Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our visitors to the Public Gallery. I commend the work of Justice for the Forgotten. On many occasions, I have attended events associated with anniversaries of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. I am always struck by the great grace and dignity of the families as they remember their lost loved ones and continue their campaign for truth and justice. I fully appreciate that the process of trying to get justice for the families of the bereaved has been absolutely frustrating, painful and, indeed, totally unacceptable.

There were many dark days on this island during the era commonly referred to as the Troubles. The darkest of all was 17 May 1974, with the murder of 34 innocent people in Monaghan and Dublin and injuries caused to more than 300 people. Those atrocities resulted in the highest number of casualties on any one day during that very difficult time. The UVF, a loyalist paramilitary group, claimed responsibility for them, but there are clearly credible allegations that elements of the British security forces colluded with the UVF in the bombings. By passing this motion, we, as a sovereign Parliament, are again sending a clear message to our counterparts in Westminster and to the British Government. We are also showing strong and enduring cross-party support for the victims and survivors in their quest for truth and justice.

It is totally unacceptable that the British Government continues to ignore the requests of successive Irish Governments and the unanimous motions passed by this House in 2008, 2011 and 2016. The Barron and McEntee reports referred to their work being limited by a lack of access to original intelligence and security documents in the possession of the British Government. There cannot be any justification, after the passing of five decades, for the British Government denying access to all files and papers pertaining to those atrocities to an eminent, independent, international judicial figure. Obtaining that access was a core request in the motions passed unanimously in this House. A number of us in the Dáil have raised with British Ministers at the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly the need for the British Government to respond. We did so again as recently as last week when members of the Oireachtas Good Friday Agreement committee met with members of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee of the House of Commons.

Unfortunately, there have been many instances in which nobody has been brought to justice for horrific crimes. I think of the bombing in Belturbet, in my home area, which resulted in the deaths of two teenagers, Geraldine O'Reilly and Patrick Stanley. That bomb was brought across the Border from Fermanagh in another act of collusion. We should always remind ourselves of the important work of Anne Cadwallader in her publication, Lethal Allies: British Collusion in Ireland, and the work of Professor Edward Burke in his time at the University of Nottingham.

The British Government's recent legacy Act is absolutely reprehensible. It is a charter for murderers, whether they were members of the British state forces or members of paramilitary organisations, to absolve themselves of the most heinous of crimes. The Bill says clearly to families that they should forget their dignified campaigns and the information that has accrued form that work. It is a shameful message and one that should not come from a government in a parliamentary democracy.

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