There was room in the State for only one army, the Fine Gael leader, Mr Enda Kenny, told the Dáil last night.
"The Irish Defence Forces was established by this party when we founded the State. And for the record, the one, true Óglaigh na hÉireann are the forces who exist to defend and protect this State, not those endorsed by somebody known as P. O Neill who exists to subvert it."
Mr Kenny was speaking during a debate in Private Member's time on a motion calling for an end to all forms of paramilitarism. The motion was moved by Fine Gael, Labour and the Green Party and will be voted on by the House tonight. Sinn Féin will contribute to the debate tonight.
The Fine Gael leader said it was extraordinary that as Ireland now held the EU presidency, there were "members of this democratically elected parlia-ment who have associations with a private army, which has exerted its own particular lethal form of pressure when democratic methods have not favoured them". He added that he found it deplorable, as a democrat and leader of Fine Gael, that there were members of the House "with a perfectly symbiotic relationship with one of the most vile paramilitary organisations the world has ever known". It was also, perhaps, the most cowardly, he added.
"Jean McConville's son told just this week of how at least a dozen masked individuals came to take his mother from her small children at bath time. This was for 'questioning'. Those interrogators and their successors have yet to declare that Jean McConville was not an informer, and that the only code she had broken, in fact, was showing some humanity to a dying British soldier. Someone knows who pulled that trigger. Someone knows who ordered her murder. Someone should now clear her name of being deemed to be an informer."
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, moved a Government amendment to the motion reaffirming its support for the full implementation of the Belfast Agreement, recognising a definitive closure of paramilitary activity could best be achieved in its full and inclusive operation.
He said the Government was committed to working for progress in Northern Ireland. "We want to fully implement the agreement. We want a definitive end to all paramilitarism. We want to see the return of the Assembly and devolved government. We also want comprehensive and open dialogue with all strands of unionism as well as nationalism."
The Labour leader, Mr Pat Rabbitte, said the motion, addressed to members of paramilitaries and their political representatives, and especially the IRA, was that it was "make your mind up" time.
In Northern Ireland, the cause of the Republic had been dishonoured all too often by inhumanity. "The thousands left dead, the families left grieving and bereaved, the injured and the maimed of a 30-year conflict will always wonder what it was for."
At some point, those responsible would have to reflect too, said Mr Rabbitte. "They will have to come to terms with a past that, whatever point of idealism or sense of injustice may have inspired it, descended far too often into sectarian carnage, featured far too often acts of inhuman barbarity.
"Those who started off prepared to die for the Republic all too often tortured and maimed for the Republic. The Republic was dishonoured, and that fact must be faced up to by those involved."
The Green Party leader, Mr Trevor Sargent, said the continued existence of armed groups operating outside the law was poison to the development of a peaceful, democratic and sustainable society.
