Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge and welcome in the Visitors' Gallery the families and campaigners for Justice for the Forgotten. They are most welcome here again. I pay tribute to their great work and their tenaciousness in pursuing truth over these long years. Any progress that has been made in the search for justice is due largely if not exclusively to their efforts. They are to be commended on that.

We have just commemorated the 42nd anniversary of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. I remember the time; I was a child in this city. Three bombs exploded in Dublin and a fourth in Monaghan, killing 33 civilians and an unborn child and injuring almost 300 people. Those killed were aged from five months to 80 years. One of the deadliest bombs exploded in Talbot Street, in the heart of my constituency in the north inner city. Many people and families today bear the physical and emotional scars of that day. For them, this is not about the past; it is very much in the present. The bombings claimed by the UVF had the fingerprints of the British Army and British intelligence all over them, most obviously in respect of their agents and informers, those whom they ran within the UVF and other Unionist and loyalist proxy organisations. In his report on the bombings in 2003, the Irish Supreme Court judge Mr. Justice Henry Barron pointed his judicial finger at the most likely involvement of the British military and intelligence services in those bombings. There is no question, for those who care to examine the case, that this was a matter of collusion. My colleague, Deputy Adams, unfairly said he had little hope that the passing of another all-party motion in this House would have any real effect on the British Government. It is understandable that his view would be tinged with some cynicism.

The first question we have to ask is whether the passing of this motion will have an impact on our Government in Dublin. Sadly, unlike Deputy Sean Sherlock, who commended us and the Government on doing our best, I do not believe that is the case. We should be and are very critical of the British system for shutting down access and avenues to truth and justice. That is its form, and there is no sign of that form changing. We also need to be equally honest about the effort, or lack of effort - the lack of determination - from the Dublin Government. The Taoiseach, and not alone he, has been passive and has largely paid lip service to this particular campaign for justice. With another joint motion, it would be intolerable if he were to yet again sit on his hands.

When inquiries are made of the Taoiseach as to the position of the British system and Prime Minister on these matters, he routinely responds in the Chamber that he has raised the matter with the Prime Minister. It is not sufficient simply to raise the matter with the British system in some kind of box-ticking exercise.

The Fresh Start agreement negotiations were very revealing on a number of counts, in the first instance in terms of where the British position now rests. Republicans and Unionists cobbled together an agreement to deal with legacy issues, and in came the British system citing matters of national security. This was entirely spurious and without foundation. It was given avenues to address any genuine concerns it might have had in this regard, but of course it had no interest in that. What was equally revealing was the passivity of the Dublin system when faced with that British intransigence.

I do not recall any serious effort by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Charlie Flanagan, or by anybody else within the Administration to face down and challenge the blanket denial of truth, information and justice. If this motion is to mean anything, if the fine words of the Taoiseach are to amount to anything and if those in the Gallery are to have any real prospect of getting the truth and justice they deserve, the first thing that needs to change is the position, attitude and inactivity of the Dublin Government.

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