Mr. John Kelly:

It is a great honour for me, as a representative of the Bloody Sunday families, to speak before the committee. I am the brother of Michael Kelly, who was murdered on Bloody Sunday. I will begin with a word of acknowledgement. In 2010, following the publication of the Report of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, the British Government and British Parliament made an unprecedented apology to those murdered and injured on Bloody Sunday and their families and friends.

The report unambiguously acknowledged the innocence of our loved ones. The families always knew, the people of Derry and Ireland always knew and now the world knows that innocent people were massacred on the streets of our city. Though the authorities in Northern Ireland have taken their time, we can also report that there is an ongoing PSNI murder inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday. The inquiry was first announced in December 2012, almost three years ago. It is our hope that it will be completed shortly and that charges will be laid against those responsible for murder and attempted murder. There is anger and frustration among the Bloody Sunday families that the murder inquiry is taking so long. Also, there is fear of the implications of the historical investigations unit Unit, HIU, possibly taking control of it. As the murder inquiry is in its final stages, we will resist its being moved to the HIU unless we can be convinced that the latter will still enable it to continue to completion without further delay or interference.

In June 2010 the families welcomed the publication of the report. We still do. It represented the culmination of our campaign for justice for our loved ones and for the city of Derry. That said, we do have a number of criticisms of the report, one of which we would ask the help of the Irish Government and Dáil Éireann in resolving. The first is that we believe that the level of culpability within the British Army and, indeed, the political establishment of that time goes much higher than those mentioned in the report. We have never been given a satisfactory answer as to why the Parachute Regiment was sent to Derry in January 1972, a regiment with an already infamous reputation for murdering civilians as a result of the massacre in Ballymurphy just a few months before Bloody Sunday.

The second weakness of the report lies in its treatment of Gerald Donaghey. While it should not be forgotten that the report declared Gerald completely innocent and stated that he should not have been killed, nevertheless, the report did conclude that he probably was carrying nail bombs in his pockets. This we strongly refute and it remains a festering issue of concern for Gerald’s family, the wider Bloody Sunday families and the people of Derry and beyond that this stain on his memory remains. The Bloody Sunday families and the Bloody Sunday Trust have been campaigning relentlessly about this issue and the new Derry City and Strabane District Council has passed a motion calling for this finding about Gerald to be withdrawn. On this matter, we now ask for the support of both the Dáil and the Irish Government.

The majority of the Bloody Sunday families would be the first to acknowledge that we have achieved most of what we set out to achieve. Equally, we acknowledge that many victims, especially those killed by the state and its security forces, still await some resolution of their issues and concerns. Sixteen years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement it is time for the past to be dealt with in a manner which meets the concerns of the victims, the imperatives of the peace process and the wider needs of society. We urge the committee to do all it can to see that this happens.