Mrs Ramsey:

May I first of all welcome the fact that the report was finally presented to us by the First Minister (Designate) and the Deputy First Minister (Designate). I hope that we can get on now with the important things that we were all elected to do.

My concern about the report is that it contains no reference to the safeguarding of the rights of children.

2.30 pm

Parties in the Assembly agree that it is important to take the most effective steps possible to safeguard and promote the chances of all children. At the 1996 World Summit, the British Government stated that the well-being of children requires political action at the highest level. It will be the Assembly's responsibility to ensure that children's well-being is at the centre of all decisions and that it is not just empty rhetoric.

We must implement fully the values of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. As the Assembly will be aware, Save the Children and the Children's Law Centre have been campaigning long and hard for the appointment of a Minister for children. My party and others have been campaigning for the most practical ways of securing the rights of children.

Children across this state have been severely disadvantaged by the effect of policies in such diverse areas as health, education, social security and housing. Let me offer a few examples to support this argument. More than 500,000 people here are under the age of 18, and of that number over 35% are children who are directly affected by poverty.

In 1997, 833 children presented themselves to the Housing Executive as homeless. There is the impact of having the highest birth rate in the European Union - 40% above the EU average - along with the highest teenage birth rate. This means that we have to deal with the implications of children looking after children, never mind the effects on family life of long-term unemployment and the impact of New Deal. The recent failure to implement Sure Start has also caused concern.

One early-years organisation said that children have no voice. This is really saying that children do not matter. In 1996, more than 31% of three-year-olds and 12% of four-year-olds were in nursery education.

In the area of health, we are faced with a growth in the drugs culture among young people, along with an increase in mental health problems affecting children and young people. There is also the alarming increase in suicides.

Perhaps one of the greatest concerns is the crisis affecting those services that we have traditionally relied upon to protect children. It is a damning indictment that children in the care of the state can be more at risk than those in the care of the community. So what is being done to address these issues? Who is trying to ensure that the policies and decisions are child-friendly?

At present all British Government Departments are required to assess the impact of their policies on the environment, but not on children. Children and young people are more important than the environment. Both are our future and without either we have no future. Let us protect our future. Our children will do a better job of protecting the environment than we have done.

Current structures have failed, and we need a radical new approach to deal with these failures - failures which were highlighted by the Gilbertion Foundation Enquiry in 1996. For example, there has been the failure to give children political priority; there has been a lack of political commitment to children; and there has been a failure to promote children's participation.

The report cites evidence that children and young people's alienation from politics is growing. Children are invisible; they have no annual report; and there is no systematic collection or publication of statistics. There is no requirement to assess and publish information on the impact of legislation and Government policies on children. There is no analysis of overall departmental budgets to assess the amount and proportion of funding spent on children.

The report also found that there is inadequate co-ordination between Government Departments, inefficient use of resources and a tendency towards inflexibility of funding. The Department of Health and Social Services, health and social service boards, trusts, the Department of Education, education and library boards, the Department of the Environment, local councils, the Northern Ireland Office, criminal justice, juvenile justice and probation boards - these are just some of the bodies that affect children.

However, there is very little, if any, departmental co-ordination on policy development. The Assembly will be responsible for implementing the rights of the child under the UN Convention. It is an issue which affects all of us - or perhaps not, as they do not have a vote. All policies should be assessed to ascertain their impact on children and to ensure that the rights of the child are paramount. After careful consideration, I and my party are convinced that the best way to tackle this issue is to seek the appointment of a junior Minister with a cross-departmental remit to promote child- and, therefore, family-friendly politics and policies in all Departments.

This should not become a party political issue. I appeal to all Members to urge their parties to adopt this approach rather than empty promises or statements on the rights of children and to support groups, like Save the Children and the Children's Law Centre, that have been campaigning long and hard for a Minister.

Mr Armstrong:

I was elected by the people in Mid Ulster who supported the Belfast Agreement and also by those in the "No" camp who gave me their second-preference votes. Despite being against the agreement they saw the need for a Government at Stormont. However, such a Government will be doomed to destruction if politicians who have private armies are allowed into the Executive. Decommissioning has to take place or the Assembly will be a complete farce. I am here to represent Unionists in Mid Ulster, and I do not intend my voice to be muffled by fellow Unionists who have no faith or confidence in themselves and have a blurred vision of the way forward.

This vote today is not about decommissioning - it is about setting up structures. I will vote for the report because I see it as a way of achieving better government for the people of Northern Ireland. However, I will not allow the Unionist Party to sit in or support an Executive with unreformed terrorists. In my eyes there must be proof. Without credible and verifiable decommissioning, Sinn Féin/IRA cannot be allowed into ministerial posts. It is not reasonable to have an armed terrorist in government.

Fellow Unionists must have confidence in themselves and in their ability to govern Northern Ireland. The Unionist parties need to unite to take this Assembly forward and to show the people that we intend to govern this Province, leaving Sinn Féin/IRA behind unless they decommission and admit that the war is over.

We cannot allow Republicans to wriggle out of their responsibilities. If Sinn Féin members believe that they are real democrats, they must agree that it is only fair that they should decommission straight away. In fact, it should have been done 10 months ago, if not earlier. If they do not decommission now, this will simply prove that they are just a bunch of terrorists. And terrorist organisations have no credibility in the Assembly or anywhere else. With the support of other Unionist parties the peace process can go on with increased strength and a more determined voice. Our young people deserve this leadership. We cannot be a divided Unionist community.

