Paramilitary Exiles

EDM number 343 in 1998-99, proposed by Harry Barnes on 22/02/1999.

That this House commends the Dublin-based Peace Train Organisation and the London-based New Dialogue Organisation for beginning a co-ordinated campaign to mobilise public opinion and to end the plight of hundreds of people who have been forcibly exiled from Ireland and Northern Ireland by Republican and Loyalist paramilitary groups; notes that the campaign is backed by a wide range of Irish and British politicians and journalists as varied as the editors of Tribune and the Daily Telegraph; recognises that public pressure and the media shamed the IRA into halting mutilation attacks and are putting massive pressure on Loyalist paramilitary groups to follow suit; believes that similar pressures can create the conditions in which all those exiled by terrorism from their homes and loved ones can return home in time for the anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement; and further believes that ending the Irish fatwas will be a massive confidence-building boost for the peace process and one which would demonstrate clearly that the paramilitaries' self-styled war is now truly over.

This motion has been signed by a total of 47 MPs.