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

I thank the Taoiseach for his reply. The last time we discussed Northern Ireland here, I referred to the his attendance and participation at the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly plenary meeting in Wicklow. One of the issues that I raised, which I said was a message from British members, was that they wanted more senior members of the British Government to participate in the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference and the British-Irish Council. The Taoiseach mentioned in some of his weekend interviews that he looks forward to more regular meetings at a bilateral level with the British Prime Minister and similarly with ministers at a bilateral level too, in view of the fact that we do not have the prevalence and frequency of meetings that existed in the past when Britain was a member of the European Union. As I said earlier, that was a message from members of both the Conservative Party and British Labour Party at the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly over the years. We sincerely hope there will be that opportunity with the new government. Some members of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly have been appointed to government in Britain and I wish them well.

One issue that we have to keep on the agenda is the need to repeal the legacy legislation. In implementing the potential of the Good Friday Agreement, we have to have legacy issues dealt with. In dealing with legacy issues, the policy must be victim centred. The legacy Bill as enacted by the British Parliament and put into law is actually perpetrator centred. It gives amnesty to murderers from the British state forces and from the paramilitary organisations. We need progress in investigations into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, the Belturbet bombing, and many other atrocities which were carried out. We have never established the truth of who carried out those heinous crimes.

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