HC Deb 01 July 1976 vol 914 cc631-3
5. Mr. Wm. Ross

asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland whether the Provisional IRA has announced the end of the ceasefire; how many persons are known to have been killed by the Provisional IRA during the period of the ceasefire; and how many during the 18 months previous to its announcement.

Mr. Merlyn Rees

I have not heard of any announcement by the Provisional IRA purporting to end the ceasefire which it announced unilaterally on 10th February 1975. Since that date it has admitted responsibility for 23 deaths in Northern Ireland. Comparable figures are not available for the earlier period. The exact number it has killed must be a matter for speculation, but it is certainly more than the admitted figure.

Mr. Ross

Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that when the ceasefire was announced he said that he would require a sustained and genuine cessation of violence before he would release all the detainees? In view of the level of violence since then, does he think that that criterion was met?

Mr. Rees

Certainly the criterion was not met in the context of the ceasefire, but my decision to end detention was not taken eventually in the context of the ceasefire, because it did not materialise with the Provisional IRA. I have been looking carefully at the figures and I find that in 1972, when internment was introduced, violence escalated to the nth degree. That is not to say that I did not realise that with the ending of detention we might be in a difficult position. There is no doubt in my mind that the ending of detention was the right way forward in the circumstances of the time. I can only say again that one must look at the figures. Detention did not end the violence. It stimulated it.

Mr. George Rodgers

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the practice of describing the victims of brutality as either Catholic or Protestant is deplorable? Would it not be more helpful if they were described as Christians, as apparently they are all members of one religious organisation?

Mr. Rees

When I see what is done, and whatever is the label that is given, I find the latter description more than I can bear. The Chief Constable, as he has every right to do, has decided that the nomenclature of victims, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant, should be ended. What he would understand, and what he does understand, is that in many parts of Belfast, or in Northern Ireland as a whole, everyone knows the nomenclature whether or not one says it. However, I accept his advice. I believe that it is a sensible thing to try because it may offer some help. Knowing so many people on both sides of the divide in Northern Ireland, my opinion is that to give religious descriptions to them, whatever may be their origins, belies the views of those who carry out the murdering and killing in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Neave

As more than 150 people have been killed this year, is it not thoroughly nebulous and misleading for the right hon. Gentleman to talk about a Provisional IRA ceasefire being in existence? There is no such thing as a ceasefire.

Mr. Rees

If I had said that, I should have been extremely foolish. If anyone believed I said that, he would be wrong.

Mr. Flannery

Will my right hon. Friend accept from me that many of us on the Labour Benches at least are not happy about the sectarian nature of those who want to list the melancholy parade of killings from one side to the other? Many of us think that killings occur on both sides, and we are condemnatory of them. To list them purely on one side is most unhelpful. Those who do that should make better efforts to try to bring the two sides together.

Mr. Rees

As regards the killings and murders and all that goes on in Northern Ireland, and taking the generality of my hon. Friend's question, I think it is right that we should condemn them. But there can be no justification in any sense of the term for what my hon. Friend has described. There was a time when that was done. I believe it is disappearing in Northern Ireland, as it certainly has done in this House. Condemnation, and not even the slightest degree of justification, should be the order of the day.