Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

I extend my deepest sympathies, thoughts and prayers to the families named in the Police Ombudsman report on collusion. The British state murdered citizens of that state and then covered up its actions to protect the perpetrators. The information revealed in those documents is incredible. On 5 February 1992, the UDA murdered five nationalists and wounded another nine in Sean Graham bookmaker's shop on the Lower Ormeau Road in Belfast. Two men wearing boiler suits and balaclavas pumped 44 shots into their victims. The Police Ombudsman report into this atrocity also investigated the murders of seven other nationalists by RUC special branch informants at the time. These murderers were under the direction and under the employment of the RUC and special branch. Incredibly, the Police Ombudsman report identified eight British informants linked to the murders and attempted murders of 27 people.

A police gun was used in the hands of loyalists. The RUC deliberately destroyed files. It failed to investigate CCTV footage. It failed to search houses of suspects. The RUC failed to conduct a full forensic test on blood. It failed to test a getaway car for gunshot resin. These events and those details in Operation Greenwich are simply part of continuing British Government policy in Ireland that includes Bloody Sunday, the Ballymurphy massacre, the Springhill massacre, Loughinisland, Greysteel, the Miami showband massacre and the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. I give credit to Stephen Travers, whom I had the honour of meeting today, for how he has campaigned for justice not only for himself but for many others.

Incredibly, the Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland has 400 more requests for investigations by other families, victims and survivors. There are 400 outstanding requests that have still to be processed by the Police Ombudsman in the North. These families have been through so much. Thirty or 40 years after the murders of their loved ones, they have had limited details being drip fed slowly by these reports. They have been shockingly slow. Still justice has not been delivered to them. For many of these people what has been revealed in the report confirms what they already know.

We know there is no British justice in Ireland. There is no British rule of law in Ireland. If there is a British amnesty, the perpetrators of these actions will simply get away with murder. We must remember the British military involved in the killings were also involved in the killings of elected representatives such as Councillors Eddie Fullerton and Bernard O'Hagan. They also killed a number of election workers. Incredibly, the British state was threatening the democratic functions of this State at that time. Why did these covert murders happen? It was simply because of the international pushback against Britain after what happened on Bloody Sunday. The British military knew it could not get away again with killing nationalists live on television. It knew it would have to do it in a covert fashion and use loyalist proxies to do so.

Some people may feel this is ancient history. I heard people speak about the fact they are students of history. This happened in our lifetime. The Minister was a Deputy in the same decade that many of the murders in these files happened. The perpetrators of these murderers live in the same towns and villages as the families of the dead loved ones. Some of the securocrats involved in this collusion are still in the pay of the British state. Many were promoted in their jobs. We have a British paratrooper who was on the streets of Derry on Bloody Sunday who was given an MBE by the English Queen as a result of his work on Derry's streets. This is the same queen who received a commendation from the Sinn Féin leader last week, which was incredible just 50 years after Bloody Sunday.

Irish republicans, on the other hand, have spent cumulatively 100,000 years in prison. Think about this. Cumulatively, if we add up all of the sentences served by Irish republicans for their actions, it adds up to 100,000 years. There is a massive contrast between the outcome for those actions and the outcome for those who perpetrated murder on behalf of the British state. I cannot think of another western country that would have allowed a neighbouring state to do this to its citizens and have done so little to achieve justice. I cannot honestly think of another European country that would have done so. I appreciate the Government has met the victims. I appreciate the Government has denounced these actions strongly. I appreciate the Government has laid wreaths at the monuments. For sure it has raised this over and over again with the British but all with very little impact.

Operation Kenova is a criminal investigation into RUC involvement in the murder of 18 people alleged to have happened to protect a double agent codenamed Stakeknife. I understand that files in the hands of the Garda are sought by Operation Kenova. I also understand there is a block on those files being given to Jon Boutcher who is in charge of the investigation. That cannot be tolerated. No excuse can be provided for that block. I also know there are many cases where there is enough evidence to prosecute actions that happened in the past. The PSNI is not prosecuting them. I ask the Minister to meet the Chief Constable of the PSNI and demand a way to act on these prosecutions. The information coming to light in these reports could lead to further prosecutions.

The British Government is a signatory to international agreements such as the Good Friday Agreement and the Stormont House Agreement. I appeal to the Minister to use every tool he can to make sure we hold the British to account with regard to those agreements. I include using Ireland's position on the UN Security Council to ensure an investigation is held into this. The Irish Government must tell the British Government now that if it proceeds with an amnesty with regard to Irish people murdered by the British state, the Irish Government will launch a judicial review against the legislation on the basis it will likely contravene the European Convention on Human Rights, the Good Friday Agreement and the Stormont House Agreement.

If the Minister, Deputy Coveney, was to do that in very clear terms to the British, it would send a very strong message to them that if they proceed with a British amnesty, they will have a legal battle on their hands to achieve it. If the Irish Government does not do that, we in Aontú will do it. We will endeavour to do it through our members who have suffered violence from the British state over the years.

I also ask that the Government seek to create an all-Ireland commission of investigation that would share some of the characteristics of the Smithwick tribunal and would allow for witnesses to come from both sides of the Border to give evidence on what happened with British state collusion. I understand that because it is a different jurisdiction there would be problems with it and that it would not be 100% as effective as we would like to be, but I also believe that it would shed light on the hundreds of murders that were carried out by the British state in Ireland. I ask the Minister to seek the creation of that commission of investigation as soon as possible.

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