Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

As a co-sponsor of the motion before us I confirm my support and that of my Sinn Féin Dáil colleagues for its unanimous passage. The report of the Saville inquiry is a vindication of the 14 dead and the injured of Bloody Sunday, 30 January 1972 in Derry. It is an affirmation of the steadfastness of the families of the dead who campaigned for truth and justice for all of 38 years. I begin by saluting the families, the survivors and the very brave people of the Irish city of Derry whose courage has long been a beacon for freedom-loving people in Ireland and across the world.

The people of Derry have known from the day of the shootings that their loved ones, friends and neighbours were innocent and were shot dead by soldiers of the parachute regiment of the British army without any justification whatsoever. It has taken nearly four decades for the British state to finally acknowledge that fact. Long overdue as the acknowledgement is, it is still hugely significant. It ends 38 years of denial and cover-up by successive British Governments. The denial, the lies and the cover-up began in the immediate aftermath of the shootings and this is very clear from the Saville report. The report finds that members of the parachute regiment knowingly put forward false accounts of their actions during the shootings, both in their initial statements and, many years later, to the Saville Inquiry itself.

What compounded the crime of Bloody Sunday was the legal and political whitewash that was the Widgery inquiry. Widgery stigmatised the dead in order to exonerate the killers. He stated that:

There would have been no deaths in Londonderry on January 30th if those who organised the illegal march had not thereby created a highly dangerous situation ... Some soldiers showed a high degree of restraint in opening fire, the firing of others bordered on the reckless.

If there is one major flaw in the Saville report it is that it does not explicitly deal with that first so-called inquiry into Bloody Sunday. Widgery was steered in a very definite direction by the then British Prime Minister Edward Heath. In 1995 a letter was uncovered in the Public Record Office in London containing the minutes of a meeting between Widgery and Edward Heath on 1 February 1972, two days after Bloody Sunday. Heath's most significant statement to Widgery at that meeting was the following: "It had to be remembered that we were in Northern Ireland fighting not only a military war but the propaganda war".

When he was called to testify at the Saville inquiry, Heath admitted he had spoken to Lord Widgery prior to his inquiry and impressed upon him that the morale of the British army was at stake. Heath denied to the Saville inquiry that he had given Widgery "a steer". That a steer was given and duly obeyed was patently obvious when the Widgery report came out and it is undeniable now. In all of its major conclusions Saville consigns Widgery to the dustbin of history.

The Saville report found that the British paratroopers were responsible for all the deaths and injuries on that fateful day and that the soldiers opened fire without justification. The report found that none of the killed and injured was posing any threat of causing death or serious injury when they were shot and that soldiers did not fire in response to attacks or threatened attacks by nail or petrol bombers. Most damningly, it found that some of the victims were shot in the back as they attempted to flee. One was shot as he was crawling away and another as he lay mortally wounded.

The motion before us today, which the Sinn Féin Deputies endorse, welcomes the apology from the British Prime Minister David Cameron. He made a significant statement in the House of Commons, not least because he is a Tory Prime Minister. However, it is also a carefully crafted and precisely worded statement and should not be viewed uncritically. There is much in it about the role of the British Government and the British armed forces in Ireland which we strongly contest. We have never accepted, and the majority of the Irish people have never accepted, that the role of the British armed forces in the Six Counties was in David Cameron's words, "upholding democracy and the rule of law". In our view as Irish republicans, quite the opposite is the case.

Leaving aside his general remarks about the British armed forces, remarks aimed at a particular audience in Britain, it is necessary to examine what he said about the role of the British Government and senior British commanders regarding Bloody Sunday. The Prime Minister claimed that those looking for premeditation, those looking for a plan and those looking for a conspiracy involving senior politicians or senior members of the armed forces would not find it in the Saville report. However David Cameron also said, "The Government is ultimately responsible for the conduct of the armed forces" and on that statement he based his apology. Between these two statements by the British Prime Minister there is a gap that is not bridged by the Saville report and this is where the report is at its weakest.

