Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I note the title of the topic day, which is New Decade, New Approach. A new approach is exactly what is needed, because our current approach is not good enough and the cognitive dissonance of most of the Republic of Ireland regarding the North badly needs to be addressed. On Sunday, I, along with thousands of others, walked in remembrance on the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. We paid tribute to the 26 who were shot and the 14 killed by the British Army in Derry in 1972. These people were marching for their rights when they were so brutally massacred. Devastatingly, their families are still seeking justice today.

I take this opportunity to remember those who lost their lives on that day in 1972 and express my solidarity with their families who, 50 years later, are still seeking justice. As was said by Bernadette McAliskey and Eamonn McCann from the podium afterwards, they are prepared to have their grandchildren stand to get the truth. They should not have to but they are prepared to do so. The British do not understand and have never really understood that it is the desire to see the truth that drives people to continue to march and fight for justice.

The Taoiseach said in his speech today:

Each family deserves access to a process of justice and until that processes in place families and communities will campaign and have to fight through the courts. And as time passes, that burden has already been passed to new generations.

That is exactly what was said on the podium on Sunday too. It could be seen from the number of young people who marched on Sunday. They were young people who were not even born, who remember and want to keep alive what has happened there. I believe the British Government does not fully understand that. What really shocked me on the Bloody Sunday anniversary, an awful tragedy that affected so many on this island, was the lack of coverage by the media in the South of Ireland and in general. On Sunday, only one newspaper covered the event on its front page and what was covered was not even regarding the anniversary of the event on Sunday itself, but about who was and was not there. We can no longer accept such silence and neglect. This State has failed the people in the North of Ireland time and again. This State stood idly by and watched the conflict unfold without taking necessary action to intervene. We neglected them then and we continue to do so.

We like to pretend that the British are and were neutral in the conflict, which, of course, they were not. This has allowed them to constantly hide from accepting their responsibility for the conflict. The Government in the South has allowed them to perpetrate that lie to a certain extent. There may not have been a peace process if the price was that the British had to accept a protagonist's role rather than a neutral role, but maybe the time has come for the Government to stop letting them off the hook and hold them to account. There is no doubt that we are prisoners of our own past when it comes to this issue. Successive Governments have been negligent of the North of Ireland for too long and we need to seriously reconsider the approach of this, and future, Governments. We can no longer allow the media and the Government to bury their heads in the sand when it comes to the North.

We know there is an appetite for change. A referendum on the reunification of this island is not far away and denial of this will not make this any less of a fact. We need to take discussions around this seriously. I do not mean discussions of flags and anthems. I mean real discussions of people, livelihoods, healthcare and housing. We know that cultural issues are important but the bones that will make up a possible united Ireland are more important. We have a unique opportunity to take the best of both regions and consider what a new, united Ireland might look like, leaving nobody behind in this. Under a united Ireland as it currently stands, unionism will have a huge voice and would probably be permanently in government with the southern conservative parties and would have a larger voice and control in a united Ireland than they do now in a failed statelet. That is a necessary outworking of the reunification of our country and I look forward to it happening, because it is only then that we can look to a day beyond that then when Irish people will decide Irish futures.

As we are here talking today about legacy issues, perhaps the Government could also look at dealing with the legacy of the heavy gang, particularly in light of the recent RTÉ documentaries about the behaviour of gardaí during the period of the Troubles, through the work of the heavy gang. It is a measure of the effect on this State that the State set up and allowed the operation with impunity of a gang of gardaí who could do what they wanted. While the State probably thought it was acceptable that it targeted republicans, we can see that the activities of the heavy gang also targeted ordinary individuals with impunity. It is an example of how, when the State compromises the rule of law, everyone loses.

It would be worthwhile for the State to investigate and hold an inquiry into the operation of the heavy gang and how it impacted our society in the context of the legacy of the Troubles.

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