Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I also welcome the families and Justice for the Forgotten to the Dáil this evening. We need to shine a bright light on these dark and dirty days on our island. They were days when the dogs in the street knew the collusion between the British state forces and loyalist paramilitaries. They were days when that reality, through which some lived and often died, would not be spoken of in here, in particular by those who brandished a very large political brush and a very large political carpet. Some 50 years on, that carpet is shrunk and threadbare. There is no more brushing, no more airbrushing. Every file and every document must be released, with no ifs or buts. Now, 50 years on from the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, the need-to-know basis is that everything must be known and everybody has a right to know it, especially the families themselves. It would be a grave disservice to the families if we were to subject them to a superficial treatment of their loss; if we were to continue to subject them to fake emoting and professional empathy while, at the same time, continuing to turn a political blind eye to the perpetrators, the colluders, and those who knew or suspected and said nothing or did nothing. Even now, I sense a political rush to divert, supposedly to the pain of the families, instead of turning laser political and police attention to exposing the cause of that pain. Because they live that pain, they want the truth. The Government should give it to them.

I listened to the Tánaiste's speech. He has "raised". He has "written" to the British Government. He has "been frank" with the British Government. He is "pressing" the British Government. However, in 50 years this State has never conducted a public grilling of any key British political or security figure. They have been green-roomed and red-carpeted. Successive Irish Governments could do with a public grilling too.

On the evening of the bombings, I was a child waiting for my father to come home. I remember he was on duty in Dublin that day. He did come home, but for all those who did not, we should bring them truth and justice and bring it home to them now.

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