Sinn Féin/IRA's objective is a united Ireland. A united Ireland is an Irishman's dream, but it is only a dream. We are here in the Assembly to govern the people of Northern Ireland. In voting for this report I am pushing the process forward to the very limits. We in the Ulster Unionist Party have fulfilled our obligations and have nothing left to give.

I support the motion.

Mrs Lewsley:

I welcome the chance to support the report before us today.

I wish to concentrate on one vital issue that underpins the entire basis of how we create our future in Northern Ireland - equality. Many Members addressed the matter at length in the debate on this report last month. I was incensed particularly by the remarks of Sinn Féin Members, who tried to distort the SDLP's position on this matter. Surprisingly for me, it was Mitchel McLaughlin who missed the point completely in his speech of 18 January when he asserted, quite incorrectly, that equality would be treated with less urgency than other matters if the proposed arrangements went ahead and equality resided under the remit of the office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Because of the importance of and priority given to equality it is best dealt with centrally to ensure that it is not put into a cul-de-sac or used in a partisan shoot-out. My Colleague Sean Farren in his speech here on 18 January assured us that a special committee would be set up to scrutinise equality matters, and that is by far the best way to ensure that this matter remains at the forefront of our deliberations and decisions in the future.

The best way to monitor departmental actions on equality is to bring to book, and before this House, any Minister who is not pulling his weight in this matter. If any Member from Sinn Féin does not believe me, then I refer that Member to the report from the Community Relations Council, which recently backed the proposal to place equality centrally in the office of the First and Deputy First Ministers (Designate).

The Human Rights Commission is being given a key role in the new process, and the Equality Commission has just as important a role to play to guarantee that the voices of the under-represented are heard. For this reason it is important that the Equality Unit be based centrally and do the job that it is set.

I welcome Sinn Féin's conversion to the equality issue. For many years it was not very high on the party's agenda. When we talk about equality in Northern Ireland we, as a House or, indeed, as individual parties, should not get hung up on the equality of identity or of nationality alone. Equality has many manifestations in society - not least for people of wider ethnic groups, gender and disability. I can assure Members that I will return to these issues time and time again during my term of office here. With equality it does not matter whether you are Catholic or Protestant, Nationalist or Unionist. Discrimination existed long before the troubles and, sadly, persists today.

It is time that people with disabilities received fair treatment. I intend to make sure that the Assembly takes on responsibility for setting up a commission against discrimination, as promised in the Disability Discrimination Act, and as will happen throughout the rest of the United Kingdom. It is insulting to people with disabilities in Northern Ireland that the Government have sufficient cause to act elsewhere in the UK to stamp out inequality where it exists when there is no similar mechanism here, especially considering that 17 out of every 100 people in Northern Ireland have a disability - the highest level in the UK.

There is a lack of initiative with regard to allowing children with disabilities the right to be part of mainstream education, the preference being to segregate them in special schools. That is a matter that the Equality Commission can address.

Ethnic minorities in Northern Ireland have little or no representation in our community. For example, it was well documented in a recent survey that the Chinese community is facing ongoing and increasing levels of racism. This is unacceptable. A new Equality Commission must give all minorities a voice.

There is tremendous ground to be made up in Northern Ireland on the equality of gender. Indeed, judging by the contributions and asides on occasions from some Members in the House, we have a long road to travel. Women face inequality on a daily basis, whether they are mothers in need of training or entrepreneurs who need grant aid to kick-start their businesses, many of which are in the service sector. Even when in business they are ignored in trade delegations and refused funding and support because they are not in industry or in the export trade.

The very fact of these problems discriminates against woman. Last week we saw the targeting of single parents on benefit and the abandonment of a £15 million child-care programme, the money for which is now being redirected to other areas. These are not matters for debate today, but I assure Members and future Ministers that I shall return to them many times in the future.

2.45 pm

Mr Poots:

We have heard many speeches attacking the Democratic Unionist Party and, in particular, the stance that it takes in the Assembly. I should make it abundantly clear to those Members who think that the DUP should not act as it does that while 71% of the people in Northern Ireland voted for the agreement, 29% of them voted against it. I have no doubt that the latter figure would be higher if the referendum were to take place today, for at the time of the agreement promises were made that were not honoured.

The DUP and the other parties that opposed the agreement at the election have a duty to represent the views of those people in Northern Ireland who also opposed the agreement. I resent the SDLP's telling Members from the DUP that they should not represent the views of the people who voted for them. This is a democracy, and the DUP is entitled to make its case in the Chamber.

Others have made a different case from the one which the SDLP has made. They put explosives underneath its members' cars. It was not the DUP who did that. The DUP has always fought and argued its case, with the SDLP and others, through democratic means.

Dr Hendron has called the Members from the DUP the abominable "No" men. The abominable people in the Assembly are the people who have committed murders, planted explosives and, on entering the Assembly, claimed some sort of democratic credentials. These are the abominable people - not the people who have operated in accordance with democratic means.

Last night I listened to John Hume on the radio. He said that we should leave the past behind and look to the future. I apologise for criticising the venerable John Hume. The SDLP may not appreciate such criticism, but I am going to give it anyway. John Hume says that people have to leave the past behind. This means that victims are to forget all that has happened in the past - it has all to be brushed under the carpet. Perhaps the SDLP will now join the Police Authority; perhaps it will allow its members to participate in police liaison committees; and perhaps it will support the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

Only in the past was the RUC a problem to members in the Nationalist community; it should not be a problem now. Perhaps the SDLP will recognise the Orange culture and Orange traditions; perhaps it will support the right to free procession for Orangemen to their places of worship. These problems were all in the past; we are living in the future now.

