could not have killed as many Catholics as they did, because they did not, unfortunately for their own reckoning, kill that many Republicans anyway — [Interruption].

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

Will the Member address his remarks through the Chair.

Alex Maskey (Sinn Féin, Belfast West)

Of course, the IRA killed people over the years. Colleagues and I have acknowledged that in this Chamber and other public forums in the past. The motion is deals with the allegation of state collusion, and I stress that one of the members of the FRU has given an affidavit to the courts, which will see the light of day in the not-too-distant future.

In respect of my own case, the FRU handlers of Brian Nelson provided him with a plan from which I can quote. The plan put to Brian Nelson was no less than a detailed plot that they were convinced,

"if carried out properly, would end in the cold-blooded murder of Mr Alex Maskey, a democratic-elected councillor representing West Belfast."

That is only one example. That account may or may not be true. There is a clear need for an inquiry, and people are quoting all sorts of sources. Let us have the inquiry and get the facts out.

Alan McFarland (UUP, North Down)

This is the latest in a long line of Sinn Feín demands for investigations.

If we want a truth commission, then let us have a truth commission. Let us examine the role on Bloody Friday of the member of the Belfast brigade who sits in the Chamber. Let us examine the role of the IRA Chief of Staff in IRA atrocities throughout the 1980s. If we learnt anything from South Africa, we learnt that we should stay well away from truth commissions.

Agents are a part of any country’s defences. Human intelligence in an organisation is far superior to any other source. We can recall the recent case of an FBI deep penetration agent working for Russia for years and years. It is part of the infrastructure of defence.

We can go back to Elizabethan times; we can look at the wall-to-wall informers throughout the 1798 rebellion; we can look at the so-called war of independence, during which Michael Collins was running agents in Dublin Castle and the Special Branch in Dublin — a key part of the IRA’s campaign between 1918-21.

Agents are a vital part of the security forces in countering terrorism. We can think of the stories of Raymond Gilmour, Martin McGartland and Sean O’Callaghan who have written in some detail about their operations inside the IRA and the effect they had on people still alive today. If you talk to the security forces, they will tell you that agent penetration had a large part to play in the ending of the IRA campaign, when 80% of IRA operations were either called off or interdicted by 1994.

The IRA treatment of its own informers is appalling. Eamonn Collins described his time on the "nutting squad" when he was involved in the death of some of the hundreds of informers in the IRA, who were tortured, shot and dumped along the border. Mr Collins himself ended up in the same condition.

There has certainly been collusion in the gardaí, and the cases which individuals in the security forces have been involved with that in Northern Ireland are well-documented. Some are still subject to investigation, and no doubt that investigation will take its due course.

Agents, sources and informers are part of any anti- terrorist campaign.

What evidence exists of collusion between the security forces and Loyalist paramilitaries? In 30 years, 26 Republicans have been killed by Loyalist paramilitaries. That displays an amazing degree of incompetence on behalf of the Loyalist paramilitaries, who have murdered hundreds of innocent Nationalists and never had a problem killing the nearest Catholic. My argument is that if there was all that collusion, how come only 26 Republicans were killed during the entire 30 years? That clearly refutes the allegation.

Sinn Féin talks a great deal about our shared identity, and the need — and I think we have a need — to put the past behind us. I must say that stirring up divisions through spurious motions like this is most mischievous and extremely unhelpful.

John Kelly (Sinn Féin, Mid Ulster)

A Cheann Comhairle. I want to reiterate what Mr Maskey said. Doubt is being expressed in the Chamber as to whether there was collusion. The only way to put that doubt to rest is to have a public inquiry, whatever the fallout. If it has to be a truth commission, then let us have one. Let us put to rest the hurts and sores that lack of inquiries have led to.

Allegations of collusion are not just coming from the Republican side. Sergeant Campbell was murdered in Cushendall, and his family is asking for an inquiry into his murder. He was a member of the RUC and his family alleges there was collusion in the security forces in his murder. He was murdered in Cushendall by a serving member of the RUC. He was not a Republican.

In the murder triangle in the greater Portadown area, Monsignor Denis Faul — who is the darling of many people on the Unionist side — was at the forefront in saying and writing that there was collusion between the security forces and Loyalist paramilitaries.

Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson are two high profile cases but there are others — anecdotal and local cases — that the Nationalist community points to in which men and women were murdered as a result of collusion with security forces — [Interruption].

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

Order.

John Kelly (Sinn Féin, Mid Ulster)

Billy Hutchinson asked whether there was collusion in Billy Wright’s murder. There quite possibly was collusion in his murder. But who colluded in his murder if it was not the security forces? Billy Wright was becoming too hot to handle — he knew too much, and he was about to expose his relationship with the security forces. Sinn Féin does not have a problem about having an inquiry into the murder of Billy Wright. All we are saying is let us have these inquiries and let us put to rest the reasons we are asking for them. Who should fear to speak in inquiries if there is no collusion?

The Nationalist community believes that British security forces thought that the only way to put a damper on Nationalism was to find some way of murdering Nationalists — other than their own way — and, therefore, they sought collusion with Loyalist paramilitaries.

They colluded with Loyalist paramilitaries to target Republicans and Nationalists and to "win the war" in that fashion. It is these things that are left to rankle deep in the Nationalist community. It is essential that we bring these matters to the Assembly and ask for an inquiry into them. Take the UDR, a battalion of the British Army that became an embarrassment to the British Government because many of its members behaved in a manner contrary and contradictory to any notion of law and order. Many of its members held dual membership with Loyalist paramilitary groups and stole weapons from their own barracks and brigades. Some members of the UDR went to prison for what they had done and then later served in the UDR. They became an embarrassment to the British Government, and the regiment was disbanded.

Cedric Wilson (NIUP, Strangford)

What is the driving force behind the Sinn Féin motion this afternoon? Undoubtedly, it is not driven by a mass call from the decent law-abiding Catholic citizens of Northern Ireland. Alban Maginness attempted to distance the SDLP from Sinn Féin and the motion today. However, neither the SDLP leadership nor Mr Maginness can wash their hands of their failure over the last 30 odd years to support the forces of law and order and the RUC in their attempts to bring those terrorising this community to justice. That has prolonged the agony of our community for both Catholics and Protestants. Let there be no misapprehension that either Sinn Féin or the SDLP is making this call on behalf of the decent law-abiding Catholic citizen in Northern Ireland. On the contrary, those in the Catholic community who have the courage and the bravery to speak up when they are interviewed on television would be calling for inquiries into the missing bodies of the disappeared. That subject has disappeared from the media — they are no longer interested in it. Many people throughout Northern Ireland have now forgotten the plight of people like Helen McKendry, whose mother, Jean McConville, remains one of those shot dead and lost by the cohorts of Sinn Féin members, who have the effrontery to come before the Assembly today with the motion.

Almost everyone in Northern Ireland who supports democracy and law and order agrees that if there is a need for an inquiry, it would certainly be appropriate to investigate the connection between senior figures of the Sinn Féin movement and that of the IRA. The Member from North Down referred to that pressing matter and to the fact that Mr Adams was the commanding officer of the Belfast brigade of the IRA and Mr McGuinness was the commanding officer of the Derry brigade of the IRA during the activities following Bloody Sunday. When we look at the issue mooted today, we must look at the activities of Sinn Féin/IRA.

It is nothing short of a disgrace that we have a system of Government in Northern Ireland that has been so polluted by the representatives of armed terror. Within the ranks of the Sinn Féin/IRA leadership are those who are still serving members of the IRA Army Council. Mr Doherty, Mr McGuinness and Mr Adams are all serving members of the Army Council.

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

The Member is sailing very close to the wind. I ask him to keep to the motion.

Cedric Wilson (NIUP, Strangford)

I am merely stating things that are well documented by people who are in authority in such matters, including the Chief Constable.

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

I ask the Member to speak to the motion.

Cedric Wilson (NIUP, Strangford)

Turning to current events, we should note Mr Brian Keenan’s comments at the weekend when he declared, as a senior Sinn Féin/IRA officer in both of those organisations, that the war was not over.

I finish my short address by simply appealing to all Unionists in the Chamber to unite in the coming weeks to support a motion, which should be debated, on a matter that is urgently pressing. There is nothing more important that could be debated by the House. The motion resolves that Sinn Féin does not enjoy the confidence of the Assembly because it is not committed to non-violence and exclusively peaceful and democratic means and — [Interruption].

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

I ask the Member to address his remarks to the motion.

