Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)

I thank the Minister of State for her commitment to assist the campaign and continue to support the families. I know I have very little time, but I want to read this into the Dáil record. The failure to expose this massacre at the time it occurred meant that the same regiment left Ballymurphy, went to Derry and killed 14 innocent civilians there. They then came back to Belfast, killed a 14 year old boy in Lenadoon, a 17 year old in Clonard, a student teacher in Divis and two men on the Shankill Road. In 1972, six months after Derry's Bloody Sunday, they shot five people in Springhill, which is the area adjacent to Ballymurphy, including another Catholic priest. Of the four others killed, three were teenagers and the last was a father of six. In 1973 they killed five people, one a 12 year old boy, in north Belfast, while in south Armagh a 12 year old schoolgirl was shot dead.

The pattern is clear. This was the British Army doing what the British Army does and what all armies do in these situations. All of these people were innocent civilians, and their deaths were part of a planned counter-insurgency strategy by the British Government to pacify the population. These are heartland republican areas. The British soldiers had carte blanche to kill, torture and terrorise with legal and judicial impunity.

This matter cannot be ignored any longer. The Ballymurphy families want a full, thorough international investigation. They have rejected the HET process and I support them in that rejection. I will repeat what I have said before: the needs of all victims of the conflict must be dealt with. As well as victims of the British State and of Unionism, there are victims of the IRA, including victims in this part of the island. We saw this being raised during the recent presidential election. All of these victims need to have closure and be part of a healing process. Sinn Féin has proposed that the Irish and British Governments invite a reputable and independent international body to establish an independent international truth commission as part of a viable truth recovery process.

I would like, if I may, to read into the record the names of those killed in Ballymurphy: Fr. Hugh Mullan, who was 38 years old; Frank Quinn, 19, a father of two; Joan Connolly, 50, a mother of eight; Daniel Teggart, 44, a father of 13; Joseph Murphy, 41, a father of 12; Noel Phillips, who was 18; Eddie Doherty, 28, a father of four; John Laverty, who was 20; Joe Corr, 43, a father of six; John McKerr, 49, a father of two; and Paddy McCarthy, who was 44 years old. I once again implore the Government to assist and support the families' campaign and their demand for a full independent investigation.

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