Yesterday Mr Mallon told us to trust the terrorists. He said that we would not get decommissioning unless we left it in the hands of the terrorists. That was the basic content of his speech. Let me say that there are more effective ways of taking weapons from terrorists than allowing terrorists to do it themselves. That has been proved in the past.

The so-called expert, Gen de Chastelain, has had 10 months to deliver a beginning of decommissioning, but he has not done so. The only guns that have been handed in were from the Loyalist Volunteer Force - and Members may draw their own conclusions about why these guns were handed in. No guns have been handed in by the mainstream paramilitaries. Gen de Chastelain has failed in his duty. He should be bringing forward a report to the Assembly on the progress of decommissioning. It is all right for him to sit in an office in Belfast with people saying that he is doing his job well. He should tell the public what is happening with decommissioning, what the prospect for decommissioning is, and whether there is going to be any handing over of weapons. This information should be made public now.

I now turn to this concoction of a report that trades the number of Departments required for political expediency and tries to slot different areas of responsibility into each Department. More than 40 articles left out of the first report are included in this one. Mr Trimble said that some of the changes were straightforward and that others were more substantial. These include road safety, the Child Support Agency, education and library boards and industrial and fair-employment tribunals. I am surprised that Mr Mallon left the Armagh Planetarium out - I thought he was a representative for the Newry and Armagh constituency. The Ulster Unionists have doubled Sinn Féin's strength in the Cabinet by allowing, through this report, 10 Cabinet posts.

I have a document of John Taylor's in which he and Mr Savage talked about the young people of the Province. I will touch on this document later.

I am opposed to an institutionalised link between Ulster and the Republic. I do not agree that anti-partitionists must be members of any future Stormont Cabinet.

Not only are we having anti-partitionists as members of the Stormont Government, but we are going to have anti-partitionists who engaged in terrorism to achieve their aims in that same Stormont Cabinet. I am sure that Mr Taylor will have the opportunity later to answer that.

The Initial Presiding Officer:

It might be wise for the Member to review some of the remarks that he has made. He has made some rather precise remarks about which I advise him to think again.

Mr Poots:

Mr Initial Presiding Officer, I am quoting from a document that John Taylor published for the people of North Down.

The Initial Presiding Officer:

It was not those precise remarks that I was thinking about.

Mr Poots:

I am not aware of what those might be. However, I will seek to continue.

There are some absolutely ludicrous decisions in this report. Education has been split over three Departments - Education, Higher and Further Education, and Culture, Arts and Leisure, where libraries and museums have been put. Under the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure they have also managed to include Ordnance Survey and visitor amenities. Under the Enterprise, Trade and Investment Department they have included tourism. Surely tourism and visitor amenities go hand in hand and should not be situated in different Departments.

Let us look at the Environment Department. I have sat in council meetings and heard the Ulster Unionists talk about the problems of the Department of the Environment digging up a road, then tarring it, and when it is nicely finished, the Water Service coming along and digging it up and making a complete hash of it again. What have the SDLP and the Ulster Unionists concocted on that? They have put planning control in the Environment Department, and transport planning, roads and water into the Regional Development Department.

This is creating extra Departments to create jobs for the boys or jobs for the girls, as the case may be. Of course, we know about the snouts in the troughs. There may be some female Members who wish to put their snouts in the troughs. Perhaps that is what was pressing some of the parties so badly.

Mr Kennedy:

In the improbable event of the Member's being invited to head a Department dealing with such inconsistent matters, would he be prepared to serve?

Mr Poots:

There is no doubt that I will not be invited to head any Department. The simple fact is - [Interruption]

The Initial Presiding Officer:

Order.

Mr Poots:

There are more experienced Members in the DUP, and a young man like me would not have the opportunity to do that just yet. Mr Kennedy would have a much better chance of being called to serve in the Ulster Unionist Party, given the depths of talent there.

With regard to the Civic Forum, the victims have been annihilated. They are getting two seats, and the community groups are getting 18 seats. These groups have been infiltrated in many areas by paramilitaries. We will have more paramilitaries represented in the Civic Forum than we will have victims. Those who decided on these numbers should hang their heads in shame today. They have trampled on the victims and their feelings.

Agriculture is not to be adequately represented in the Civic Forum either. I express concern as to how the church nominations will be filled. We have the great and the good church leaders who have always said what the Government have desired. I would like to see the evangelical churches, which are not recognised properly by the BBC and other television and radio companies, also get seats.

Mr Boyd:

I reject this report. In it, there are several concessions made to Nationalism by the Ulster Unionists. The proposal to increase the number of Government Departments from the current six to 10, thereby creating a 50:50 carve-up between Unionists and Nationalists - although the current make-up of the Assembly is 60:40 in favour of Unionists - is clearly a concession by the Ulster Unionist Party. That this is an act of political expediency is confirmed by paragraph 2.6 of the report:

"we recognise that increasing the number of Departments inevitably involves some dislocation and diseconomies."

The report acknowledges the extra expense incurred by the decision of the Ulster Unionists and their bedfellows to capitulate on the issue of the number of Departments in order to ensure that the SDLP and Sinn Féin receive the maximum number of ministerial appointments. The report also states

"the additional costs should be offset by rationalising the remainder of public administration in Northern Ireland."

