Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

Sinn Féin does not oppose this motion. We are in favour of a process of truth recovery. The tragic loss of all those who died in the political conflict on this island should be acknowledged and remembered. The grief of their relatives and friends must be acknowledged also. More than 3,500 died in the conflict. They were men, women, children, civilians, combatants and members of all the armed groups, both state and non-state. All armed forces involved in the conflict inflicted death and injury. They need to acknowledge that. Some have done so while others have not. The British Government has never acknowledged its role in the armed conflict in our country. In particular, it has never admitted its use of collusion throughout the conflict since 1969. No one who has seriously and honestly studied this conflict over the past 36 years doubts that there was systematic collusion between British forces and loyalist paramilitaries.

The most murderous loyalist paramilitary group, the Ulster Defence Association, which operated under the cover name of the Ulster Freedom Fighters, was co-founded in 1971 by Charles Harding-Smith, a self-confessed British intelligence agent. The British Army's military reaction force was established by Brigadier Frank Kitson, the leading counter-insurgency officer, to co-ordinate the British military and the loyalist death squads. Throughout the conflict British forces were guided by the British Army's training manual, Land Operations, Volume III — Counter-insurgency Options, which defines its role as "Liaison with, and organisation, training and control of, friendly guerilla forces operating against the common enemy".

That is the basis of collusion. It is not ancient history, but is relevant right up to the present. The British Government has introduced legislation, the Inquiries Bill, which is designed to prevent any realistic inquiry into the murder of Patrick Finucane or that of any other victim of collusion between British forces and loyalist death squads. That legislation will empower a British minister to order an inquiry to be held behind closed doors. Judge Peter Cory, who recommended the inquiry being established today, has severely criticised this legislation. He has advised his colleague judges in Canada not to participate in any inquiry under such legislation. British ministers and military will still have the controlling hand when it comes to the release of information. We have seen how they have used that power.

Very little attention has been given to the most recent report of the Oireachtas committee established on foot of the Barron report. That committee severely reprimands the British Prime Minister for his refusal to establish an inquiry, as called for by the Oireachtas, into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. It goes further and states that his action is in breach of the Good Friday Agreement. The British Secretary of State, the Northern Ireland Office and the PSNI refuse to co-operate in any meaningful way with the Barron investigation or with the work of the Oireachtas committee.

What is the situation now? Today the Oireachtas is establishing a full-blown public inquiry into the alleged collusion of a member or members of the Garda Síochána into the killing of senior RUC officers, Harry Breen and Robert Buchanan, in 1989, yet no public inquiry into the murder of Patrick Finucane has been established. Even more outrageously, we have had no public inquiry in either jurisdiction into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings of nearly 31 years ago or into any of the incidents in which at least 47 people died in the Twenty-six Counties, killed as a result of collusion or directly by British forces. An attempt has been made by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, by fellow Unionists and sections of the media to equate an alleged collusion of a garda or gardaí in the killing of these two RUC officers with widespread and systematic collusion between British forces, including the RUC and the loyalist paramilitaries. This is not done out of any desire for truth or justice. It is presented as a debating point and as an attempt to put Sinn Féin in the wrong when we highlight the responsibility of successive British Governments for collusion. That is the blatant and bald truth of it.

Let us make matters clear for the Minister, Deputy Jim O'Keeffe and anyone else who wants to know.

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