Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I thank Senator Norris for sharing his time.

I compliment Senators Brian Hayes and Mooney and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Dermot Ahern, on the work they have done on this case. It is important for the sake of the memory of these soldiers that we recognise what they went through. We are learning much about our past. Many people who lost family members this way have been forgotten. They have had to live with memories. Many families often had to cover it up. They were afraid to explain what had happened as it was a matter of shame, despite the fact these soldiers had done no wrong. They were not guilty of any crime and tried in the absence of due process without a prisoner's friend or military lawyer to put forward their cases.

Members will recall the pictorial record of the First World War from which one saw the trenches with the rats, the dirt, the bodies and body parts and the countryside wrecked. Years later walking through acre after acre of serried rows of white crosses on the French battlefields, it is difficult to think that these soldiers were not remembered there. In every French town there is a memorial to les garcons de ville lost in the Great War. Some form of memorial must be erected for the soldiers in question.

Last night when I watched the woman speaking of her father on the BBC, it hit me how close historically it was to us. She was speaking about her mother living into her 90s, fighting her husband's case that he was never a coward or a traitor. People were ordered at gunpoint out of the trenches to run without bullet-proof vests into machine gun fire. If there were people to be dragged before the courts, it was certainly not the victims.

A space must be found at one of our war memorials to give recognition to those shot at dawn. It was not just those from the British army who were written out of the history of the time but also RIC personnel. Those soldiers in the Great War did their best. Many were there as an escape from hunger at home or they were urged to enlist by John Redmond. They did what they thought was right. To call them cowards or traitors utterly wrongs their memories. To their families and their descendants we must reach out with a memorial to them. Under the authority of the Westminster Acts, do we have the power to pass legislation to grant pardons to these soldiers?