Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge what Deputy Ó Cuív has said. The Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement met with Mickey Culbert and his organisation in relation to the opportunities for prisoners for the future. Deputy Ó Cuív raises a very important point, which has been heard by the committee and which should be acknowledged in the House, as he has done.

I am very glad to have this opportunity to discuss this important and very difficult report. It shines more light onto this painful past for so many families in Northern Ireland, for survivors of violence, and for the families of those who have been lost to violence.

I would like to offer my condolences to the families of the victims named in this report, families who have acknowledged that they feel vindicated by the report after decades of campaigning for the truth to be published in this way. Of course, it has vindicated what they felt.

The most striking thing for me in the report is, as always, the story of the people and how painful it is in the case of Patrick McErlain, Daniel Cassidy, Bernard O'Hagan, Thomas Donaghy, Patrick Shanaghan, Eddie Fullerton and Gerald Casey that there have been no prosecutions to date. The stories that are told of them add to our analysis and the honesty we need about the past.

As the Minister, Deputy Coveney, said, whether we are discussing the victims of Bloody Sunday, Kingsmill, the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, Birmingham, Omagh, the Sean Graham bookmaker's attack, the Shankill Road, Pat Finucane or Edgar Graham, every family has been affected and has had a loss in an equal way. Every family deserves to be treated in an equal way. Nobody is above the law and every murder must be treated in the same way by the law.

How we address legacy is so important. We simply cannot move forward without addressing the past. We know that from this experience. As we know what it means to families, we continue to resist the outrageous British attempt to override the Stormont House Agreement with an effort to place a statute of limitations on the events of the past. It is directly contradictory to the core Stormont House principles of the dominance of the rule of law and reconciliation. The effort to wipe it under the carpet, as it were, instead of addressing it face on and directly in an open court is a difficult shade from the past.

I commend the Government and the all-party resistance to this. It is something that needs to be taken outside of Ireland, as has been said. The story of the retrenchment by the British Government in stepping back from the rule of law as a basic principle of a democracy and how democratic institutions can and should work has to be told internationally. As Ministers travel over the week of St. Patrick's Day, there will be subtle opportunities here and there to tell that story more broadly. The report identifies significant investigative intelligence failures, a range of collusive behaviours and an unjustifiable use of informants by the special branch. I have run out of time, but I want to say that this is report is important for all of the families and all of us. I am glad to have had the opportunity to contribute to this debate today.

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