Mr. Seán Whelan:

The political will to get this done at the level of TDs, Senators and county councillors as well as the MPs and MLAs is clearly there already. What we need to do is push that level of commitment up to the ministerial level and the Taoiseach's office level. As the Deputy said in relation to the Forgotten Ten, that campaign was started in 1936. It got pushed on heavily in the 1980s and into the 1990s by Tess Kearney and then Seán Óg O Ceallacháin came on board as well. He was a member in the 1990s, I believe. Of course, Seán Sherwin became involved and between them all - Tess Kearney, Seán Sherwin and Seán Óg O Ceallacháin, they managed to get it up to the Taoiseach's office and the Taoiseach got involved in it and then everything moved quickly.

If the Office of the Taoiseach can be persuaded to get involved in this, all of the problems that are thrown up by the OPW would be non-existent. We know these bodies can easily be found. We know the quicklime did not disintegrate them. We know that in relation to the Mountjoy martyrs, the ten, these arguments were all put up. They said the bodies could not be identified, they were buried in one grave and we could not separate the bones and, as Seán Sherwin explained two years ago here, not only did they clearly find each body, they found every single bone down to the smallest human bone for each one of them. The whole skeleton structure was reinterred. Not only did the quicklime not degrade the skeletons, it actually preserved some of their clothing, especially leather clothing like boots, belts and I think trousers in one instance.

The arguments against doing this do not stand up if the political will at a senior level is there to get this done. As the Deputy said, the families are entirely behind this. Each one of the five families appointed people to sign documents to authorise the National Graves Association to act on their behalf to have this done. As far as we are aware, due to a number of campaigns since the 1930s until 2001, principally by the National Graves Association but also involving others, the five Invincibles who remain beneath the slabs in Kilmainham Gaol are the only executed patriots still buried in prison grounds of which we know the location. I know it is now a museum, but there is no access there for the families. If a family member was coming over from America or Canada, the family cannot say they will show them their relatives grave because they need to get permission from Kilmainham and this takes time, so it all has to be organised in advance.

If they were buried in a dignified place, like Glasnevin cemetery which is where we and the families want to have them reinterred, any family member could visit at any time. All of these arguments are there but at the end of the day, if the political will that has been shown at county council, TD and Senator levels can be replicated in the Taoiseach's office, this will get done.