But it gives no specific details about this rationalisation or about how the additional £90 million required will be found. Clearly, the decision on the number of Departments has nothing to do with efficient government but has been made for reasons of political expediency. The Executive will not be accountable to the Assembly, and it will be virtually impossible to remove any Minister from office.

The Northern Ireland Unionist Party's position is that by focusing on the issue of departmental structures, we are marginalising the core issue of the decommissioning of terrorist arsenals. The proposals on departmental structures should explicitly exclude parties linked to terrorist organisations which refuse to decommission their arsenals and dismantle their paramilitary structures.

Throughout 30 years of terror the SDLP has consistently condemned violence while not hesitating to profit politically from it. The SDLP tells us that we should forget the past. Will John Hume and his party now state publicly that "bloody Sunday" is a thing of the past and best left there? The SDLP now faces a clear choice between support for democracy and the rule of law and support for Sinn Féin/IRA in its demand to participate in the Executive while retaining its arsenal and its terrorist structures. If the SDLP supports Sinn Féin/IRA in its refusal to decommission, this renders the party indistinguishable from Sinn Féin/IRA. The alternative for the SDLP is to align itself with the democratic demand that Sinn Féin/IRA must decommission its terrorist arsenal and dismantle its terrorist structures.

Yesterday we heard a Member talk about the importance of the equality agenda and demand tolerance for her community. Where is the tolerance towards the Orange Order, which simply wants its civil and religious liberty to return from a church service in a dignified and peaceful manner along a route which it has used for 150 years? The truth is that many Nationalists move freely in Portadown town centre, some wearing Glasgow Celtic and Republic of Ireland soccer tops. These are hardly the actions of a community which feels intimidated. As someone who worked in Portadown town centre for six years, I can confirm that this is true.

I also remind the House that a van bomb containing 1,600 pounds of explosive was placed directly outside my place of employment, wrecking the entire town centre, which it took nearly two years to rebuild. I call such an act directed towards business owners and workers, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, intimidation of the worst kind. Without the prompt actions of a passing RUC patrol, there would have been horrendous consequences too awful to contemplate. It ill behoves any Member to talk about intolerance and intimidation in Portadown.

Decommissioning is a fundamental requirement of democracy. The Leader of the Alliance Party held up a newspaper article yesterday. I would like to quote from an article in last night's 'Belfast Telegraph':

"In the summer of 1996 an 18-day-old baby was thrown from its chair during an horrific attack on a young west Belfast family.

Two other children in the house at the time were doused with paint.

Just one month later a nine-year-old girl from Lisburn was attacked by three masked men as she played with friends.

The thugs, armed with cudgels and sticks, beat the child about the head repeatedly."

Yet we are told by Sinn Féin that it is interested in the rights of children.

"The list of locations for attacks in the past year reads like a twisted tourist guide to the province".

Dr Hendron referred to Aughnacloy and other places. The list of places where paramilitary punishment attacks have taken place in recent times is endless - Antrim, Armagh, Ballymena, Ballynahinch, Bangor, Belfast, Markethill, Newry, and so on.

3.00 pm

The newspaper article continues

"The instruments of torture in the armoury of the gangs are many and varied - baseball bats, golf clubs, nail studded clubs, pick-axe handles, hammers, sledgehammers, hurley-sticks, axes, hatchets, drills, industrial staplers and American style police batons.

...

The image that the paramilitaries are reluctantly drawn into the attacks is also undermined by the fact that they have been repeatedly shown to be the result of personal vendettas. An IRA leader in north Belfast ordered the attack that killed Andrew Kearney last summer because Kearney had beaten him in a bar fight. Mr Kearney was shot in the legs and left to bleed to death after his killers ripped out telephone lines, putting an ambulance out of reach. The same IRA man has done it before. In 1995, when his new car was stolen, the man he believed to be the culprit had his legs spiked onto a metal fence. And last year, a senior UDA leader on the Shankill was implicated in a shooting that left the victim crippled."

There is no peace. The pro-Union community rightly will not tolerate government by an Executive which includes the architects of the terrorism that has been directed against it for 30 years and while the IRA retains its terrorist arsenal and structures for use at its discretion. Such a situation is totally unthinkable and unacceptable.

The Alliance Leader, Sean Neeson, stated yesterday that Gen de Chastelain has a key political role to play. Let me categorically state that the general's role is a technical one - that of the destruction of weapons and explosives.

The obligation on the Government of the United Kingdom to back the demand for decommissioning is reinforced by the clear impression, which was conveyed by the Prime Minister, and was a crucial part of the referendum campaign, that decommissioning would be a condition of Sinn Féin/IRA's taking seats in the Executive. That impression was conveyed on at least the following occasions: speeches at Balmoral and the University of Ulster, the handwritten pledges, the letter of 10 April 1998 to Mr Trimble, and statements by the Prime Minister to Parliament. The vast majority of the law-abiding citizens of Northern Ireland want a stable society in which they can go about their lives in peace. It goes without saying that a minority has no interest in a stable society in Northern Ireland - it is interested only in instability.

Sinn Féin/IRA must not be allowed to hold executive positions in the Northern Ireland Assembly. That matter cannot be fudged or compromised on. Sinn Féin should not be recognised as a legitimate political party. Let me quote from a speech by Martin McGuinness:

"I apologise to no one for saying we support and admire the freedom fighters of the IRA. In the whole of Western Europe there is not a revolutionary socialist organisation that enjoys as much popular support as we do. The British know that the IRA is out to win. Republicans will not be satisfied with another glorious failure. Resistance has deepened, and so has our absolute commitment to victory."

