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

I thank the Tánaiste for his reply and recognise that he has been raising these issues for some time. As well as the Dublin and Monaghan bombings and other atrocities, I appreciate that he raised with the former British Prime Minister the bombing of Belturbet in December 1972. I assume that the Tánaiste will meet at an early date the new secretary of state and the new Foreign Secretary after the British general election on 4 July. I ask the Tánaiste to ensure that this particular issue and the whole legacy issue are on the agenda for those meetings. Thankfully, the UK Labour Party has given a clear indication that it will repeal the legacy legislation. That is all relevant to the question before us as well.

I am particularly anxious that the British Government can no longer try to use the excuse "for national security interests" in not providing access to an independent person to all files and papers pertaining to the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. It is long beyond time the British Government recognised the requests of successive Irish governments and the requests of a sovereign Parliament, our Oireachtas, to give access to those papers to an independent, eminent legal person.

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