Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is now 42 years since the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. Although nobody has been brought to justice for those terrible crimes, it appears highly probable that the murders were carried out as a result of collusion between certain sections within the British state and loyalist paramilitaries. We know that the Glenanne gang, that in the 1970s was based in Armagh and comprised a group of Northern loyalists who were involved with the UDR, the RUC and certain sections within the British security services, was responsible for a significant number of murders committed in Northern Ireland at the time. It carried out a sectarian murders against Catholics. The sectarian murders for which it was responsible were just as heinous and sectarian as the campaign carried out by the Provisional IRA at the same time.

The bombs in Dublin and Monaghan were not simply an attack on the unfortunate people who were murdered that day; they were also an attack on the State. They were sectarian attacks that were committed at a time when this State and the North could have regressed into sectarian civil war between loyalist Protestant and Nationalist Catholic groups. The actions of the people within British intelligence who promoted and colluded in the crime actively encouraged and sought to promote such a conflict, and that needs to be condemned unreservedly.

We will never overcome the legacy of the past unless the participants from the past decide to admit what happened, and that applies to everyone on all sides of the conflict. Unfortunately, it appears that is not going to happen. Part of the reason there will not be an admission as to the wrongdoing of the past is because it is a source of extraordinary embarrassment and an admission of murder. It is a recognition that what happened in the past was completely wrong. Why did all those young people in Northern Ireland have to die and what was achieved? Why did so many people in Dublin and Monaghan have to die 42 years ago and what was achieved?

Acts of collusion between the British state and loyalist paramilitaries may have started in the 1970s and continued throughout the 1980s into the early 1990s. It was an illegal response to the equally repulsive campaign being carried out on behalf of the Provisional IRA at the time. I regret to say, however, that history teaches us that the likelihood is that the British state will not face up to its responsibility in respect of collusion.

The House previously passed a motion seeking the appointment of a judge to examine the documents available to the British and which could throw some light on these heinous crimes. We should recall that in Weston Park, the agreement between Ireland and Britain a number of years ago, there was similar agreement that there would be a public inquiry into the killing of Pat Finucane. To date we have received no public inquiry from the British state. Instead, we have had the De Silva inquiry which, while illuminating, is not the public inquiry for which we entered into an agreement.

It is also instructive to note what happens to people within the British state who seek to expose collusion on the part of certain sections of the British military. In the 1980s, John Colin Wallace was an intelligence officer in Northern Ireland. He, along with Fred Holroyd, another British Army officer, exposed serious wrongdoing and illegality on behalf of the British forces in Northern Ireland. He was subsequently prosecuted and convicted of murder, but the conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal in the United Kingdom in 1996.

John Stalker was deputy chief constable of the Greater Manchester Police and was asked by the British Government to look into reports of a shoot to kill policy. He was removed from the inquiry after allegations were made against him, allegations which have long since been shown to be false.

John Stevens was a senior police officer in the Metropolitan police who was asked to investigate certain allegations of collusion. It is sometimes forgotten that he reached the finding that there was collusion involved in the murder of Pat Finucane. It is instructive to note what happened to Mr. Stevens the night before he planned to arrest an individual involved in the heinous crime. His office in the RUC base in Carrickfergus was burnt down.

I do not wish to give up hope in respect of Dublin and Monaghan, and I commend the people in the Gallery, and the families of those who were murdered, on their perseverance. It is important we continue to seek the truth in respect of this matter. I can assure the House and the families that Fianna Fáil will continue to pursue that, notwithstanding the fact it may be the case that we will not get co-operation from the British state.

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