The Opposition spotlights the idea of raising the salary of the Governor of Northern Ireland at a time of acute economic Crisis in Northern Ireland.

If one can condense what might be termed this first charge on the sheet, what seems to be alleged against the Government is that we have allowed the Services to run down to such an extent that they cannot perform the jobs which they have to perform safely and efficiently and that the Northern Ireland Crisis has exposed this weakness.

Because it is a matter of public importance and an international matter affecting this Government and the Government of the Republic and the people of Northern Ireland, and because it is an urgent matter, given the Crisis in Northern Ireland at the moment, I respectfully beg to ask leave that this House do now adjourn.

Many suggestions have been made today about solving the present political Crisis in Northern Ireland.

First, the declaration of 19th August, 1969, reaffirmed that the Crisis in Northern Ireland did not involve any derogation from pledges by successive United Kingdom Governments, notably by Lord Attlee in 1949, that Northern Ireland should not cease to be a part of the United Kingdom without the consent of the people of Northern Ireland, and that there would be no derogation from the provision governing this question in Section 1 of the Ireland Act, 1949.

The Crisis in Northern Ireland stems not only from the fact that there has been a Right-wing take-over of Unionism, but also, and primarily, from the basic instability of the Northern Ireland State.

This Crisis in Northern Ireland, is not just the current crisis of violence but the long-term crisis of unemployment, is overcoming dogma.

Does the Home Secretary, following his last visit to Northern Ireland, recall having been reported in The Guardian as saying that he saw little likelihood of a final military solution to the Northern Ireland Crisis?

When the Prime Minister receives advice in future from the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster), will he bear in mind that the present Crisis in Northern Ireland has its roots in the policy which was supported in this House, uncritically for many years, by that hon. Member and by some of his hon. Friends from Ulster?

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that I view the subject-matter of this Question as one of the most important problems yet to be solved in the Northern Ireland Crisis.

Second, it acknowledges that the Northern Ireland Crisis, with which Sunningdale dealt, is essentially an Irish problem that Ireland, North and South, will in the main have to resolve.

I hope that the House will not think that I do not appreciate the grave nature of the Crisis in Northern Ireland if I choose not to speak about it.

There has been more IRA activity in the period of the power-sharing Executive than at any other time during the Northern Ireland Crisis.

The Secretary of State said in answer to a previous question that there was no military solution to the Crisis in Northern Ireland.

It is far more important to defuse the Crisis in Northern Ireland and to try to bring an end to the hunger strike that is taking place in the Province.

Inevitably the question must be asked: how much longer will we try to deal with the Crisis in Northern Ireland?

If we were to reach agreement in a different situation with Dublin and that agreement were put to the British people in a referendum, I am sure that they would give majority support to any British Government that could resolve the Northern Ireland Crisis, if necessary on the basis of reunification and without the consent of the majority of the people of Ulster.

Leaving aside the sectarian bigots on the Government Benches and the terrorists who continue to glory in murder, is it not a fact that the co-operation and indeed the approval of the Irish Government is necessary before a political solution can be found to the Crisis in Northern Ireland?

I cannot help feeling that the seriousness of the economic Crisis in Northern Ireland is forcing the Government to give up their monetary policies in that part of the United Kingdom while they continue to experiment with them in England, Scotland and Wales.

If this is the seriousness with which the Government and the Minister are treating the Crisis in Northern Ireland, they are not being serious enough.

That is the seriousness with which they are treating the Crisis in Northern Ireland's economy.

I well understand how successive Governments responded to what was a major Crisis in Northern Ireland, which seemed to blow from side to side day by day.

As to the problems connected with pigs and poultry, I believe the present Crisis in Northern Ireland to be the most serious for many years.

As the forum report states,The continuing Crisis in Northern Ireland has reached critical proportions, involving intense human suffering and misery for many thousands of people.

It actually deepens and intensifies the Crisis in Northern Ireland.

As a result of the Crisis in Northern Ireland, local authorities in Britain must either provide bed-and-breakfast accommodation, send the people back or provide housing out of their own stock.

The whole House earnestly hopes that the Northern Ireland Crisis is coming to an end, but after my spell in Bosnia over the past few weeks and after having visited other areas of actual or potential instability with my colleagues on the Defence Select Committee over the past year or so, I have no doubt that there is much more peacekeeping and peacemaking to be done in and around Europe in the coming years.

It is deeply sad that such a great democracy as ours should allow itself to slip back because of the Crisis in Northern Ireland.

The Northern Ireland Teachers Council has said in blunt, unequivocal terms thateducation is facing a Crisis in Northern Ireland of such proportions that has never been witnessed before".

The Prime Minister has recognised that there is a Crisis in Northern Ireland.

We are at a time of Crisis in Northern Ireland.

The Minister referred to the political Crisis in Northern Ireland.

It represents the true Crisis of Northern Ireland.

In the wake of internment being introduced in August 1971 there was a real Crisis in Northern Ireland.

That is in no small measure due to the skilful handling of the Crisis in Northern Ireland by our own Minister with responsibility for agriculture, Brid Rodgers, to whom I am delighted to pay a warm tribute on behalf of the farmers in my constituency.

On 1st July we come to yet another Crisis in Northern Ireland.

There is no proposal in this statement to deal with the political Crisis in Northern Ireland - and it is a crisis.

In the circumstances, may we have a guarantee from the Leader of the House that there will be a full debate on the Crisis in Northern Ireland before the House rises?

Your Lordships will recall the background to the current Crisis in Northern Ireland.

Does the Prime Minister accept that the methods used by the Government over the past couple of years to resolve the political Crisis in Northern Ireland have played a substantive part in getting us to where we are now, in terms of placing the community under the dictates of the IRA army council and the extremes of Unionism and republicanism?

I should like the opportunity both to press the Secretary of State on Second Reading and to table an amendment after Second Reading, to take cognisance of what might well prove to be another constitutional Crisis in Northern Ireland in 2011.

The problem is that such occasions often occur at the least convenient time, and there is the possibility of a big political row or Crisis in Northern Ireland.

My Lords, I support the Bill on its merits and because we are at a moment of Crisis in Northern Ireland, as several noble Lords have already acknowledged.

My own regiment was scrapped in the 1960s, yet was needed within weeks, when the Northern Ireland Crisis exploded in a way that we could never possibly have imagined.

I welcome the fact that we are debating the Bill at a time when there is no Crisis in Northern Ireland relating to the Assembly or the Executive.

The Bill, with its 29 clauses, is being debated at a time, as the Minister said, when there has been no particular Crisis in Northern Ireland.

Given that families in Northern Ireland are on average £800 a year worse off under this Government, will the Minister tell us what the Government are doing to ease the cost of living Crisis in Northern Ireland?

In fair pay fortnight, can the Minister tell the House whether he will offer incentives for firms to pay the living wage, so that we can tackle one of the major causes of this Government's cost of living Crisis in Northern Ireland?

As the hon. Gentleman knows, the greatest reason for the economic Crisis in Northern Ireland and elsewhere in the United Kingdom is the appalling economic legacy left us by the previous Government.

We now have a budgetary Crisis in Northern Ireland.

My Lords, I, too, very much welcome the Minister's Statement on the current political Crisis in Northern Ireland.

The current political Crisis in Northern Ireland was sparked by allegations surrounding the murders of Mr McGuigan and Mr Davison.

The current political Crisis in Northern Ireland was sparked by allegations surrounding the murder of Kevin McGuigan, following the murder of Gerard Davison.

Over the last four years there have been attempts to resolve the welfare question, which has contributed to the political Crisis in Northern Ireland, especially in the Executive's finances.