Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Ar son Fhianna Fáil agus ar mo shon féin ba mhaith liom comhbhrón a dhéanamh le clanna na ndaoine a fuair bás in iarthar Bhéal Feirste 44 bliain ó shin. Níl aon amhras ach gur dúnmharú uafásach a bhí ann. Is deacair a thuiscint cén fáth nach bhfuil Rialtas na Breataine sásta an dúnmharú seo a fhiosrú go neamhspleách, ionas go mbeidh fios ag cách cad a tharla agus cén fáth gur tharla sé.

On behalf of Fianna Fáil I would like to again sympathise with the relatives who lost their loved ones in Ballymurphy in West Belfast nearly 44 years ago. I welcome the relatives, friends and those involved in the campaign to Leinster House. I also welcome representatives of the families of those who were murdered in the McGurk's bar atrocity to Leinster House.

Those horrendous 36 hours between 9 and 11 August in 1971 will never and should never be forgotten. Fianna Fáil fully supports all the relatives in their quest for the truth. The families know the truth but what they want is official acknowledgement of the truth. There is no justification whatsoever for the refusal to grant them this fair and reasonable demand. We all remember the response from Prime Minister Cameron when he received the full 5,000 page Saville Report in June 2010. He spoke eloquently and honestly about what happened during the Troubles. He said what happened was wrong and that he was sorry. He said the events of Bloody Sunday were "unjustified and unjustifiable". He also said, "Some members of our Armed Forces acted wrongly. The Government is ultimately responsible for the conduct of our Armed Forces. And for that, on behalf of the Government - and indeed our country - I am deeply sorry". The other significant comment Prime Minister Cameron made that day was: "For someone of my generation, Bloody Sunday and the early 1970s are something we feel we have learnt about rather than lived through. But what happened should never, ever have happened".

There is no basis for supporting the Bloody Sunday inquiry, on the one hand, and rejecting one into the Ballymurphy massacre, on the other. The Ballymurphy families have lived through the last 44 years, missing their loved ones, knowing that what happened should not have happened. They deserve and should have an independent panel of inquiry to investigate and, like the relatives of those who were murdered on Bloody Sunday, be allowed to be set free. An independent panel of inquiry would not take 12 years, like the Saville inquiry, and costs could be kept to a minimum, although time and costs have no legitimate place in discussing this important principle.

In thirty years of violence there were many atrocities. In overcoming the horrible legacy of that violence there is no substitution for an honest and open statement on what happened. Unfortunately, what we have been seeing is a battle of narratives, where the truth is something demanded of others. Selectivity in investigating the past is the enemy of the truth. It reinforces divisions and erects a barricade to prevent reconciliation. From the start, the role of the Irish Government, especially when it was led by Fianna Fáil, has been to take the unique position of demanding openness from everyone and showing it in regard to the activities of the State during the years of violence. This must continue to be the policy of Dail Éireann and the Government we elect. We must stand against the sectarian search for accountability for others and stand for accountability for all.

In the early 1970s tensions were high in Northern Ireland and the British Government at the time introduced internment without trial. There were thousands of British troops across the Six Counties who were arresting and interning people without trial. Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment took over the community centre in Ballymurphy which was known as Henry Taggart Memorial Hall. This was from where Operation Demetrius was being managed and it produced some of the most intense violence. It was a small neighbourhood. Even though there were many tragic occurrences on all sides of the divide in the North during the Troubles, what happened in Ballymurphy was one of the most appalling and controversial. At the start of Operation Demetrius18 people from this community were grabbed and removed from their own homes, taken to the hall and beaten up before they were removed to another location. This caused a huge stir and barricades were put up. Because of the obvious aggression of the soldiers, people were preparing for the worst. Ten people were murdered and one more died from heart failure following the brutal attacks. Witnesses say he had been cruelly subjected to a mock execution by soldiers and then had a heart attack. None of the people who was killed was armed. At the time, there was no international condemnation of the killings. One of the victims was a priest, Fr. Mullan, who had actually telephoned the army to inform it that soldiers were shooting at civilians. This was before he himself was shot twice while giving the last rites to one of the victims. Another, Mrs. Joan Connolly, a mother of eight children, was shot in the face. Another, Mr. Noel Phillips, was just 20 years of age and unarmed when he was shot dead. Mr. Daniel Teggart was shot as he attempted to cross open ground in front of an army base and, as he lay on the ground, was shot several times more.

It has been described as a prolonged killing spree by soldiers of the Parachute Regiment just a few months before the same regiment massacred protestors on Bloody Sunday in Derry. Unfortunately, there were no journalists or camera crews present in Ballymurphy between 9 and 11 August when the killings occurred. The Provisional IRA stated at the time that no shots had been fired at the Parachute Regiment during this period of 36 hours in 1971. By any yardstick, there is no possible justification for the murders by British troops.

