Ms Alyson Kilpatrick:

I am not going to say whether the Irish Government should. I can answer whether it could. It absolutely could, procedurally and substantively. It would have the right to claim that another state is in breach of its European convention obligations. It does not have to be directly affected to do that but the Irish Government would be directly affected. One only has to think of cases relating to the Glennane gang, the Dublin and Monaghan bombings and so on. There will be a direct and immediate impact of the legacy Bill if it becomes an Act south of the Border, so the South would also be affected. One of the considerations for an inter-state case is that it could be brought much more quickly. If it was left to an individual to challenge it, that could take a very long time indeed. There are benefits to an inter-state case. There was a conference recently on inter-state cases. There is a Professor Risini who is the expert in this area. Somebody in the Irish Government could consider taking advice from someone like that. I would not ever say what the Government should do but it certainly could do it. I know there are calls for the Government to consider doing it.

There is a cross-border obligation to comply with Article 2. As things stand now, there is an obligation for disclosure of information but I understand that is currently being blocked. It would further be blocked by this legacy Bill. Just when progress was beginning to be made by a statutory instrument here, to enable disclosure to the Northern investigations, that would be blocked by this. There is an immediate impact.