Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (Northern Ireland Political Parties) Order 2007

My Lords, I thank the Minister for outlining the order and add my name to those who have congratulated the noble Lord, Lord Bew, on his magnificent maiden speech. It is not a case of this House being a much better place and learning a lot from the noble Lord’s contribution but that we in Northern Ireland are extremely favoured by having a man like him in this House. Northern Ireland and this House will gain by his presence here. I do not propose to dwell on the order too much except to say that I identify with a lot of the remarks made by the noble Lords, Lord Bew, Lord Glentoran and Lord Trimble. I am concerned about the special position that is constantly given to the Irish in the affairs of Northern Ireland. I have had experience directly from the Belfast agreement of dealing with Irish officialdom and it is not particularly pleasant. Unfortunately, in Northern Ireland we have allowed very low standards of Irish governance to come into our part of the United Kingdom, ensuring a lack of proper procedures in many important areas such as recruitment to public bodies. It is unacceptable and we should fight it on every possible occasion. Some people have exercised their minds over loans in the past few months, but where do loans come into the order? We have talked about donations, but I wonder how loans fit in. Can the noble Lord give me some idea about that? I understand about the need for transparency regarding donations in Northern Ireland but outside the remit of the order, there is a whole area that has to be further examined. A lot of money flows through to the coffers of Sinn Fein/IRA from illegal activities. Where is the money that was taken from the Northern Bank? Where is the £365 million per year lost to the Revenue by fuel laundering in Northern Ireland? Is that the money that backed up the election campaign which Sinn Fein ran in the Irish Republic and which, thank goodness, was a total disaster for that party and has perhaps set a new climate of opinion on the island of Ireland about the way forward? A lot more effort should be put into trying to stop the illegal flow of money—a massive amount of property is owned by Sinn Fein/IRA in the Irish Republic—and its coming-across from its businesses into the election coffers on both sides of the border. I know that it is very hard to stop and I accept that it has nothing to do with the remit of the order, but we in this House should be very sensitive to it.