Cedric Wilson (NIUP, Strangford)

Therefore, consistent with the Northern Ireland Act 1998, determines that Ministers of Sinn Féin shall be excluded —

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

You are out of order, Mr Wilson. I call Dr McCrea.

Cedric Wilson (NIUP, Strangford)

I am sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I must ask you to clarify. This is very much part of the motion that I am addressing, and I ask to be allowed to finish my comments.

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

Order. That was not specific to the motion.

Cedric Wilson (NIUP, Strangford)

I am sorry, but I have to challenge that. What I am saying is, I believe, relevant to the motion, and I am simply asking to be allowed to — [Interruption].

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

Order. You were reading the text of a different motion into the record, and that is why I said that that was out of order.

Cedric Wilson (NIUP, Strangford)

I accept your ruling, Madam Deputy Speaker. I simply wanted to say that I need only six members of the Ulster Unionist Party to sign the motion that I mentioned so that we can have a debate —

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

Out of order.

William McCrea (DUP, Mid Ulster)

We had, on one side, an interesting debate, because the gross hypocrisy of IRA/Sinn Féin was exposed. They had the brass neck to come and talk about what, in their motion, they claim is collusion between the security forces — that is, the Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Branch and British Army intelligence — and the Loyalist paramilitaries in the "planning and murder of Catholics". That is utter hypocrisy. In her opening remarks, the Member who introduced the debate said that its purpose was to seek to lay to rest those allegations. The truth is that if any motion were accepted today or any inquiry into any allegation were to be initiated, nothing would be laid to rest unless the relevant tribunal gave the statement that IRA/Sinn Féin or the SDLP wanted it to give. An example is the Bloody Sunday inquiry. After £100 million has been wasted, if that tribunal does not state what the SDLP and Sinn Féin want it to state, they will dismiss it completely and demand another inquiry. Nothing will satisfy the insatiable demands of Republicanism. All that Republicanism wants is for the people of Northern Ireland and the British Government to lie down and let themselves be trampled into the gutter.

Let us look at some remarks which were made in today’s debate. Mrs Nelis stated that 500 Republicans were informed by the RUC today that they were under threat. Why did she want to bring that up? Sinn Féin has never believed anything else the RUC has said, so why do they believe that this is accurate information? They reject everything the RUC says; they throw the baby out with the bath water, and then they bring this up — that she has solid evidence from the RUC that 500 Republicans are under threat. That shows you the brazen hypocrisy of that party, because it does not believe anything stated by the Royal Ulster Constabulary. They have done everything to blacken that gallant organisation, which has defended the rights and privileges of all the people of Northern Ireland.

I agree with what Mr McGimpsey said about Mrs Nelis coming out with the usual black propaganda. That is exactly what she and John Kelly were doing. Sinn Féin were coming out with their black propaganda.

The sad fact is that the party that is coming out with the black propaganda against the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the other security forces — Sinn Féin/IRA — has been put into the Government of Northern Ireland by the Ulster Unionist Party. That is why I agree with Mr Wilson that we should ensure as a matter of urgency that Sinn Féin/IRA is put out of its Executive positions. It is destroying democracy — [Interruption].

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

Order. The Member should address the motion.

William McCrea (DUP, Mid Ulster)

I will not waste time challenging that ruling. I am simply stating that Sinn Féin/IRA have colluded with the gardaí and others to murder Protestants and Roman Catholics in this country. The spotlight ought to be upon Sinn Féin/IRA.

We should remember the gross hypocrisy of Sinn Féin about the intimidation of Roman Catholics who wanted to join the RUC. Those people were intimidated and could not go back to their homes. Some Members are smirking about that. It is despicable and disgraceful that people should be intimidated for wanting to join the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Now, we see the same intimidation of Roman Catholics who dare to put in an application form for the new police force. Sinn Féin refuses to condemn, saying that it is not into the politics of condemnation. However, Sinn Féin is not against condemnation of the RUC, the army, or the Loyalists. It is not into the politics of condemnation when it comes to IRA activity against law-abiding people, whether they be Roman Catholics or Protestants. As Alban Maginness said, although the RUC killed 43 Roman Catholics, the IRA murdered 381. Those figures speak for themselves.