That is the Martin McGuinness who could be placed in the Government of Northern Ireland unless this report is rejected. For any Unionist to acquiesce to the enrolment of Sinn Féin/IRA in an Assembly Executive would be a gross betrayal of the loyal people of Northern Ireland, who have had to endure 30 years of murder and mayhem from the Republican movement.

The innocent victims of Republican terrorism deserve - indeed, demand - that their voices be heard. That voice is calling on all Unionists to prevent Sinn Féin/IRA's being placed in government in Northern Ireland. I am appalled that the Ulster Unionist Party negotiator, Mr Michael McGimpsey, stated in the 'Belfast Telegraph' last night that decommissioning did not necessarily have to occur before Sinn Féin entered the Executive. I call on the Ulster Unionist Party Assembly Members -

Mr McGimpsey:

On a point of order, Mr Initial Presiding Officer. The report to which Mr Boyd refers is incorrect. I have spoken to the publication and pointed that out. It is not what I said. It is a false report, and Mr Boyd can take comfort from the fact that I have said over and over again in public that we require a verifiable and credible start to decommissioning before we form the Executive.

The Initial Presiding Officer:

That was a point of information - perhaps a very valid point of information since the Member's name was mentioned. However, it was not a point of order.

Mr McCartney:

May I make what I hope is a valid point of order? There is no point whatever, Mr Initial Presiding Officer, in permitting what is clearly not a point of order to be made and then ruling that it is not a point of order, because that allows the person who is making the false point of order to make a totally inappropriate interjection. There is no such thing as a point of information in the House of Commons, and there ought not to be one here.

The Initial Presiding Officer:

If I had been severe enough to rule out every point of order which was not truly a point of order I would have found myself in some considerable difficulty here. Having discussed the matter with the Speaker in another place, I have discovered that it is not such an easy matter there either.

Mr Boyd:

I call on Ulster Unionist Party Assembly Members to join with many of that party's Members of Parliament and grass-roots members to reject this report. Listen to the young people in the Ulster Unionist Party. I call on each Ulster Unionist to reject the SDLP and Sinn Féin, whose common goal is Irish unity, and join their Unionist Colleagues in rejecting this report.

Let me turn to the Civic Forum. In a society which already has an abundance of unelected quangos, it is wholly unnecessary to create what would, in effect, be a further unelected body whose main political purpose would be to endorse the outworking of the Belfast Agreement. No wonder Sir George Quigley and his G7 cohorts are keen to have the Belfast Agreement implemented without decommissioning. The business sector has been given seven places, as has the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU). The voluntary community sector has been allocated 18 places. That will enable those residents' groups fronted by Sinn Féin/IRA activists such as Gerard Rice, Breandan MacCionnaith and Donncha Mac Niallais to attain another public platform to oppose the Loyal Orders.

I reject this report, and I have to say that this is not the end of the process. It is clear that the all-Ireland institutions and bodies set up under this agreement are capable of further development.

Mr Taylor:

I rise to support the report presented by the First Minister (Designate) and the Deputy First Minister (Designate). I want to refer to some of the matters in the report before going on to a general issue.

Mr Dodds and Mr Boyd referred to the additional costs arising from the creation of the 10 Departments. Of course, they are correct. It is acknowledged that there will be additional costs, but what they failed to point out is that this is going to be addressed. Paragraph 2.6 of the report says that these additional costs

"should be offset by rationalising the remainder of public administration in Northern Ireland."

What that means is that if we get a devolved system of government in Northern Ireland, and if the elected representatives of the people of Northern Ireland begin to administer the Province, the quangos will have been given notice. Many of them will be abolished.

Area health boards will come under reconsideration, and I trust that savings can be made very quickly from area health councils, which are costing £0.75 million a year with no positive results whatsoever.

Paragraphs 3.4 and 3.5, which relate to the North/South Council, refer to a decision to have the inaugural meeting of that body in the city of Armagh. As a resident of that city, I commend that decision to the House. Armagh is a very attractive city. It has the misfortune, perhaps, to be misrepresented in Parliament at Westminster at the moment, but it is fairly represented in this House. It is a city of architectural interest and great heritage; it is the former seat of the kings of Ulster; it has the planetarium, the observatory, cathedrals, and museums. I commend that decision, and I am glad that the First Minister (Designate) and Deputy First Minister (Designate) have supported it.

Paragraph 3.10 of the report deals with procedural arrangements. Mr Dodds - and maybe he is listening - again misrepresented the facts. He said that the North/South Council would not be accountable to the Northern Ireland Assembly. If he looks at paragraph 3.10 he will see that it specifically refers to its accountability to the Northern Ireland Assembly. It makes reference to the strand-two section of the agreement. [Interruption]

The Initial Presiding Officer:

Order.

Mr Taylor:

As far as the North/South Council is concerned, let us not forget that all decisions there have to be agreed. There will always be a Unionist in the Northern Ireland delegation, so the Unionists will have a veto on all decisions made by the North/South Council. It is time the Democratic Unionist Party stopped running away from these facts. It has no confidence in its ability to speak up for Ulster. All it can do is say "No" and run away.

The British-Irish Council, as detailed in paragraph 4.1 of this report, will meet in London at much the same time as the inaugural meeting of the North/South Council. I am disappointed that we are not making more progress with the British-Irish Council. The two Governments must move more speedily to bring forward their reports on how they see the British-Irish Council functioning.

