Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses. I congratulate Professor McEvoy on the hard work that has been done on this Bill. There is a huge irony whereby this legacy Bill compounds a legacy of mistrust, lies, collusion and covering up. The irony is not lost on anyone in this room in terms of trying to deal with something by hiding and continuing to hide.

I will take up a point made by the previous speaker.

I was at the Security Council recently and I raised this with our ambassador. I asked about the lessons we should have learned, or can learn now, from the Good Friday Agreement, on how we did not deal with legacy and why it was not dealt with. It is a huge failure of the Good Friday Agreement that we do not have that mechanism and a way to move on. As we all well know, we cannot move on with legacy and fear weighing constantly on our shoulders. There was no answer from the ambassador on that day about why we ignored it or why we failed to deal with it. What they were speaking about was how to use that at the UN. It is possibly an avenue that we all could explore. We could use our two years on the Security Council to make sure the UN looks at legacy issues. This is an international agreement recognised by the United Nations. It is part of its remit and we should use our place on the Security Council to address that. Fianna Fáil and indeed all of us have been against this legacy Bill. We want the truth and we need the truth. The witnesses have our support and the victims have our support, unquestionably and without any compromise.