Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 7 April 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement

Engagement with Truth and Justice Movement

Photo of Erin McGreehanErin McGreehan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Mr. Monaghan, Mr. McCord and Ms McIlvenny. First, I am sorry that they are forced to come here to fight for the rights of their loved ones and for decades being the voice of the loved ones they have lost. The state structures have failed to give them justice and the truth of all that happened and to acknowledge the wrong that was done.

I apologise for being late but I was in the Seanad. I listened to the witness's very powerful contribution. I fundamentally believe there is no hierarchy of victim. When we speak about victims, I do not put a colour on that victim. I look at the heartache, the pain, the unanswered questions and the justice that is not given, which does not have a colour. The people we have lost to those desperate times all deserve justice. Locally, I am thinking of Jean McConville and Tom Oliver about whom, to this day, we do not know all the truth. That is just locally from where I come from in the Cooley Peninsula. That cuts me deeply.

Mr. McCord mentioned what we can do and what more Dublin can do. He is someone who has been involved in this for a long time, but I have not. I have been a bystander and invested in it that way. What more can Dublin do? We are completely against the amnesty proposals. We believe in justice and getting the answers. What can we do?

We know that for the British Government, Northern Ireland and things there seem to only matter when there is an imbalance of power. It listens when there are a few votes here and there and takes action then. It will send a few smiley faces over to us and say it is on Northern Ireland’s side and yet bring forward these legacy proposals. Dublin, the Irish Government and I, feel useless against that. What can we do? We would be more than happy to do anything we can do.

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