Relatives have fought with dignity for the past 44 years for an independent panel of inquiry and submitted detailed proposals to both the Irish and British Governments, as well as the political parties in the Northern Assembly. I had the honour of meeting the relatives when I visited the Ballymurphy site in May 2010 in my capacity as Minister for Foreign Affairs. I welcome the families to the Visitors Gallery. It was through the relatives' own creativity that they approached the Attorney General for Northern Ireland in November 2011 and made an application to have the inquests reopened under section 14 of the Coroners Act 1959. The Attorney General has directed that the coroner reopen the inquests into the deaths, although it will not have the statutory, independent powers to truly examine the circumstances involved, as well as compellability powers.

The families do not want to go down another cul-de-sac. Some reports have been carried out on the Ballymurphy massacre, but none of them actually addresses the true concerns of the families involved. There are direct contradictions of the soldiers by witnesses who were interviewed about the events. There were members of the Nationalist community who were brutally taken in the prime of their lives. The RUC performed an investigation at the time, but only members of the Royal Military Police were allowed to interview the troops involved. The soldiers maintained that they had been reacting to terrorists, that some of the deceased had been gunmen and that others had just been caught in the crossfire. Of course, no evidence was ever found of arms on the deceased and the RUC did not carry out an investigation. An inquiry was never conducted where compellability was required.

The shadows of the past will never be truly dealt with unless the nettle is grasped and an independent inquiry is established. We all accept that the families of victims of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, Justice for the Forgotten, the Disappeared, the Kingsmill massacre, east Fermanagh and the Enniskillen bombings all need and deserve to know the truth. There has to be a genuine effort at senior political level to address this glaring anomaly. There are families on both sides who have been left bereft of the basic right to know what happened to their loved ones and who was responsible. Until we address the rights of all sides to seek and get the truth, we cannot fully deal with our island's past.

Commitments have been made on how to deal with the past in the latest Stormont House Agreement. These commitments cannot be treated flippantly, nor can they be used as an excuse not to do the right thing. The British Government has refused to set up an independent panel of inquiry into the Ballymurphy massacre, which is disappointing, to say the least. There is all-party support in the Oireachtas for an independent panel of inquiry and the Taoiseach has said numerous times since 2011 that he also favours such an inquiry. Since 2012 the economic and social position of Northern Ireland has deteriorated, we have had a succession of political crises, sectarian tensions have risen, the level of political participation has declined, the level of alienation has grown and issue after issue is being left to fester. We are returning to a damaging cycle of crises which has to stop. A genuinely open and honest reckoning with the past has to be a part of this process.

The relatives of the Ballymurphy families, in their submission requesting an independent panel of investigation, referred to the British Government-funded work of the Hillsborough independent panel, which would allow the disclosure of documents and add to the public understanding of how the murders occurred. It would also be able to help to "create a public archive of all documents reviewed by an independent panel which would establish an evidence base on which further legal actions and new inquests could be progressed".

Fianna Fáil has submitted amendments to the motion. I put it to the Taoiseach that it will not be a genuinely all-party motion until the inputs of others are fully acknowledged. We accept that a strong statement is required from the Oireachtas to ensure the British Government will face up to its responsibilities and grant a genuinely independent inquiry. I have difficulty in understanding why the British Government remains so unpersuaded and resolute in its refusal to facilitate the kind of independent inquiry mooted and suggested in the motion before the House which is quite modest in the language used which, in some respects, could be even stronger, given what happened and the failure to respond with a suitable inquiry.

The first five years of Prime Minister Cameron's premiership were marked with an eloquent statement on Bloody Sunday and then, unfortunately, a general disengagement from Northern Ireland. The refusal to allow transparency about the events of 44 years ago marks a return to a defensive and damaging approach to the past.

The fundamental point is that if we compare the approach to Bloody Sunday with that to Ballymurphy, there is an extraordinary difference. We want Prime Minister Cameron to rediscover the spirit with which he approached the conclusion of the Saville inquiry into the murders of Bloody Sunday, and to reapply that spirit and approach to the massacre at Ballymurphy. The only logical conclusion he can come to, reading his speech in the aftermath of Bloody Sunday, is to facilitate the establishment of such an independent panel of inquiry into the Ballymurphy massacre.

The paramilitaries maintain the strategy of self-justification and covering up their worst excesses. Political parties continue to exploit sectarian tensions. It is up to the Governments to take the lead and fully embrace the ever more urgent need for openness and honesty about the past, thereby facilitating the only response to the legitimate, dignified and persistent campaign of the families of those who were so brutally murdered. That is the point of this motion.

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