The venue for the secretariat of the British-Irish Council is something which is up for discussion. Douglas in the Isle of Man is canvassing to be the location. It is a neutral state - not part of the Republic of Ireland and not part of the United Kingdom. Glasgow also has a strong claim. It has an appeal to many people in this island, both North and South - not only those who support various football teams but also those who support various institutions. And in Glasgow there are people from both traditions who originally lived in the Province of Ulster. So it too has a strong claim.

And indeed we in the Ulster Unionist Party are trying to give further enthusiasm to the whole idea of the British-Irish Council. We believe that it is as important to the solution as is the North/South Council. [Interruption] Do not snigger at the idea of the totality of relationships on these islands being addressed.

The Initial Presiding Officer:

Order.

Mr Taylor:

On Thursday I will be taking a delegation to Edinburgh, where the Ulster Unionist Party will begin developing relations with politicians in Scotland - with the SNP, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and, of course, the Minister of the Scottish Office, Mr McLeish, who is responsible for devolution.

The Civic Forum has been a matter of concern to many Members, and quite rightly so. We do not want to see it becoming a rival institution to the elected Assembly for Northern Ireland.

There are several paragraphs upon which I would like to pass comment. Paragraph 5.8 states that there will be seven members representing the business community in Northern Ireland. I would like to think that the chambers of trade, which are not mentioned, will also be involved. With regard to tourism, I would like to think that the Ulster Tourist Development Association will have some input on who will represent the industry.

Paragraph 5.9 deals with agriculture and fisheries, which are allocated only three seats. I assume that two will go to agriculture and one to fisheries, which, of course, has a special interest for me in my constituency of Strangford. There are three major ports - Portavogie, Ardglass and Kilkeel - and it would be unfortunate if we got someone from the fishing industry who spoke on behalf of only one of those ports. We need someone who can speak for all three ports so that the entire fishing industry is represented.

Paragraph 5.10 is concerned with trade unions. Of course, the Northern Ireland Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions is the representative body, but there are unions and professional bodies in Northern Ireland that are not members of that body. It is important that they also become involved in the Civic Forum and that they are not ignored just simply because they are not members of that Committee.

Paragraph 5.12 deals with churches. I am disappointed to hear that Mr Ford, speaking on behalf of the Alliance Party, is against the churches being represented. The churches have played a valuable role in the last 30 years in holding this community together at a time when more and more people could have become extreme. It may well be that the four main churches will take up four of these places, but I do stress the point made earlier that there are more than 100,000 people who belong to smaller evangelical churches in Northern Ireland. They too should have a voice on this body.

Paragraph 5.20 states that members will serve for three years and should retire on a staggered basis. I do not know what "staggered" means, but presumably it means that a third will go every year. Does that mean that one third will retire after one year, another third will just serve two years, and a lucky third will serve three years? We have to have that more fully explained to us.

3.15 pm

I want now to refer to the Belfast Agreement. It is important that it is implemented in its entirety, and that involves the Republic of Ireland as well. The agreement, on page 18, requires the Republic of Ireland to do certain things. It failed to submit its proposals for the North/South Council until 30 October, even though the 31st was the deadline - that did not give us much time to consider them.

I want to see Dublin implementing what the agreement requires: establishing a Human Rights Commission; proceeding with arrangements, as quickly as possible, to ratify the Council of Europe Conventions; implementing enhanced employment-equality legislation; introducing equal-status legislation and continuing to take further steps to demonstrate its respect for the different traditions on the island of Ireland. There has been very little movement in Dublin on those requirements in the agreement, and it is time to start pointing the finger at Dublin.

On page 20 of the agreement - decommissioning has a chapter to itself - there is a cross-reference in the first paragraph to paragraph 25 in Strand 1, where it says that people who are not totally committed to peaceful and democratic means can be not just thrown out of the Executive but actually excluded from it. And the important word is "excluded". That is where the Ulster Unionists stand. Sinn Féin/IRA is one and the same. Unionists throughout Northern Ireland see Sinn Féin as being the IRA. Even the Irish Prime Minister says that they are inextricably linked. Because of that there is a requirement for decommissioning, and we will not serve on any Executive until there is decommissioning by the terrorists.

Mr Durkan:

I want to concentrate on the report which is what we are meant to be debating. In speaking in favour of it and against the amendments I want to deal with some of the criticisms that have been expressed so far about the proposals set out.

In relation to the Departments, an allegation has been made about unnatural divisions. People have been highlighting different units or different policy sectors that are being distributed among different Departments and saying that they are unnatural. When we were putting these proposals together we were not just talking about creating Departments on the old model of the Ministries that we have had for the past generation. We were creating Departments which will not just come under their Ministers but will relate directly to the departmental Committees of the Assembly.

Many parties were adamant in the talks that they wanted these Committees to have a real, active and meaningful life and a very real input. These Committees will have a legislative role as well as the Select Committee scrutiny role and a policy-development role. They will be different in style from committees that exist in other places.

That being the case, we must be realistic about the burden of work and the range of issues that can usefully be given to individual Departments and, in turn, be meaningfully dealt with or processed through the departmental Committees. People talk of unnatural divisions with regard to education. One can see the range of education issues when one looks at the comprehensive spending review, and various issues need to be addressed: the provision of pre-school education; what needs to take place in primary school; and the funding and structure of secondary education.

These are huge issues that have already been identified and reflected on by several Members in relation to special needs, and there are huge issues of reform, challenge and change to be undertaken there alone. If we are to deal with those matters in a meaningful way, it makes sense to have a Department and a Committee dedicated to taking them forward along with youth services.

