Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I will start with a few general points and I want to pick up on something Mr. McCord just said. I share Senator McGreehan's frustration. These amnesty proposals that fundamentally undermine truth and justice come from the British Government in London. As we are sitting in Dublin, what can we do? We need to remember that the Irish Government is a party to the Good Friday Agreement and is a co-guarantor of the rights under the Good Friday Agreement. Our role here is to hold the Irish Government to account to ensure it is doing everything it can do.

I have spoken numerous times here about the independent commission for information retrieval. This is part of the various agreements. There was an agreement as to how this would look. This was being progressed until the amnesty proposals came out. There are various agreements on how it would work and it needs legislation. I again call the Irish Government to publish our legislation. I accept this also needs legislation in London and needs the involvement of the British Government. However, we should publish our legislation to show our seriousness about pushing ahead with this. We should start our pre-legislative scrutiny on it so that if the British come to their senses, we can move quickly on it. It also gives another forum to talk to victims and to hear victims' voices. I will come back to that point again shortly. It gives another forum to have conversations like this so that we can ensure we are doing the right thing.

The question for the Irish Government is what we have lurking in our archives that we should be releasing. What bits of truth do we have but are not releasing? There was a letter from the UVF to Charles Haughey that mentioned the Miami Showband. The UVF wrote to Charles Haughey saying that the British Government had asked it to assassinate him but that it was not going to do that. Among other things, it made reference to the Miami Showband. When it came out, members of the band who had survived asked why the hell nobody had told them this letter existed. What else is lurking in our archives that we do not know about? It may be something small, but it may be just that piece of the jigsaw that a family needs to put together with other bits. It may be the pebble that starts the landslide. We need to ask ourselves what is in our archives which we should be releasing. Just as the witnesses have criticised the British Government hiding behind its security reasons, we should not be doing this. Now is the time for us to look at those issues.

Our Government and everyone here have condemned the British Government's proposed amnesty. What will we do if it goes ahead with it? We have talked about holding the British Government to account and part of that accountability is to have consequences for action. If we had a treaty with another country and it was threatening to renege on that agreement, we would point out the consequences and try to hold it to account. I do not hear that kind of language. We are condemning it, but we are not saying what we will do next. There is no clear statement of how we will hold the British Government to account for breaching this international agreement. Those are things the Irish Government can be doing. This committee can be asking those questions of the Irish Government. Why is it not doing it? What are the roadblocks? What can we do? It is our role as a committee to hold it to account and to ask these awkward questions.

Mr. McCord said most victims do not belong to victims' groups. I would like to explore that further. We have been talking about the funding going to paramilitary groups. Obviously, we need transparency and accountability with regard to funding that comes from the Irish Government, as Deputy Brendan Smith said. I do not know if that is the responsibility of this committee or another committee. It would certainly be interesting to understand that. Perhaps the Library and Research Service could provide a breakdown of the funding going to these community groups that is then being syphoned off to paramilitary organisations and the funding which is actually going to victims' groups to enable them to do the real work and the real advocacy. Perhaps this committee could do some work on that.

Equally I would like to know why Mr. McCord is saying they do not want to be in victims' groups. Is it because they do not identify with them or they do not see them as useful? Are they just frustrated at the roadblocks put in place by politicians and governments and have just tried to get on with their lives instead of turning everything into a crusade?

My follow up question is about what we can do to help. If we are making demands of the Irish Government what can we do to ensure that victims' voices are heard, listened to and amplified? Should we be looking at a new structure not currently within these agreements?