Ms Anne Cadwallader:

Before Ms Urwin has the final word, I will make a few brief comments. I was asked whether I think the historical enquiries team, HET, should continue or not. We were terribly lucky that we got HET officers who worked with us and who were very courageous, but it should not just be down to a question of luck. The guys we got were prepared to stand up to the hostility and the discouragement from others not to dig too deep. They had the courage to stand up to them and they did a good job. However, it should not rely on individuals. The HET itself is now hopelessly compromised, no one is co-operating with it, its day is over and we need something new.
I was also asked what the new process should look like. With some tweaking and some changes, Haass is certainly the basis of what would be an acceptable process. Having said that, there would have to be a few changes, but that is up to the political parties. At the moment, the whole thing seems to be unravelling, unless anybody has heard anything different. That would be a shame because this is going to be an intergenerational thing. There is no doubt that the children and grandchildren of those people who died are affected by this. Conflict will start up again, not exactly as it was, but it will continue, whatever about the need for truth of the bereaved families. There is also a duty on the state to try to prevent pressures building up, and there must be a process.
Deputy Martin Ferris asked what help we had from the Irish Government, and I will defer to Ms Urwin on that. Deputy Seán Crowe referred to Kitson and to the architects. Even though it may sound a bit conspiratorial, and members may all think I am crazy, I actually think there was a policy in the 1970s to intimidate those people who were asking for civil and constitutional rights, and it was not just a question of a few very evil men. I think there was a policy from London, but I will not go into that here because it is very complicated. It is worth reading the book, where I go into that a bit.
I want to talk very briefly about the Smithwick tribunal. When the Smithwick tribunal found that, on the balance of probabilities, there had been collusion in the murders of Harry Breen and Bob Buchanan, there was an immediate and contrite apology from the Irish Government and from the Garda Commissioner. We have shown in Lethal Alliesthere is a mountain of evidence in the files that there was wholesale collusion in the murders of more than 120 people. Far from an apology, far from contrition from the British authorities, they are trying to ignore it. They refuse to meet us, they have not apologised, they have not shown any concern and they have made absolutely no statement whatsoever. It is frankly outrageous that this is the situation.
I am a Brit. I am not Irish. I was born and brought up in the home counties of England. My father was in the British Army, as was my mother and my sister, and my brother was a policeman. I am not Irish but I am deeply, deeply ashamed of what my country has done here. However, it was not done in the name of the ordinary British people. It was not done in my name, it was not done in the name of anyone I know and it certainly was not done in my father or my mother's name. There are guilty people there, not the whole British nation. However, as a Brit, I suppose I have a special interest in all of this because I want to make my country own up to what it did here, so we can all move on together in a new spirit of friendship.
I believe the priority of the British Government during this conflict was, above all, to preserve its reputation internationally as an honest broker between these two crazy warring Irish tribes. They still, I think, try to promote their reputation as that, which is why they will fight tooth and nail to avoid facing up to the evidence we have provided in Lethal Alliesand elsewhere. It will be a hard, hard battle. The officers we work with in the HET lifted up a corner of the carpet briefly. We saw what was underneath but, believe me, they are going to try to nail that carpet down again as hard as they possibly can to avoid anybody ever again seeing what they have got hidden.