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

I thank the Minister of State for her reply. She referred to the former Minister, Deputy Charles Flanagan, with whom I had much engagement and his officials on this issue which I have already mentioned it to the new Minister, Deputy Simon Coveney. I hope we can maintain that contact and dialogue which are representative of views in this House.

The Minister of State has correctly indicated that the motions were approved unanimously in the House in 2008, 2011 and 2016. They referred to the Dublin bombings of 1972 and 1973, the bombing of Kay's Tavern in Dundalk and the murder of Séamus Ludlow in County Louth. As we know, nobody has been brought to justice for committing these desperate atrocities. The Ulster Volunteer Force, UVF, a loyalist group, claimed responsibility for the bombings, but there are credible allegations that elements of the British security forces colluded with it in the bombings. Anne Cadwallader in her book, Lethal Allies: British Collusion in Ireland, refers to 120 murders committed by loyalist paramilitaries and indicates that clear evidence is available that some of them were armed from Ulster Defence Regiment depots.

It is utterly reprehensible and unacceptable that the British Government will not heed the unanimous motions passed in this House and sovereign parliament. We are asking it to release the files and papers to an independent and international judicial figure who could carry out some work and conduct some research. It is deplorable, as the Minister of State and all of the rest of us in the House know, that the families who have suffered so much for so long are seeing no justice in the case. I ask the Minister of State to bring the message to her Government colleagues that we want this matter to be prioritised in negotiations with the British Government. I know many of the victims, people who were injured. The way they have been treated by the British Government and its agencies during the years has been reprehensible.

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