Another question was raised in relation to children. When the SDLP advocated a Department of Education it consistently made the point that such a Department should be more child-focused. This clearly became the lead Department on child strategy, and in some of our proposals we had actually styled it as the Department of Education and Child Strategy. Some people are criticising this report and saying that there is no department for children, yet they opposed us on that in the working groups that looked into the matter of education and training. The party that is criticising the report for having no provision for a children's Department put no proposal to my party or, I believe, to anyone at any other level in any of the round-table discussions for such a Department. I will return to that matter.

I turn to the proposed new Department for higher and further education, training and employment in terms of the agenda for life-long learning and the serious undertakings that need to be made in relation to the university for industry. The matters that need to be resolved relating to training and further education have already been the subject of a review. There are huge issues, and programmes in that area will grow. It is important to take those issues along with the other issues of adult opportunity for employment, employment regulations and so on, and put them together in one Department, which will have a human resources role.

In the economic area, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment will concentrate on business support and enterprise development. A department, essentially for human resources, will take in all the issues relating to employment and applied learning right through the different sectors of tertiary education and training. Also in the economic area, the key strategic Department of Regional Development will look after infrastructure and strategic planning.

In terms of the distribution of departmental responsibilities and, in particular, of the setting up of suitable departmental committees that can attract and involve the interests of different Members, these structures make sense. Many of the Members who are criticising and questioning these Departments will prove to be very good Ministers in some of them and will serve effectively with everybody else on effective committees.

It would be bizarre to do what the critics seem to be saying we should do, which is take the hand-me-down Departments as they are. That would be to go through the process of serving notice about what we intend to do with devolved powers and the changes that the Assembly proposes to make yet not making those changes.

Mr Poots:

Would Mr Durkan be happy if the extra money that will be allocated to run these Departments were taken from the Foyle Constituency?

Mr Durkan:

I shall deal with the allocation of costs. First, the figure of £90 million was plucked out of the air for the convenience some time ago of a UUP press release. No one has costed that, and I do not accept that figure. Secondly, as the First and Deputy First Ministers (Designate) point out in their report, the understanding that was shared in the round-table discussion, which some people opted out of, was that over the life of the first Assembly, we would recover from elsewhere the additional costs that can be identified for the new arrangements. The Assembly costs money too, so it is not just the new Departments. We do not hear many people expressing worries about the cost of the Assembly.

As I understand it in relation to the new Departments, it has been decided not to set up separate, independent central service units within each Department. However, where central services are currently provided for a range of functions and services, they should stay together. For example, the central services function in the Department of the Environment will continue there, and will serve the IT and other central services needs of other Departments, such as regional and social development. This will again minimise the cost.

In putting together these proposals, people were conscious of the need to try to constrain the potential cost factors for the new Departments. That should be remembered and acknowledged. We will probably find in the operation of some of the Departments that some of those who have criticised us for putting in constraints and locating central services in a way that will enable them to be reviewed and more properly costed by the various Departments and committees will probably want to remove the constraints in the future.

An allegation has been made against the Social Democratic and Labour Party in relation to the equality issue. People say equality is buried at the centre. The Community Relations Council does not regard the fact that community relations is at its centre as an act of burial. It clearly sees that as an element of promotion and an underlining of the centrality with which community relations is viewed. The same should apply to equality. It should be remembered as well that the argument about whether -

A Member:

Will the Member give way?

Mr Durkan:

I have already given way once. I did not intervene during the Member's speech even though I was tempted to a couple of times.

It should be remembered that the big issue with equality is not about whether it should be at the centre of an independent Department. People should not forget the role and the very important statutory scope given to the Equality Commission, and it is the Equality Commission that is going to be at the cutting edge. If the Equality Commission is going to work, it has to know that when it relates directly to the Government and, in particular, to its parent Department, it is going to be taken seriously and have some effect.

I do not believe that people in the Equality Commission would have confidence in a free-standing Department of Equality, which would be bumping into it. A Department for equality would be the parent Department of the Equality Commission. That would be just about it, and that would be the only thing that it would be the parent Department of.

We do not want to have people playing ducks and drakes, recognising the Equality Commission but not the equality Department. The Equality Commission derives its statutory basis from the Northern Ireland Act. We want it to work and enjoy proper funding and due priority. We do not want it to be compared unfavourably with the Human Rights Commission, and that was a genuine concern, but we have taken care of it.

I return to the issue that was raised by Sinn Féin about children. No proposal about a children's Department came from Sinn Féin to the SDLP. It opposed our proposals and further opposed our education ideas. It wanted a Department for training -

The Initial Presiding Officer:

I have to ask you to bring your remarks to a close.

Mr Durkan:

It wanted a Department in the image and ethos of the New Deal, justified on the basis of the British Government's Welfare to Work policies, policies which we have heard it attack here and everywhere else.

Rev William McCrea:

We have been listening to the debate for the past two days, and some interesting remarks have been made to us. We have been told that the winning post is in sight; that this is a staging post; and that the blueprint is about to be signed up to. Famous words of Shakespeare come to mind:

"To be, or not to be: that is the question".

I would like to turn that around a little:

"To 'D', or not to 'D': that is the question".

I would like to expound on that a little further for Mr Mallon's help and consideration. First of all, the 'D' would stand for decadence or self-indulgence. The report that is before us leads me to that consideration. Under the agreement the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP have concocted 10 Departments rather than the seven which would be quite sufficient for good government in Northern Ireland. "Decadence" is the word to cover that.

