Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Barry. There were a lot of us in Derry on Sunday. The People Before Profit Deputies attended the second demonstration in the afternoon while official Ireland, including the Minister, the Taoiseach, Deputy McDonald, etc., attended a morning demonstration. It was very good that official Ireland was represented at it and that we are unified in rejecting the idea of an amnesty. We left Creggan with tens of thousands of people and marched to Free Derry Corner. We listened to speeches from Kate Nash, whose brother was massacred on that day, from Bernadette Devlin McAliskey and from Eamonn McCann. The repeated theme of that demonstration was a call for the prosecution of General Sir Michael Jackson. Many people know the name Michael Jackson but they may not associate it with Bloody Sunday or, as mentioned earlier by Deputy McDonald, with the Ballymurphy massacre. General Michael Jackson was second in command on Bloody Sunday. Not only was he second in command on the day of that massacre, he was also central to creating a piece of fiction afterwards about the events of that day, which formed the basis of the failed Widgery tribunal. As well as being adjutant general on that day, he was subsequently promoted to head of the British Army and spent time in Iraq and Kosovo.

The British establishment always tries to portray the conflict in Ireland as some kind of war between two tribes and itself as the awkward piggy in the middle trying to keep us apart. However, Blood Sunday in particular shows that it arose from a cold-blooded decision by the British establishment to suppress the mass movement for civil rights, the result of which was absolute carnage throughout the North. The Parachute Regiment was sent to Derry, not to keep two warring factions apart, but to conduct a massacre and break up and intimidate a mass movement.

It was right that official Ireland was in Derry, but I put it to the Tánaiste, the Taoiseach and the rest of this House that instead of us always looking to park these things, we should look first at where the fish rots from. It rots from the head. These commanders who gave the orders to shoot and then tried to scapegoat the soldiers have to be called to book. Today, I call on the Minister to echo the call from that demonstration, which left the Creggan and went to Free Derry Corner, to jail General Sir Michael Jackson and bring him to trial for both his lies and the orders he gave in Ballymurphy and, especially, in Derry on Bloody Sunday.

The conflict in Northern Ireland is not just about two warring factions. It increasingly shows that all sides in the North have things very much in common for which we must struggle. I marched behind a banner that said, "Class not creed. We shall overcome". I marched with people who have been out on strike for increases in pay because they worked in the NHS and with those fighting for full reproductive rights for women throughout the North, workers rights and climate justice. We have these issues in common in the South, as do both sides of what is called the traditional divide in the North.

That is why People Before Profit take the job of building a 32-county party that stands for neither orange or green, but the best traditions of James Connolly, for a working class that can liberate itself and unite to get rid of partition and the yoke of imperialism that has dominated our history for so long. I ask the Minister to come back on that call for the prosecution of General Sir Michael Jackson and rather than go after Soldiers F or G, to go to the top from where these orders came and to he who tried to cover it up by giving a list of lies to the Widgery tribunal.

See this speech in context