Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

First, I commend the Minister on bringing to the Houses of the Oireachtas the Defence Forces (Second World War Amnesty and Immunity) Bill. When thinking about this subject, it is important that everyone recognises that Ireland is a complex place. For many generations and decades after independence, one was told it was a kind of simple place in which everything was black and white or green, white and orange. Moreover, one was told our identity was quite narrow and to step outside that identity was a dangerous place to be. It has only been in recent years that many families in Ireland have looked back on their own family history and have realised things were not always so simple. As Deputy Nash already has mentioned and in the case of my own family, many people fought in the British forces while many in the same family, who were related to one another, also fought in revolutions here in Ireland. The context of that time is not as simple as might have been suggested and if one is to be serious about the Republic in which we live, one should note a republic is not the absence of a monarchy. This is what we grew up thinking or believing in and perhaps that is what the struggle was for during the 1920s and earlier, that is, the sense the Republic was the absence of a monarchy. However, a republic is not simply the absence of a monarchy. A republic is a place where all people are equal. A republic is a place in which there is compassion, forgiveness and understanding, as well as respect for people's past, for their allegiances, for what they sought for their families and for what economic necessity sometimes forced them to do. In the main, this Bill pertains to working-class families and is about men who sought to do something they felt was right. I believe there now is a generosity within the Republic to look back at things that happened in the past and to have a different sense of them. Later today, Members will discuss the issue of symphysiotomy and they recently discussed the position in respect of the Magdalen laundries. It was a kind of dark and repressive Ireland with a highly simplistic view of what was right and wrong and of what was Irish and what was not. Members of the generation to which Deputy Nash and I belong have a completely different view of what is a republic, of our value system and of what we wish to hand on to the next generation. It is not a closed view of Irishness or of nationality. It is not a black and white view of what the country believes in or stands for and is not a green, white and orange view of nationality because life just is not that simple. This move on the part of the Minister means a huge amount to many families. Unfortunately, it has come too late for some men, such as Con Murphy, a former RAF man, who died in Cork recently. However, for people such as my constituent, Peter Mulvanny, who has campaigned on this issue for many years, and those Deputy Nash already has recorded in the Official Report, it means so much that what they did can be legitimised to a degree and that this House and this Republic finally can come to terms with our complicated past. Were we to recognise the complexity of that past and realise things are not always that simple, perhaps we would have a chance to build an Ireland and a republic of which everyone can feel a part.

I again appreciate the opportunity to speak on this Bill, which is something on which one needs to reflect. In the past, nationality in Ireland has been a divisive subject. One was obliged to speak a certain way, look a certain way, dance in a certain way, play a certain game or speak a certain language to be considered to be Irish. We are more generous now and have a better sense of ourselves. We have much more self-confidence to be able to bring legislation such as this Bill to the House and to speak on it with generosity and understanding. I commend the Minister on his action. This means a huge amount for the families involved. They are excited and relieved and believe that finally, they can look back on their own family history and not in any way be obliged to apologise for what their family members or they themselves did. Far too often in the past, indirectly or directly, people were required to apologise for their family histories or to pretend that some family members did something they did not do. There are areas of my constituency in which people are proud of their British Army heritage and why should they not be? We so often pretended that Irish people did not fight in the First or Second World Wars. For so many years, we pretended, for example, that Irish women do not travel across the Irish Sea to gain access to facilities of the health system there that are not available here. We have colluded in a kind of collective silence that makes us believe that Ireland is a simple place. However, it is not: it is complicated. It has a complicated history and today, we finally have come to terms with part of that complicated history. I commend the Minister on so doing and appreciate the opportunity to speak on this Bill.

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