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.

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.

Will the Member give way?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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].

Will the Member address his remarks through the Chair.

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.

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.

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].

Order.

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.

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.

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

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

I ask the Member to speak to the motion.

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].

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

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

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

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.

Order. That was not specific to the motion.

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].

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