Our Government have demoralised the RUC and left the IRA intact, although that organisation ought to be dismantled and destroyed. The tragedy for the RUC is not collusion; it is that our Government never allowed our security forces to fight the IRA and put them where they belong. Tragically, the Government tied the security forces’ hands behind their back and did not allow them to destroy the terrorist scourge that threatened the whole community.

We have been promised more terror. At the weekend, Sinn Féin/IRA’s Mr Keenan said that he did not know what those who said the war was over were talking about. He said

"The revolution can never be over … until we have British imperialism where it belongs — in the dustbin of history."

That is the heart of the motion. They would remove, destroy and demoralise the security forces and the forces of law and order in the Province. That was said just last weekend, but, of course, Sinn Féin/IRA is not into the politics of condemnation.

Mr "Wash his hands" Pilate McLaughlin said that they did not really intend to threaten anyone. When that same person was asked whether Martin McGuinness was a member of the IRA, he replied that it had been his practice throughout his political career not to involve himself in issues that were outside his field. He seemed to have a great deal of information for us today, despite his claims that he knows nothing about the organisation of which he and his colleagues form a part. Sinn Féin and the IRA are two sides of the same coin; even the Irish Government have told us that. Yet, Mr McLaughlin wants us to believe that he knows nothing about Martin McGuinness, Gerry Adams or anything about the IRA.

The IRA has colluded with the Gardaí.

They have colluded with heads of Government in the Irish Republic. Remember when the old Stickies stood aside and the Provisionals came into existence? Who armed the Provisionals? It was the Southern Irish Government — the Fianna Fáil Government — that armed the Provos to carry out their dastardly deeds upon the people of Northern Ireland. They talk about inquiries. Let us have a few honest inquiries. Let us have an inquiry into why Sinn Féin/IRA is in the Government of this country. People want to know why those who are committed to the paths of terrorism are allowed to sit in government over the people whom they have destroyed, murdered and slaughtered for the past 30 years.

Enough money has been wasted on inquiries such as the Bloody Sunday inquiry. The RUC officers are the heroes, not the villains. They ought to be commended. I certainly commend the security forces for their defence of freedom in this beloved Province.

No one stands here to say that he or she agrees with every action of every member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. No one would say that of his or her Colleagues in the Chamber. Nevertheless, the truth is that the Royal Ulster Constabulary has gallantly defended the rights and freedoms of this country against one of the most bloodthirsty campaigns of terror and violence that any group of people has ever had to endure in the history of our beloved country.

We are faced with a motion today that never had any intention of getting to the heart of the problems of Northern Ireland. Sinn Féin was trying to cover its own guilt over the slaughter of the people here.

Monica McWilliams said that we must reflect on what a dirty war it was. What does she mean by "it was"?

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

The Member’s time is up.

William McCrea (DUP, Mid Ulster)

A dirty war is still going on in this country, and that is the war of the Provos who use the ballot box in one hand and the Armalite in the other.

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

The Member’s time is up.

William McCrea (DUP, Mid Ulster)

They are using their Executive position over the people of Northern Ireland — [Interruption].

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

The Member’s time is up.

William McCrea (DUP, Mid Ulster)

— while at the same time scheming the destruction, murder and slaughter of the innocent people of this country. We need an inquiry to expose that rottenness in the system.

Mary Nelis (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. I will do my best in the time allotted to respond to all the Members who spoke. I remind Members that the motion

"calls on the Secretary of State to initiate an independent public inquiry into allegations of collusion between the Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Branch, British Military Intelligence and Loyalist paramilitaries in the planning and murder of Catholics."

I say to Sammy Wilson and Willie McCrea that they protest too much. I notice how uncomfortable people on the Unionist Benches are when the issue of collusion involving members of the security forces is raised. It was not Walter Mitty who murdered Patsy Kelly in Tyrone. Perhaps we should ask, as Mitchell McLaughlin has done, which element of the security forces was involved in that murder.

Sammy Wilson likes to quote from books. I can also quote from a few. I could direct the attention of the Unionist Members to a book by Kennedy Lindsay, ‘Ambush at Tully-West: The British Intelligence Services in Action’. It told the story of Ian Black, a member of the UDR, who used to put his car into the barracks at night when he went out on patrol in a jeep. He discovered that his car was being used by the British intelligence forces to go into west Belfast to murder Catholics. I did not say that. Nor did Amnesty International. Kennedy Lindsay said it, and it is in a book as a recorded fact. Members should get the book and read it.

