Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

I again raise the issue of the need for the British Government to repeal and replace the legacy legislation. This deplorable legislation gives murderers and terrorists the opportunity to absolve themselves of the most heinous of crimes regardless of whether they worked for British state forces or for paramilitary organisations. We need to see progress in replacing that legislation. We are days away from the 51st anniversary of the Dublin-Monaghan bombings, an awful day when 34 people were killed on our island. We have seen a lack of co-operation from the British Government in responding to requests unanimously made by this Oireachtas on a number of occasions to give an eminent independent international legal person access to all papers and files pertaining to the Dublin-Monaghan bombings. We need progress on that.

We very much welcome the great progress that is being made with the shared island initiative and the very substantial level of investment. A few weeks ago, while attending the Cork-Cavan national league game, the Taoiseach will have seen the very fine facilities we have in Kingspan Breffni Park. He will also be aware of the plans we have for a regional sports complex. In that context, we should have a stream in respect of sports funding on an all-Ireland basis through the shared island fund. This could allow for sister complexes, North and South.

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