Mary White (Fianna Fail)

This debate deals with a matter of great national importance. It is about a series of atrocities perpetrated on innocent people in our country, including the bombings of 1974 in Dublin and Monaghan, which resulted in the greatest loss of life on a single day during the Troubles, when 33 people were killed. I remember hearing one of the bombs going off in Nassau Street as I worked in the National Building Agency at the time.

Today's debate is about justice for victims and about how victims and survivors were, and are, treated. We know more today about the circumstances in which the attacks on Dublin and Monaghan were carried out, the investigations of these crimes and where those investigations failed. We must recall that when we revisited this issue in 2000, we were shocked to realise the limited time that had been given to the investigation of the bombings. We were embarrassed, as a nation. Senator Jim Walsh, as a member of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Equality and Women's Rights, played a key role at the Barron hearings, which I had the honour of attending as an observer. The most difficult issue was the fact that it took 25 years to reopen the investigation, as the files on the atrocities were closed in August 1974. That fact will never leave us.

Thanks to the work of the committee, the testimonies and experience of victims and their families have been heard publicly and in an appropriate way. We saw the emotion, pain and anguish of the survivors and the families of those who had been killed. It was a searing experience. It is difficult to imagine how it must have felt for them, to have to wait 25 years for a real investigation to take place. The Taoiseach made an apology in the Dáil on behalf of the Government for the premature closing of the investigation.

The issue of collusion between the security forces and paramilitaries in perpetrating these attacks always has been a central, unanswered question. Sadly, that remains true to this day. Our Government, led by the Taoiseach, has consistently called on the British Government to meet its responsibilities, to co-operate with inquiries in this State and to help the process of discovering the truth about what happened. In the past month, the Taoiseach reiterated his call on the British Government to be up-front and fully participate in these investigations. In the Dáil on 30 January 2008 the Taoiseach stated:

The willingness of the British authorities to co-operate with the various inquiries has been tested and in many cases found wanting. We tried to address these issues by establishing inquiries into certain important and representative cases in discussions with the British Government at Weston Park in July 2001.

At Weston Park, the Taoiseach tried valiantly to persuade the British Government to fully co-operate. For our part, under the former Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, former Deputy Michael McDowell, an investigation into the deaths of Superintendents Harry Breen and Bob Buchanan was set up and is now proceeding under Judge Peter Smithwick. While inquiries are under way in the cases of Mr. Robert Hamill, Ms Rosemary Nelson, whom I knew personally through my activities as an observer on the Garvaghy Road, and Mr. Billy Wright, an inquiry into the death of Mr. Pat Finucane has not been established by the British Government. The Taoiseach has made it clear that he wants an independent inquiry to be held, as recommended by Judge Peter Cory.

We have reached a profoundly positive new stage in the peace process in Northern Ireland. Relationships between unionism and nationalism, between North and South and between east and west have never been better. What drives us all now is the determination that never again shall our people experience and bear witness to a terrible conflict. The work of reconciliation must continue and the victims and survivors must be as much a part of the future as they are of the past.