On the issue of the IRA’s being involved in —

William McCrea (DUP, Mid Ulster)

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is it right that a Member should castigate members of the Ulster Defence Regiment when her husband was a member of that organisation?

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

That is not a point of order.

Mary Nelis (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

I will ignore that remark. But I am glad that he saw the light.

If members of the IRA were involved in murders, as the DUP states, they were caught and convicted. The issue here is not the role of the IRA, but the allegations that murder was carried out in the name of the state. For example, Brian Nelson’s handler Gordon Kerr, known as Colonel "J", who provided testimony at Nelson’s trial on charges of murder and conspiracy, did not go to prison. He got an OBE and a top job in Beijing. Sammy Wilson talked about a spotlight. The spotlight of scrutiny fell on Ulster Resistance — we all saw the rally in the Ulster Hall on television — when Gregory Campbell, Ian Paisley and Peter Robinson wore their red berets. We saw them, up on the top of a mountain somewhere, carrying firearms certificates.

Michael McGimpsey said that I did not bring forth any evidence to support the motion. He should read — as should everyone — articles by Amnesty International and the ‘Sunday Telegraph’, which is no friend of Sinn Féin’s. Look at the ‘Insight’ programme.

I said that there are allegations that Loyalist paramilitaries were killed in collusion that involved British military intelligence. I said that the handing out of personal details of Nationalists and Republicans was recorded on a UTV programme by Brian Black.

Alban McGuinness did not address the motion either. Is he saying that the British are neutral? Is he saying that they were not involved in collusion? Was Brian Nelson a figment of everyone’s imagination? Did Stobie, who was an agent of the RUC and who was charged with the murder of Pat Finucane, not exist? He ignores the response, and attempts to ignore the issue of the British state violence, while attempting to elevate other organisations to the position of being responsible for every death that has happened.

Jim Shannon gave us a tirade on how innocent the security forces are. If everyone in the security forces were as innocent as he suggests, one wonders why the British Government have steadfastly rejected calls by the United Nations and by Amnesty International to deny the allegations made before them.

As regards the allegations, which we heard from several Members, that the IRA killed more Catholics. That is what I would call the numbers game. The French Resistance killed more French people than Germans during World War II. Members should read history.

Mitchel McLaughlan referred to Stobie, who was a member of the UDA —[Interruption].

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

Order.

Mary Nelis (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

Stobie, when charged — and I quote directly — replied

"I am not guilty to the charge. I was a police informer for the Special Branch."

The truth, indeed, hits hard.

Paddy Roche talks about the inquiry into the murder of Rosemary Nelson. It is well documented that Rosemary Nelson was threatened by members of the RUC, who were identified by Commander Mulvihill. Evidence to support that was put forward by Louis Blom-Cooper, who stated that Rosemary Nelson was threatened. Mulvihill’s inquiry into the death of Rosemary Nelson is a sham, because it is being conducted from the very RUC station where those who threatened her are now located. Param Cumaraswamy said that as well.

Patrick Roche (NIUP, Lagan Valley)

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Are we expected to listen to absolute nonsense? Louis Blom-Cooper spelt out clearly the basis on which he rejected those allegations.

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

That is not a point of order.

Mary Nelis (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. Billy Hutchinson made the most pointed response to the motion. I want to reply to him by stating that they did not argue that everyone involved in Loyalist paramilitaries was involved in collusion. I welcome Billy Hutchinson’s acknowledgement that there was collusion. That is contained in the spirit of the motion, and he was the only Member in the Chamber, apart from my own comrades, who tried to address that. I have not argued that every member of the RUC was a sectarian monster, but some were.

Monica McWilliams did not address the motion either. She talks about pain — [Interruption]

Yes, I know — [Interruption].

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

Order.

Mary Nelis (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

Thank you, a LeasCheann Comhairle. The point is — and it is contained in the motion — that either there was collusion or there was not — [Interruption]

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

Order. The Member is entitled to be heard.

Mary Nelis (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

It is a humbling experience to listen to the relatives of those who were murdered in collusion with the state. They want to get on with their lives, but they cannot face the future until they establish the truth about the past.

The motion highlights the need for healing. It is not about remorse; it is about the role of the British state in many of the deaths that caused the pain about which Monica McWilliams talked.

