Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing with my colleague Mr. Mickey Brady, MP. I thank Ms Teggart for all the work she has done on the issue. We have been meeting on it and we have been doing some work, but what she presents here today is extremely concise, up to date and very thorough. I thank her for that and for all of the actions she has taken both in her engagement with the Irish Government and with others, as named in the statement.

I have been a witness to the truth of Mr. O'Hare and Mr. Reavey and it never gets any less shocking. It is very important to have what they outlined here today on public record in the context of the unilateral action that is being taken to conceal their truth and the truth of other victims. I thank them very much for that.

We have unanimous agreement across this committee on what needs to be done. We share the lack of confidence in the British Government to stop this unilateral action. As a committee, we must look at what we can do next. I propose that, as a collective, the committee would write directly to our Government, to An Taoiseach, to ask what preparation has been made for the interstate case. I know we have written to the Attorney General. We must also write to the British Government. We are the Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, and because of the consequences for the Good Friday Agreement, we must write as well as a collective from here. There is an opportunity for us next week when we are in London. I know we will all collectively make the best use of that time to see if even at this stage common sense can prevail.

I wish to ask Mr. O'Hare one question about how he felt when he got sight of the command paper. I will perhaps put that point to Mr. Reavey as well. Will Ms Teggart outline what type of preparation must be done by the Irish Government and how long it will that take? We have a 16-week period to do it once this Bill is on the statute book. What can be done so we can speed up the process at that stage?

That is probably my main question. I want to let Mr. Brady in to ask his question.