Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Cathaoirleach for the opportunity to speak on this motion on the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. I would like to welcome the survivors, relatives and the Justice for the Forgotten campaigners to the House today. I fully support this motion which calls on the Government to urgently address the matter of the Dublin-Monaghan bombings directly with the British Government in order to actively pursue the implementation of the 2008, 2011 and 2016 all-party motions to seek out information regarding these tragic events. I thank Sinn Féin for tabling this motion.

As has been mentioned, the 50th anniversary of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings will take place this Friday. The fact that the victims and their families still do not have a full picture of what happened that day is a disgrace. Over the years Irish Governments have been very quick to point out failures by the British Government to investigate such instances, while simultaneously failing to acknowledge its own appalling failures.

The Irish Government failed the victims of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings and their families 50 years ago and successive governments have continued to do so ever since.

Stories from victims of the atrocity and their families all seem to have one thing in common, namely, that nobody was given any information about what happened or communicated with in any way. Most were left in the dark with no answers and many were forced to deal with the trauma of the day without any support or information. Shockingly, not one survivor or bereaved family member was interviewed by the Garda in Dublin or Monaghan after the atrocity or to date. Jon Boutcher, who initially headed up Operation Denton, was the first policeman to knock on people's doors as part of his investigation, and that was four decades after the bombings. The Garda completely failed to properly or thoroughly investigate the bombings. Gardaí closed their investigations after just ten weeks and did not pursue anything further. That must have been devastating for the victims and their families.

There are some discrepancies as to when Garda files and forensic evidence were sent to police in the North. Those files subsequently went missing. It is clear there was little to no co-operation between the police forces North and South. There have been many examples of incompetence and failure to act by both forces following the bombings. In one instance, a Garda forensic technical expert was sent material to test by the Garda but was not made aware that it had been kept in the North of Ireland for 25 years. It would have made sense for the forensics team in Dublin to work with its counterparts in Belfast. An explanation for why this was not the case has not been provided.

The investigative material presented to the McEntee inquiry was requested by the families' legal team. It has been blocked by the Commissions of Investigation Act 2004. The family members and their legal teams have been prevented from seeing this material for 50 years. There have been 29 Ministers for Justice since the atrocity. None of them has been willing to release Garda files to the families' legal teams. It has been reported that two Ministers told the families to "go and find your information and if you find something come back to us". That is a disgraceful way to treat families who have lost loved ones or whose loved ones were severely impacted by the bombings. To suggest it is the responsibility of families to seek out and gather information is unreasonably cruel. It has caused a lot of pain and disenfranchisement with the system. Families are already having to deal, without support, with the devastating consequences of this devastating tragedy. The very least the Government could have done was ensure they had access to all available information.

It is now time for the Government to put an end to this cover-up and act decisively. The soft approach we have been taking with the British Government has not worked. We need to put as much pressure as possible on it to co-operate. The Government also needs to stop pointing fingers and start taking accountability. This State, too, has played a role in this cover-up and in the hurt and pain caused to victims of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, and their loved ones, over the past five decades. If needs be, an inquiry should be held without Britain. It would not give us the full picture but it would at least get us some of the way there. We should be doing everything in our power to give the families of the victims of this atrocity the answers and justice they deserve.

The citizens of this island have been forced to endure secrecy, suffering and cover-ups at the hands of the British Government for decades. We have to ask what role, if any, Irish Governments have played in the inaction over the years. Surely there must be some responsibility on us in the South as well. We have allowed the Brits to get away with what happened and what has continued to happen. If we do not do everything in our power to uncover the truth, we are no better than them. If we do not seek out truth and justice, we will be doomed to repeat the mistakes of our former colonisers and the current situation will continue into the future.

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