Sam Foster, along with many others, gave us the numbers game. Inquiries into specific killings are necessary, because the questions of collusion by the state in those deaths have not been answered.

I say to Alex Attwood that the motion is clear — in fact the SDLP have indirectly supported it by using the calls for inquiries into the murders of Pat Finucane, Rosemary Nelson and Robert Hamill to enable them to move to the new Police Service Board. They did acknowledge that there was a dirty war, but then Alex Attwood went on to say that only selected members of the British forces were involved. If that is the case, then the British Government should tell us. They should acknowledge that they knew of the activities of the Forces Research Unit (FRU) and that they knew of the South African arms.

Edwin Poots raised the age-old argument — I think that it was RUC Chief Constable Hermon who used it years ago to try to put to rest the allegations of collusion then — of the few rotten apples in the barrel. Nobody believed him, and nobody believes Edwin Poots now either.

Edwin Poots (DUP, Lagan Valley)

Nobody believes you.

Mary Nelis (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

Then we had the cost of collusion. Let me point out to some of the Members on the opposite Benches — [Interruption].

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

Order.

Mary Nelis (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

Brian Nelson, of whom we have heard a great deal today, was paid £28,000 a week for his labours as an informer for the British military services. On whose orders was he operating? FRU — [Interruption].

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

Order. This is the third or fourth time during this contribution that I have had to stand. I remind Members that there is dignity in the House and that the Member is entitled to be heard — [Interruption]. I have called for order — [Interruption].

I have called for order.

Mary Nelis (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

Go raibh maith agat, a LeasCheann Comhairle. I too am appalled at the disrespect shown to the Chair — [Interruption].

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

Order.

Mary Nelis (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

FRU soldiers and officials, including the former Secretary of State, Tom King, have tried to suppress documents that are now in the public domain.

In fact, the whistle-blower, under the pseudonym Martin Ingram, wrote in a Belfast newspaper recently about the "right" people who were allowed to live and the "wrong" people who were not. Members should get hold of that and read it. Alan McFarland said that Sinn Féin was not making a demand. No, we are not making a demand; we are not calling for public inquiries — we are supporting the relatives who have called for them — [Interruption]

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

Order. Because of the disruption, I shall give Mrs Nelis 30 seconds to finish.

Peter Weir (UUP, North Down)

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Previously when there were periods of disruption and you called for order, the clock stopped. Surely the Member’s time is up — [Interruption].

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

Order. The clock stopped during points of order — not during the time when I was calling for order and I was standing and waiting for order. I am giving Mrs Nelis 30 seconds to conclude her remarks.

Nigel Dodds (DUP, Belfast North)

Madam Deputy Speaker, can you tell us how often you have given the same opportunity to Members on this side of the House? Or are you especially fond of doing that for Sinn Féin/IRA?

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

The Deputy Speaker rejects any such accusation. Order. I will give Mrs Nelis 30 seconds to conclude her remarks.

Mary Nelis (Sinn Féin, Foyle)

Yes, agents are a part of the apparatus of the State. The motion clearly calls for the issue of collusion in the planning and carrying out of the murders of over 100 Catholics to be addressed by the British Government.

Question,

Main Question, as amended, put and agreed to.

Resolved:

That this Assembly rejects allegations of collusion between the RUC Special Branch, British Military Intelligence and Loyalist Paramilitaries and congratulates the security forces, who have striven to uphold law and order in Northern Ireland in the face of a sectarian campaign of murder directed by IRA/Sinn Féin in collusion with others.

Public Transport (Weather Conditions)

John Fee (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Newry and Armagh)

asked the Minister for Regional Development, pursuant to his statement on 15 January 2001 on the salting of roads, what measures are being taken to ensure that road, rail and other public transport networks remain in use and, in particular, what steps are being taken to support the needs of emergency services in the light of the current adverse weather conditions.

Gregory Campbell (DUP, East Londonderry)

There was widespread disruption to roads across Northern Ireland both last night and this morning due to a combination of drifting snow, fallen trees and power lines that were brought down by 70 miles-per-hour winds. Jackknifed lorries and abandoned vehicles have caused blockages in some areas. The Roads Service has deployed all of its resources to try to keep the main traffic routes passable. All Roads Service divisions were put on a high state of readiness at 10 am yesterday. In the northern division, snowplough blades were mounted on some vehicles, and gritting started at lunchtime yesterday. Similar measures were implemented at 6.45 pm in eastern and southern divisions.

