Ms Gr?inne Teggart:

Let me say first of all that our view, and I know this is shared by the Irish Government and, indeed, this committee and others, is that the fulfilment of rights and the rule of law must be central to the legacy process. Very clearly, what we see with this Bill is the UK Government trying to legislate to put people beyond the law. This is obviously a very dangerous and concerning situation we are facing. It is part of this broader trend we are seeing from the UK Government at the minute. Through a series of Bills, it is about reducing and removing accountability from Government and various public authorities and, obviously, Government forces also. I want to stress to the committee that for the many years I have been working in human rights, I have not seen a piece of legislation that has been as concerning as this.

Much of the concern is coming out of the UK Government at the minute, certainly in terms of the extent of what this Bill proposes to do and the potential for it to impact elsewhere. When I met with the US Ambassador-at-large for Global Criminal Justice, Dr. Beth Van Schaack, she was also very concerned. She made it very clear that even through her work in holding up the Good Friday Agreement around the world in conversations around post-conflict societies and trying to reach being a post-conflict society, the significance of this Bill was not lost on her. She also shared those concerns.

I do not feel it is my position to set out to the Irish Government what its challenge should look like. Our submission and briefing, which the Department of Foreign Affairs also has, sets out very clearly which areas this Bill breaches, in particular, Article 2 and Article 3. Given that we do not expect there to be any real meaningful departure from the UK Government's position and what we see in the Bill currently, there is nothing stopping the Irish Government at this point in making those preparations, particularly with the short window of time that will follow if and when the Bill is passed.

On the question of how many families will be affected, as part of the inquest process at the minute there are those who, for example, have taken civil claims. On the day of the Bill being introduced, we saw a rush of civil claims and papers being submitted to court. There are myriad reasons why victims may not yet have put together their legal challenges.

The five-year cut-off point for reviews this Bill proposes very clearly is not European Convention on Human Rights compliant. That is not something the UK Government can do. It is something we expect the European Court of Human Rights would address and, therefore, also that the Irish Government would address in an inter-state challenge among the many points that would need to be raised with this Bill. For a range of families with whom we work, they felt betrayed when they saw the command paper, first of all. Then, the UK Government claimed it listened to some of the concerns expressed regarding the command paper and that was now reflected in what it was terming as "qualified immunity". As we know and as the committee is aware, the bar is obviously so low that, for example, a soldier would effectively just have to give an account of information to the best of his or her knowledge and then he or she would be granted that immunity. There is no room in the process. Nothing is being given over to the victims of the perpetrators. That is what I want to say on that.