On Major General Ford, Commander of the British Land Forces in the Six Counties at the time, the report acknowledges that he issued a memorandum suggesting that so-called ringleaders of riots be shot after warning. Saville also acknowledges that Ford's decision to use the 1st battalion of the parachute regiment in Derry is "open to criticism on the ground that 1 Para was a force with a reputation for using excessive physical violence". However, Saville says he is sure Ford's suggestion to shoot alleged rioters was not adopted and also sure there was no plan to cause a confrontation with the IRA in Derry. The British army commander in Derry, Brigadier MacLellan, is similarly dealt with in the report, which accepts his claim that he had no reason to believe that the limited arrest operation he allegedly ordered ran the risk of death and injuries from unjustifiable shooting by the soldiers. No such distancing from the shootings could be sustained in the case of Lieutenant Colonel Derek Wilford, leader of the paras that day. He is strongly criticised by Saville for disobeying orders and sending the paras into the Bogside. What we have from the British Prime Minister is an acknowledgement of the ultimate responsibility of the British Government for the conduct of the British armed forces and nothing explicit in Saville to show direct responsibility by either Government or senior commanders, except Wilford, for the Bloody Sunday killings. However, the British Government and senior military commanders bear direct responsibility for the shootings not necessarily through direct orders to shoot but by deliberately deploying the paratroopers in the full knowledge of their purpose and reputation. We know this from events prior to and following on from Bloody Sunday which, unfortunately, were not covered by Saville. I have already dealt with the Widgery cover-up, a whitewash initiated by the then British Prime Minister, Edward Heath, and used by successive British Governments for decades. Widgery was designed to shield the entire chain of command from Downing Street to the soldiers who fired the shots. It gave them immunity and they acted accordingly afterwards. In July 1972 the paras shot dead five people in Springhill in Belfast. Far less known is the prelude to Bloody Sunday from August the previous year. Over a three day period following the imposition of internment without trial on 9 August 1971 the same parachute regiment of the British army shot dead 11 people in the Ballymurphy area of West Belfast in similar circumstances to the Derry killings. All were unarmed civilians and included a mother of eight who had gone to the assistance of one of the injured and a parish priest administering the last rites. Some of the victims were shot on the ground while mortally wounded. We support the call of the Ballymurphy families for an international investigation into these killings and we urge the Irish Government to fully back that call by asking the British Government to co-operate. The people of Ballymurphy were attacked by the British army as it imposed internment without trial and imprisoned hundreds of people indefinitely on the basis of a ministerial order. The people of Derry were attacked by the British army on Bloody Sunday because they were participating in a civil rights demonstration against internment. The people of Ireland and the friends of Ireland were outraged by Bloody Sunday and the British embassy in Dublin was burned to the ground. People in the Twenty-six Counties were also attacked by British forces. Seeing the upsurge in support for Irish republicanism in the Twenty-six Counties in 1972, the British deployed their counter-gangs, the heavily infiltrated unionist paramilitaries. They bombed Dublin in December 1972, killing two people. In May 1974 they bombed Dublin and Monaghan, killing 34. Their purpose was to strike terror into the people in this State and to make them fear to show solidarity with the oppressed Nationalists in the North. This strategy was complemented by an Irish Government which sought to blame republicans for the bombings and which tightened political censorship and repression in this State. The Saville report has given badly needed hope to the bereaved and the survivors of Dublin and Monaghan and the other cross-Border bombings and fatal acts of collusion in this jurisdiction. In the context of this debate on Bloody Sunday and the Saville report's vindication of the families, it is a disgrace that the Irish Government has cut funding for the only victims' group in this State, Justice for the Forgotten. It is equally disgraceful the Taoiseach has failed to raise with the British Prime Minister this Dáil's unanimous call for the British Government to furnish to an international judicial figure all files in its possession relating to the Dublin and Monaghan bombings and the other fatal acts of collusion in this jurisdiction. It is almost two years since the Dáil passed that resolution on 10 July 2008. I call again on the Taoiseach to act. He could not wait for the ink to dry on the Saville report before inviting the English Queen to visit but he made no effort to progress that unanimous Dáil resolution by pressing the issue with the British Government. We know from the history of the Bloody Sunday relatives' campaign how the British system works so assiduously to conceal the information in its possession. Persistence has paid off before and it is required again to vindicate the families who have been campaigning so long and hard under the banner of Justice for the Forgotten. The Saville report took so long and cost so much for one reason, namely, the refusal of the British Government and its agents to tell the truth. The truth has triumphed, however. In the view of Irish republicans the length and breadth of this island, the ultimate act of justice for the people of Derry and Ireland will be the final removal of British armed forces and British jurisdiction from this country. We continue to work towards that day peacefully and democratically. We remember all the victims of the conflict without exception and sympathise with all the bereaved. We believe their finest monument will be lasting peace and reconciliation between all the people who share this island and between the islands of Ireland and Britain.

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