All main routes on the salted network were treated prior to the snowfall. A band of rain preceded the snow; therefore some was washed off. Main routes were salted continuously through the night. Despite that, many roads have been affected especially in Counties Antrim and Down and in the Belfast area.

Translink advises that if roads remain passable it will continue to offer as many of its scheduled bus services as is practicable. Translink must ensure that passenger safety — and that of its own staff — takes precedence. Operational decisions to withdraw services will be made on that basis. Translink has also advised that disruption to rail services has been minimal. Northern Ireland Railways operates an on-call system that enables signal points to be kept clear of ice. Its staff have been implementing those measures across the network since early this morning. Translink advises that if bus or rail services are further disrupted due to the weather, it will endeavour to keep passengers informed through the media and its dedicated call centre.

John Fee (Social Democratic and Labour Party, Newry and Armagh)

I thank the Minister for making the time to be available today. I am not going to rehearse the weather problems that people across the entire community have been experiencing over past days. They affect everyone in Northern Ireland.

Can the Minister give us an update on the commitment that he gave on 15 January 2001, when he made a statement to the House following the bad weather over the Christmas and New Year period? He specifically referred to ensuring "access to key public services in snow conditions". Can he give us some commitment that those key public services or facilities will include schools, hospitals, churches, health centres, cemeteries, and the local shop or post office — the places people need to get to? That is especially important for people in rural areas, so that they can survive these bad weather conditions with some reasonable comfort. They need to be in a position to access the local facilities, services and outlets.

In particular, will the Minister consider what needs to be done to ensure that the emergency services — the Ambulance Service, the police and the Fire Service — can actually do their job and perform their functions during the type of weather that we have seen in the past couple of days?

Gregory Campbell (DUP, East Londonderry)

The Member refers to a statement that I made in the House on 15 January 2001. I assume that he is referring to the winter service review that I undertook to have carried out by the Roads Service. The review is currently under way, and I will report to the House when its conclusions are known.

The Member asked specifically about a number of areas involving the emergency services. Hospitals, for the most part, are located on the salted network, so immediate access to and from hospitals is normally covered. He raised — both today and previously — other points relating to matters such as GP out-of-hours services, nursing homes and health centres. It is difficult to establish every single access to and from every one of those — and to ensure that they are free at all times — when the entire Roads Service staff is working flat out to ensure that the salted network, primarily, is kept free.

The main roads have been affected this morning by the horrendous weather, and we have seen the problems that afflict the electricity supply in Northern Ireland — and which afflict some of those emergency services. I can inform the Member that the emergency services will form part of the review.

I would like to be able to say that every road and every access to every emergency service will be kept open at all times. It is not practicable for me to say that, especially with the budget limitation of £5 million per year for the winter salting programme. I will, however, ensure that the elements referred to by Mr Fee will become part of the review and will be closely examined.

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

I am sure that the Assembly is grateful to the Minister for taking the time to come and answer this question.

David Ford (Alliance, South Antrim)

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Yesterday I raised a point of order, relating to the fact that, with the Minister of Agriculture being engaged in meetings in Brussels, there was no Minister available to make a statement on the foot-and-mouth disease crisis throughout the UK and on its implications for Northern Ireland. I understood that the Minister of Agriculture hoped to be here this afternoon, and a private notice question was tabled. She is again detained — this time in London. It is utterly unacceptable that there is no Minister to speak on a matter that is of great importance to the agriculture community.

Also, can you inform me how it is possible to ask for a statement to be made in the House by another Minister on behalf of the Executive?

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

That is a matter for the Executive — not for the House. It is appropriate that the Executive should be asked whether another Minister could replace the Minister. You have made the point that the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development is in London attending a very important meeting on this issue. The question you raise is a matter for the Executive.

Edwin Poots (DUP, Lagan Valley)

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Can you clarify whether the Member is correct when he says that foot-and-mouth disease is now present throughout the United Kingdom? So far as I am aware, it is only in Great Britain and has not reached this part of the United Kingdom yet.

Jane Morrice (NIWC, North Down)

That is not a point of order.

Adjourned at 4.30 pm.