Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of Stage for his reply. It is very clear to all of us that dealing with the past must be victim centred. Abandoning justice for victims would be an abdication of our moral and civic responsibility to those who endured during the grim days. It would be a betrayal of our duty to the men and women who were always committed to peaceful means. The history of the Troubles cannot be left to those who bloodied their hands on either side of the conflict, be they perpetrators of state violence or paramilitaries on either side. I trust the Minister of State and the Government will take this opportunity to rule out any such mirror legislation being enacted in this jurisdiction and will endeavour to, within his remit, ensure it is not promulgated in Northern Ireland.

The comments of the Northern Ireland Attorney General suggest he wants an end to prosecutions, inquiries, inquests and civil proceedings into killings related to the Troubles, whether carried out by paramilitaries, police or the army, with a line drawn under the past at the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.

Recently in Armagh I listened to Denise Mullen, the daughter of Dinny Mullen who was shot dead. I listened to Seamus Mallon outline the terror inflicted on so many people in Armagh and Tyrone with collusion from so-called state forces including the British Army, the UDR and the police in the North. The people who suffered so much must have justice if at all possible. I am realistic enough to know in many instances it will be very difficult to bring some of the inquiries to a conclusion. I listened to members of the Finucane family, sons of the man who was so brutally murdered, and they were understandably angry about the suggestions of the attorney general. As far as I recall, some of the phrases used by the Finucane family were "ill-judged", "ill-advised" and "very irresponsible". How can we deal with the past if there is no process of examining it? The proposals put forward by the attorney general would cause untold distress to bereaved families and those who were victims of collusion by state forces, which was so well laid out in the work of Anne Cadwallader in Lethal Allies.

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