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

I am sharing time with Deputy Barry. Liz Truss said recently: "We will not rest until those responsible for atrocities, including military commanders and individuals... have faced justice." I deliberately left out four words, namely, "in the Putin regime". What type of hypocrisy is this coming from the mouth of the British Government? The Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill does the opposite of Ms Truss's declaration in respect of her Government's legacy in Northern Ireland.

The Relatives for Justice group has reacted very strongly to what has happened, and correctly so. Those with the memory and pain of decades of fighting for justice and truth, on both sides, are hugely insulted and will continue to campaign. Relatives for Justice stated:

We need to remember this is the very same Tory Government that fought families in courts to prevent disclosure and discovery of information, including locking down files for a hundred years in some cases. And now they are locking down the courts and have the audacity to tell victims the process they propose will deliver and is in society's best interests. The only interests served are those of the British establishment.

The Tories are speaking to their base with this Bill, at the expense of all the people impacted by the legacy of the so-called Troubles. Much of that legacy lies at the door of British imperialist policies that covered up and facilitated extreme sectarian murders and collusion, whether directly through regiments of the British army, such as the Parachute Regiment, or through its own creation, the Ulster Defence Regiment, UDR, which was most recently exposed by research, entirely compiled from official British Government records, carried out by the Pat Finucane Centre. I am proud to say that my nephew, Micheál Smith, is the author of UDR: Declassified. He clearly illustrates that the legacy he reveals in the book is not his opinion but is reflective of facts from the horse's mouth, based on the files the British Government has released. We should not tolerate hypocrisy of this nature from that government. Instead, we must support the families in continuing to seek truth and justice for all who have been impacted so cruelly by the legacy issues.

It was correctly named last week, on an RTÉ programme I was on, by a representative of the Northern Ireland haulier's association who said the protocol was a logistics issue, not a political issue. However, it has been cynically used - these are my words, not his - by the DUP and the Tories to whip up a constitutional crisis that they hope will mask the crisis in unionism. Democratic unionists who opposed the protocol because it makes trade in goods easier with the Republic of Ireland than with the rest of the UK claim it has raised retail prices by 27%. This is not backed by any publicly available data. Findings from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research pour cold water on the Tory and DUP claims that the protocol requirement for EU checks on British goods arriving in Northern Ireland has undermined business opportunities. The opposite is in fact the case. From the same source, the post-Brexit trade protocol is helping, not hurting, growth and profitability in Northern Ireland because of its advantages for access to the EU markets.

It is fascinating to see how the DUP proposes no border in the Irish Sea for trading in goods, but that is exactly what it wants in reaction to women's rights and abortion in its recent statements. It wants a border in the Irish Sea for women accessing reproductive rights but not for goods trading. We should not pander to this bigotry. Once again, the DUP and the Tories are using the protocol to introduce a Thatcherite nightmare of unbridled free trade. The reality is the DUP is in severe crisis and is using the protocol to block the formation of a Stormont government and ignore the democratic outcomes of the recent Northern Ireland elections. It has failed to achieve an outcome that would suit it, rather than the outcome that the people of Northern Ireland completely democratically voted for. There is a great irony in the DUP's title. It is the so-called democratic unionist party that is doing everything to block democracy.

Trade and business statistics may be a bit healthier north of the Border, according to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, but - this is a big but - the lives of ordinary workers and families have deteriorated, as they have south of the Border and, indeed, across the water. There have been crushing price hikes in energy, food and transport and a considerable deterioration in wages, incomes and public services. The cost-of-living crisis affects both north and south of the Border and throughout these islands.

On 18 June, an action is being supported and promoted by the Trades Union Congress, TUC, throughout Britain. We are building for a similar action here in the Republic to get the response of ordinary people to demand that what is needed is done and that the governments on these islands, crucially, do much more to alleviate the hardship on workers and families. It is not just to make the political establishment account for itself in terms of that economic hardship. It will also help to undermine the dinosaurs of the DUP and the Tory Party who dominate the political establishment. I urge everybody to put their shoulder to the wheel and get involved in that action.

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