Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)

During the most recent phase of the conflict, more than 3,500 people lost their lives. While the armed conflict has ended, the process of conflict resolution in Ireland is far from over. Many families are still grieving and are still seeking answers regarding the deaths of their loved ones. They and their families all deserve the truth. Sinn Féin fully supports their quest for truth.

Sinn Féin has consistently supported inquiries, including the Saville inquiry into Bloody Sunday and the inquiry into the murder of Rosemary Nelson. We have also given our ongoing support for the campaign by the family of murdered solicitor Pat Finucane and the families of the victims of the Ballymurphy and Springhill massacres. In 2008, Sinn Féin supported the unanimous request of the Oireachtas to allow independent, international access to all original documents held by the British Government relating to fatal attacks in the Twenty-six Counties involving collusion between British state forces and Unionist paramilitaries.

Last month, Sinn Féin tabled a Private Members' motion in this House reiterating the all-party resolution of 10 July 2008 that called on the British Government to release all files relating to the Dublin and Monaghan bombings for scrutiny by the inquiry team. It is widely believed that these bombings, involving the greatest loss of life of any incident in the conflict, were carried out with the involvement of British intelligence. The Oireachtas committee severely reprimanded the former British Government for its refusal to establish an inquiry, as called for by the Oireachtas, into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. It goes further and states the Northern Ireland Office and the PSNI refused to co-operate in any meaningful way with the Barron investigation or with the work of the Oireachtas committee. To date, no action has been taken despite the motion receiving unanimous backing from all parties in this House. It is for this reason that we submitted the Private Members' motion.

We strongly repudiate the rejection by the British Prime Minister of the Taoiseach's request for London to release the files to the inquiry and again urge the Taoiseach to continue to press this matter directly with the British Prime Minister.

Sinn Féin has proposed the establishment of an independent, international truth-recovery process convened under the auspices of a credible, international third party, such as the United Nations, as another step in the peace process. The process should be victim-centred and involve all participants to the conflict here in Ireland.

No one who has seriously studied the Irish conflict doubts that there was systematic collusion between British forces and Unionist paramilitaries. The most murderous loyalist paramilitary group, the Ulster Defence Association, which operated under the cover name 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, a leading British counter-insurgency officer, to co-ordinate the British military and loyalist death squads.

Throughout the conflict, British forces were guided by the British army's training manual Land Operations, Volume III, Counter Revolutionary Operations, Part 3 – Counter Insurgency Options, which defines its role as "liaison with, and organization, training and control of, friendly guerrilla forces operating against the common enemy". That is the institutionalised and administrative basis of collusion. It is not ancient history but has been relevant right up to the present day.

In an attempt to prevent the truth being revealed, the British Government introduced what is commonly known as the inquiries Bill, which was designed to prevent any realistic inquiry into the murder of Patrick Finucane or that of any other victim of collusion between British Crown forces and loyalist death squads. That legislation empowers a British Minister to order an inquiry to be held behind closed doors. Judge Peter Cory 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 British security and military agencies will still have the controlling hand when it comes to the release of information. We have seen how they have used that power.

The Oireachtas established the Smithwick tribunal into the alleged collusion of a member or members of An Garda Síochána in the killing in 1989 of senior RUC officers Harry Breen and Robert Buchanan. Sinn Féin has stated previously in this House that anyone with relevant information should come forward and assist this tribunal. We reiterate that call today.

The decision by the Government to seek an interim report from the tribunal by 30 June and a final report by 30 November of this year is a mistake that will feed the conspiracy theories that the Government and the Garda may have something to hide.

Arguments over costs sound petty and irresponsible when set against the desire of two families to know how their loved ones died. 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. The victims were men, women, children, civilians and members of all the armed groups involved in the conflict. It is for these reasons that Sinn Féin opposes the Government's motion. We support the amendment tabled. However, those of us charged with political responsibility must agree upon and deliver a truth-recovery process that is meaningful and substantive. There is an onus on all political leaders to promote this. That means thinking beyond any sectarian, sectional or party-political interest, or self-interest.

The discharge of these responsibilities needs to be rooted in the political dispensation agreed on Good Friday 1998. The British Government has the major financial, moral and political responsibility to facilitate and enable such a process. The Irish Government has a constitutional, legal and moral responsibility to promote actively and encourage this course of action. Party leaders and civic society should get fully behind the call for an effective truth-recovery initiative.

I concur with Deputy Calleary that it is regrettable that the Opposition spokespersons had only 48 hours' notice of this motion. We received no briefings or materials to explain the urgency of its being tabled.

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