Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In respect of Deputy Martin's last question, I do not. The occasion of my meeting was the first time for some of the relatives of those involved in the Kingsmill massacre to come to Dublin or to have an engagement with members of the Government. The description given by the sole survivor of the massacre was both poignant and riveting. These were ordinary people coming back from work when they were stopped in their minibus. The single Catholic worker was separated out. The man who survived described putting his hands on the side of the minibus and the instruction being given to start shooting. As he felt 18 bullets rip into his back and he fell to the ground, he described, very graphically as if it happened yesterday, how the boots of one of these murderers nonchalantly walked up and down the line. He said the face of the young man next to him exploded when bullets were fired into his head. He described this to me for 30 minutes, and made the point that these were all working men going home. In some cases, their mothers, brothers, sisters and relations were at the meeting and the tears flowed as openly as if it had happened last week. They had never had the opportunity to express that well of emotion in the way they did. It was very powerful.

The east Fermanagh people were farmers and farmers' sons and daughters. They were ordinary people. They were subject to pressure and what is now called ethnic cleansing.

They were subject to taunting and to being shot. They struggled and tried to keep their businesses going or their farms intact and working. It did not prove possible in quite a number of cases. They outlined on the map and graphically the incidents that had happened. In some cases, the land is still in their names but it has never been possible to farm it they way it should be farmed. In other instances shops were closed up and people had to move.

There are others who want to meet as well. When I was in Enniskillen, I met with Mrs. Joan Wilson and others who lost loved ones in the Enniskillen bombing and they made the point about the report being available shortly in respect of what happened there. One survivor told me he was standing between his father and mother at the wall across the road from where the cenotaph now stands and when the explosion happened, half of his father's head was blown off and his mother lay beside him, dead. These are real stories. That bomb was put behind that wall and there are people who put it there, who ferried it there, who constructed the bomb, who put in place the detonator. No one has been brought to justice and the raw emotion is palpable. If anyone from the Provisional IRA wishes to salve his conscience and ease the pain and emotion of these people, he has an opportunity to do that. I would hope the historic analysis and inquiry might bring forward some new evidence that might enable these people to be brought to justice.

Deputy Martin met some of these people over the years and the rawness and the pain is as obvious and as powerful as if it had happened last week. Since I met the Kingsmill people, the Fermanagh people and those from Enniskillen, other requests have come in from people who want to talk about what happened. That is a legacy of a very sad saga. They all said that their issue was that in their view the State here at the time and over the years was negligent. I dealt with that by saying the IRA was the common enemy of the people here. Its members shot gardaí and Army personnel, they shot and blew up innocent people and our prisons were full of them. They appreciate and understand that and it is for those who carried out these atrocities to have the courage, if courage it be, to stand up and say so.

See this speech in context