Mr Des O'Malley (PD, Limerick East) suggested that the Offences Against the State (Amendment) Act should remain on the statute books indefinitely.
He asked why it should become lawful to direct an unlawful organisation after June, 2000, when the new Bill came up for review. "I do not think it should. I think it should be unlawful for all time."
He asked why other provisions of the Bill should become lawful then. "For example, the owner of a farm who has members of an illegal organisation making bombs on his farm and withholds that information from the gardai . . . Why should that ever be lawful?
"There is no need to apologise for having a series of Offences Against the State Acts. They are there since 1939 and succeeded other Acts which were there from the early 1920s. They are there for a very valid reason. The State could not protect itself or its institutions if they were not there."
Mr O'Malley said an article by Dick Walsh in The Irish Times last Saturday was important. "Mr Walsh might be described in some quarters as one of these Irish Times liberals who are looked upon with such derision in some parts of the country. So I think what he has to say is particularly valuable."
He quoted from the article: "Omagh was the price paid for the casual attitudes of politicians, policemen and journalists who made light of bomb after bomb in Moira, Banbridge, Dundalk, Portadown, Armagh, Howth and Dun Laoghaire, 10 in all since the beginning of this year."
Mr O'Malley said the State, like any other, must protect itself. "Although some members here today seek to describe this Bill as simply brought in for the purpose of counteracting what is described as the `Real IRA', I do not see it as that at all. I see it as protecting the State in general.
"Even if this `Real IRA' were to disappear in the morning, like so many of its predecessor institutions disappeared from time to time, and resurrected themselves under other names, the State still has to protect itself and will continue to have to protect itself for all time. It should do that, and it should not, in my view be apologetic about it."
Mr O'Malley warned against appeasement of people convicted of serious violent crimes. Nobody, he said, had been released to date under the Belfast Agreement, a fact often overlooked. He was concerned about those who had been arrested and charged with very serious crimes since their release.