Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Ba mhaith liom ar an gcéad dul síos fíorfháilte a chur roimh na daoine agus na clanna go léir a fuair bás in the Monaghan and Dublin bombings. I want to welcome the families here and empathise with them. My welcome is not much good to them; they need justice. Unfortunately, they are not going to get it.

I compliment Sinn Féin on bringing forward the motion. It will probably be in the next Government and I hope when it is in government, it will have motions like this and will bring justice, because there is none. We inherited a system in the Free State from the British Government which left a lot to be desired. We kept so much of the old British system. During the time of the Troubles, there was the very same modus operandi, including cover-up and denial.

I was in second year in St. Joseph's College, Cahir, when about 50 of my fellow pupils and I were in Dublin on that fatal day on a school tour. It was a traumatic and frightening scene. We were very close to it and panic set in. People ran in different directions. We met poor unfortunate people who were seriously injured. We did not know what to do. I want to sympathise with everyone who lost their lives. It was a traumatic scene and there was huge carnage.

My wife of nearly 40 years was putting in the cows at home in Tedavnet, in County Monaghan, when she heard the explosion seven miles away in Monaghan town. That is how ferocious those blasts were. There were no mobile phones at the time. Our parents did not know what had happened until we got home to Cahir at nearly midnight, instead of being home at 7 p.m. or whatever. We can imagine the angst, loss, trauma and devastation of the families involved.

Last Sunday morning, I heard on the radio an account of a woman pushing her two children in a pram, who was injured. She ran to a house and then collapsed in the yard, where neighbours and others helped her. Bombings and things like that - we know what happened in Northern Ireland - are not simple. The worst part is the collusion, lack of investigation and the failure of as many Ministers for Justice as the number of victims since the bombings. The same system goes on and continues to perpetrate the cover-up, which is worse. There was no effort whatsoever. I am sure the gang concerned was involved in other incidents.

Last week, I met Stephen Travers, a survivor from Tipperary who was in the Miami Showband. Those murders did not happen in our jurisdiction. I know plenty about the Omagh bomb and the man who took the bomb. That could have been stopped and all of those lives could have been saved. I met him numerous times. I will not say anything else because I do not want to identify the man concerned. He is dead now. That was collusion North and South, which could have been avoided.

There was no investigation into the Whiddy Island disaster. There was a cover-up. I am not in any way making little of the plight of the families of those affected by the Dublin and Monaghan bombings and the fight for justice.

Fr. Niall Molloy was murdered at a wedding in Offaly. He had connections in Tipperary. John O'Brien and Patrick Esmonde were killed off the coast at Helvick Head about 13 years ago. Fighting for justice for them is a waste of time. They were killed. Their deaths were not accidental but there was a cover up. I have been hugely involved in that case but to no avail. Shane O'Farrell from Monaghan is another case. His mother has been in here for debates and Sinn Féin tabled motions on it. Again, what happened there was a disgrace. The man who killed him was involved in criminal activities and had been stopped at a checkpoint an hour beforehand. There was a cover-up there. He was wanted in two jurisdictions. The cover-up continues. There was also Aidan McAnespie. I did not know him but my family knew him well. He was shot by British soldiers. They go on and there are many more, up and down the country, and they are still happening. Grievous and serious wrongs are being perpetrated and there are cover-ups. There is not a shred of wanting to have a fair, decent, and respectful Ireland that the men of 1916, 1921, 1922 and 1923 fought for. It is not there because we inherited that old system, but by God did we make it better and make it better for the system. To hell with na daoine na tíre, to hell with the people of Ireland. We had a young man killed in a Garda station in Clonmel, Brian Rossiter, almost 25 years ago. Fight for justice? You cannot fight the city hall or the system. The system crawls in around you and it stops justice being served.

I compliment Sinn Féin on its motion and I am glad the Government has not rejected it but this is no good. Sinn Féin may be in government in less than a year and we will see then if we get justice. Whoever is Minister for Justice will be called in and told "You can't touch this. You can't touch that. You can't look at this. This is closed.". This is what is going on, in the name of our democracy, in 2024. I wonder why men sacrificed themselves for our freedom because we do not have it. We do not have it, unfortunately. We have the name of democracy, freedom and justice but we will see, within a week, across the river - trasna na habhann - in the other institution, that justice is not being served. It is being delayed, denied, and restricted for ordinary people and ordinary families. The families here tonight want justice. We saw how long it took the Stardust victims. We saw what happened here two or three weeks ago, on their awful anniversary. I was in Dublin that night also. I was hardly in Dublin ten times in my life before I got married but I just happened to be in Dublin both times. It is just so sad that in a democracy, so-called, that we cannot have the truth. The fact is that there is ample evidence there. The authorities knew who did it but files got lost or were destroyed. That is happening to this day. Files are being lost or destroyed. It happened with the Geoghegan family in Limerick when they had serious issues with a plant there and were very sick but their blood samples got lost. It is happening today, as we speak. There is cover-up after cover-up. I did not think I would be saying this, having spent 17 years in this House. We have the name of being a democracy. We hear of countries that are not democracies and of what goes on there. We have the name of a democracy but what goes on here is nearly worse than what goes on in some of those juntas. That is a sad thing for me to say but I say it honestly, from my heart. I have only mentioned a fraction of the cases. The Government comes across them, deals with them but just passes them on because nobody wants to know.

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