Mr. Conor Murphy:

I thank Ms Cadwallader and Ms Urwin for their presentations. It is an all-too-familiar story. Deputy Feighan mentioned the village of Camlough, where I was born and reared and still live. It was bombed indiscriminately twice during the period described by Ms Cadwallader. Indeed, a neighbour of mine was picked up at our front gate, driven half a mile up the road and murdered. Those responsible reversed over him as well to ensure that he was dead. It was widely believed at the time that the people involved were local RUC personnel from the neighbouring village of Bessbrook, where their station was.

That was a familiar pattern. It was not just the involvement of people in the actual events but it was the fact the areas were cleared. Helicopters disappeared. There was a level of co-ordination beyond just those involved in the actual shootings, which ensured attacks could be carried out in villages and bars in Nationalist areas generally and on individual families. It also ensured those involved were not interrupted in their endeavours. Those above that again ensured there was no proper investigation and, right up to Cabinet level, people were aware all this was happening and took no action in regard to it.

What happened in Ireland was a familiar pattern which developed in many other colonial sites of conflict that Britain managed over the years, including in Kenya, Aden and other places. It simply perfected and professionalised it more as it went through the conflict in Ireland in regard to collusion, shoot to kill, arming and providing intelligence to loyalist paramilitaries. It was a very familiar pattern. None the less, I think Ms Cadwallader's book has done a great service not just in repeating the facts which we, as a community, knew them to be but in using what limited investigations there were into them to nail down those facts. That has been a great service.

I refer to two issues, including the resource issue for Justice for the Forgotten that seems to have fallen between two stools as the Special EU Programmes Body remit does not stretch that far. The committee should support the mainstreaming of resources for the Justice for the Forgotten group from the Government in this jurisdiction. It provides a very valuable service to victims as well as to the ongoing pursuit of the truth in or around the Dublin and Monaghan bombings.

Ms Richie alluded to the fact that in the implementation of the Haass proposals, in particular dealing with the past, if there is a gap or a weakness, even though the origins of these attacks which took place in this State were from the North, which generally speaking is the area in which I live, the victims were from and the attacks took place on the southern side of the Border. If that proves to be a gap in the systems proposed out of Haass, that is something we need to address through legislation to ensure we do not leave people behind. As Ms Richie said, the conflict did not just affect the people in the Six Counties but people across the island. Attacks took place across the island, even beyond the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. Dublin was attacked again in the 1990s when Martin Doherty was killed trying to prevent the bombing of a pub. We must ensure that if we get to the stage of implementing the Haass proposals and looking at legislation, there are no gaps in that legislation so that all incidents are covered and all victims are supported in that regard.