Mr. Daniel Holder:

A number of things can be done. The Government should continue to articulate very clearly its opposition to the Bill, and also articulate very clearly that it is not, in the view of the Government, ECHR compliant. There are diplomatic ways and international institutions in which that can be articulated. The key institution is the Council of Europe human rights system, in particular the ECHR and the potential for, ultimately, an interstate case to bring this before the court relatively quickly.

It is also quite important for the Irish Government to counter the false narrative that surrounds the Bill. UK Ministers have said different things to different audiences.

This goes back to the last question. When we read some of the stuff that is written and the UK submission to the Council of Europe, it is as if UK Ministers all of a sudden have had a Eureka or road-to-Damascus moment where they have come across the concept of information recovery and reconciliation, and that is the driving force behind the legislation. We all know that that simply is not true. We do not actually have to dig very deep to find that that simply is not true. In other forums, UK Ministers themselves are saying that the driving force behind this is to end investigations into members of the military. They are saying that it will end the questioning of members of the military and that no longer will they fear a knock on the door. They are using that type of language. While saying that the new information recovery body will have powers, there is also the clear implication that it is not going to use them. The guarantees by the office holder who is to appoint the people who run the commission, that it will not actually use the type of powers that would involve bringing people in for questioning, are problematic.

There is a second issue driving this legislation that is also quite clear from the things the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and other Ministers have said in different forums, namely, the issue of taking back control of the narrative of the conflict and of projecting an official truth. Essentially, what is being said is that independent judges, investigators and inquiries, in doing their jobs, are "rewriting history", in the words of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. The idea is that these types of independent investigations are rewriting history, presumably with independently verifiable facts. Therefore, the express purpose of the oral history and memorialisation provisions that are within this Bill, according to the Secretary of State himself in his Conservative home blog, are to take back control of that rewriting of history and project an official narrative. Sometimes these arguments get traction in places they should not. I think it would be very helpful if that narrative is countered at a higher level and continues to be so.