Yesterday's 'Guardian' contained a photograph which I thought was pertinent to the situation. This photograph - and I shall let my Friends see it as well - reminds me of the words of Ken Maginnis, that famous member of the Ulster Unionist Party, who in speaking about the 10 Departments referred to "pigs with their snouts in the trough". I know that his purpose was different, but I thought that he was making reference to the 10 Departments which Mr Nicholson, another member of the Ulster Unionist Party, who, I must confess, is not a mathematics genius -

The Initial Presiding Officer:

Mr McCrea, I understand that you are being asked if you will give way.

Rev William McCrea:

I am certainly not giving way. No, not at all. It amazes me how certain Members who do not seem to be allowed to speak in this place are always asking a Member to give way.

Mr Nicholson, who is not a genius in mathematics, has referred to the 10 Departments as a waste of about £90 million or as "jobs for the boys". And that is the truth of the situation. There is no justification for 10 Departments other than to give certain "jobs to the boys". I am sure Brigid would like a post so it is "jobs for the girls" as well.

3.30 pm

I turn now to the Civic Forum and think of those Members who are from rural constituencies. In view of the plight of Ulster farmers, how can they agree to only three farming representatives on the Civic Forum? There are to be 18 representatives for voluntary organisations, some of which are in the most active and politically ambitious sector in society. Many who have failed to get elected are trying to get in some other way. As the Bible says "he that climbeth up some other way" is a thief and a robber.

Ulster Unionist Members, many of whom come from farming constituencies and are aware of the plight that farmers are facing, say that they need only three representatives. [Interruption] The Member should sit down. He gave an exhibition yesterday when he talked a load of drivel. It ill becomes him to try to intervene in the middle of my speech. Even on 'Good Morning Ulster' this morning, the CBI and the unions called into question the balance of the Forum with its 18 representatives for voluntary organisations and three for farming.

What about the victims who have suffered during 30 years of terror? Mr Hume's famous saying is that we should forget the past and draw a line in the sand. As one Member rightly said, of course he wants to forget the past and draw a line in the sand, but do not forget "bloody Sunday" so-called in Londonderry. At all costs we must not forget that, but we are told to forget the victims of 30 years of violence and the two representatives of those who have suffered.

I found an interesting article in 'the Irish News' this morning. I am led to believe that it was not in the 'News Letter', though I could not understand why. In the article the families acting for innocent relatives stated that they were "completely dejected". Their spokesman said

"the Ulster Unionist Party, which purported to understanding our suffering, are allowing Sinn Féin/IRA and other terrorists into government. This is a very hard pill to swallow. We can't understand how these people can do this given the overwhelming support of people against it."

They said that if this is accepted today, it will cause the victims more pain and grief. It is a case of "jobs for the boys". Get your snout in the trough and everybody will be happy, especially those who get the jobs.

Secondly, D stands for deception. Many Ulster Unionists know in their heart that the whole process was built upon deception. During the referendum we had the famous act from the actor himself, Prime Minister Tony Blair, who went to the big board and put his signature to the promises. Prisoner releases go on while the terror campaign of beatings and intimidation continues. Not one weapon has been handed over, but today Unionists are asked to vote in favour of a process which continues to permit the release of terrorists on to the street and jets those who represent them into high office.

It seems that election pledges are empty rhetoric trotted out during the election campaign to deceive the electorate and not for acting upon. Members may mock and scoff at the DUP. The Member for West Belfast said that we were the abominable "No" men. I am proud to be able to say here that I honoured the election manifesto and promises that I made to the people.

I am proud that my hon Friends can go back to that electorate and say that they stood up for what they pledged themselves to do. Can other Unionists in the Chamber say, with their hands on their hearts before God and man, that they have honoured the election manifesto pledges that they made to the people? Can they say that they honoured their election pledge when terrorists walk the streets and the enemies of Ulster are to get into government? The agreement is built upon the sinking sand of deception, and will finally and inevitably crumble into the pit of corruption from which it has emanated.

Another 'D' word is decommissioning. It is a famous word and a fancy term because, in my book, we are talking about the surrender of weapons. We live in an age when people are touchy about terminology. I had to laugh yesterday when the so-called Member of the Army Council, Chief Martin McGuinness, seemed to be rather nervous and touchy about the term IRA/Sinn Fein. I was reading a book today about Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, and I did not find that same touchiness or reserve about terrorism. I saw no desire to disown the boys behind the wire, or even the boys behind the machine-guns.

Let us make no mistake about it, when we talk about IRA decommissioning we are not talking about a gimmick or a token. We are talking about the surrender of the weaponry of war that has reaped a bloody harvest of innocent victims for the Provos. I heard rich statements from Sinn Féin today about a Ministry for children. What about the woman who gave birth to her child in Magherafelt's Mid-Ulster Hospital? What about her husband who drove from Upperlands to visit his wife in that hospital when she gave birth to her child? He walked out of that hospital and was shot dead in the car park. A Ministry for children!

What about the Fergusons? In that case the father of the home was shot down in front of the children and a child tried to stop the blood coming out of the body with a finger. Sheer hypocrisy. No party has contributed more to the robbing of children of their fathers and wives of their husbands than IRA/Sinn Féin. [Interruption] I was always told that when a stone is thrown among a pack of dogs, the one that yaps the most is the one that is hurt the most. IRA/Sinn Féin does not deserve to sit in a democratic chamber.

Some people say that there can be no winners, but there must be winners, and they are those that have withstood 30 years of terror and violence, those who have withstood the campaign of terror. They must be the winners. Let us get back to democracy.

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